Chapter 2 - BEHIND THE MARBLE COLUMN|
Before I could answer, a tiny, fractured voice drifted down the long hardwood corridor from the library.
"Please... can I just go to bed?"
It was Rosie. She was five years old, and her voice sounded so small it shattered the silence like breaking glass.
Naomi caught my elbow, tugging me quietly down the hall. She pushed me behind a thick structural column draped in velvet curtains, just outside the double mahogany doors of the library.
I peeked around the edge, my breath catching in my throat.
Rosie stood barefoot on the Persian rug, tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on her small cheeks. Beside her stood my eight-year-old son, Jack. He was standing rigidly, his chin tucked into his chest, his hands pinned behind his back like a prisoner awaiting execution.
Camille stood over them. She was wearing a silk robe, her blonde hair perfectly styled, looking every bit the sophisticated socialite the press adored. In her manicured hand, she held a faded blue stuffed rabbit—the bunny Isabella had hand-stitched for Rosie before she died in the hospital.
"What do you say when you make this household difficult, Rosie?" Camille asked, her tone sweet, measured, and sickeningly calm.
Rosie swallowed hard, a sob catching in her throat. "I... I make everything hard."
"Again," Camille instructed, tapping the rabbit against her knee.
"I make everything hard," Rosie whimpered.
Camille turned her dark eyes toward Jack. "Tell me the sentence, Jack. The one we practiced."
Jack’s jaw clenched. He looked at his little sister, then at the floor. "If Dad sees weakness," my son whispered in a hollow, lifeless voice, "he sends it away."
A roaring fire erupted behind my eyes. The force of my rage made my fist slam into the plaster column beside me with a dull thud.
Naomi instantly grabbed my wrist, digging her nails into my skin. "Wait," she hissed under her breath. "Do not go in there."
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She pulled out her smartphone and shoved the bright screen inches from my face.
"Watch," she whispered.
