Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Buried Him
“Silas?”
He had spent three years imagining how his name would sound when she finally said it again.
He had never imagined she would sound afraid of it.
“Yes,” he whispered. “It’s me.”
Mallory pressed herself against the wall. Her eyes searched his face with desperate concentration, as though one wrong detail might turn him into someone else.
“The summer house,” she said suddenly.
He stayed still.
“What about it?”
“What did you bury behind the porch?”
Silas felt something break open beneath his ribs.
“A silver watch.”
“Why?”
“You said I checked it every time you kissed me.”
“And what did you say?”
“That I was measuring how long it took you to ruin my judgment.”
Her hand rose toward him.
Stopped.
Trembled.
Silas waited until she touched the scar beside his temple.
“You’re warm.”
“Yes.”
“You’re really warm.”
“I’m here.”
A sound escaped her that was too broken to be called a sob.
Then a door slammed farther down the service corridor.
Mallory’s fingers vanished from his face.
“Go.”
“Mallory—”
“Before he sees you.”
“Walter Dain?”
She shook her head so violently that Silas stopped speaking.
Footsteps approached.
A man in a gray security jacket rounded the corner and halted.
His gaze moved from Silas’s tuxedo to Mallory on the floor.
“This area is restricted.”
Silas stood slowly.
“My wife is leaving with me.”
The guard’s expression changed.
“That woman is an employee.”
Mallory’s breathing turned shallow again.
In Silas’s ear, Jonah spoke.
“Police are approaching the service entrance. Don’t give them a reason to misunderstand what they find.”
Silas looked at the guard.
“Then her employment has ended.”
The man reached toward the radio on his shoulder.
Mallory flinched before he touched it.
Silas noticed.
So did the woman who had appeared behind a laundry cart.
She was perhaps sixty, with silver hair pinned beneath a disposable cap.
“Her name is Mallory Keene,” the woman said.
The guard turned.
“Agnes. Get back to work.”
“No.”
The single word seemed to surprise Agnes herself.
Silas kept his body between the guard and Mallory.
“Can you stand?” he asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s all right.”
He held out one hand.
This time, she took it.
Her fingers were cold and startlingly light.
The guard moved to block the corridor.
Then Jonah appeared behind him, accompanied by two uniformed officers and a woman wearing a dark coat over evening clothes.
“Detective Ward,” the woman said, displaying identification. “Everyone stays where they are.”
Walter Dain arrived seconds later.
His ballroom smile had disappeared.
“There seems to be some confusion.”
Detective Ward looked at Mallory’s bare wrists, the cleaning supplies, the locked door behind the laundry room.
“Then you can help clear it up.”
“She’s under psychiatric supervision.”
“Whose?”
Dain hesitated.
“She has a history of delusions.”
Mallory’s hand tightened around Silas’s.
He wanted to break every polished thing in the building.
Instead, he said, “Her name is Mallory Anne Keene. She was reported missing in Chicago three years ago. My investigator contacted you before we entered the property.”
Ward nodded.
“We have that report.”
Dain looked toward the guard.
It was a small movement.
Ward saw it.
“Separate them,” she told the officers.
An ambulance waited outside the service entrance.
Mallory stopped at the open doors.
“Where are you taking me?”
“A hospital,” the paramedic said.
“No locked room.”
“We’ll explain every step.”
She looked at Silas.
“Will you come?”
“If you want me.”
She nodded.
Only after the doors closed did she begin to shake.
Silas sat across from her, close enough to reach, far enough to leave her space.
“Who told you I died?” he asked quietly.
Mallory stared at the blanket covering her knees.
“They showed me the church.”
He waited.
“The flowers. Your photograph. A coffin.”
Her eyes lifted.
“Gideon cried.”
Silas went still.
His younger brother had cried at every anniversary vigil.
Had stood beside him at every appeal.
Had promised, again and again, that they would bring Mallory home.
On Silas’s phone, a message appeared.
GIDEON: Heard you’re in Newport. Everything all right?
Mallory saw the name.
May you like
Her whole body recoiled.
“Don’t tell him,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t tell your brother you found me.”
