The Woman They Tried To Kill

CHAPTER 2 - THE MAN WHO WASN'T DEAD

No one moved for several seconds.

Charles Harrow stood beneath the brass wall lamp at the end of the upstairs corridor, one hand resting on his cane, the other on the cream paneling as if the effort of standing there cost him something. He was thinner than Eliza remembered from childhood. Older. Gray at the temples. Very much alive.

Vivian found her voice first. "This is impossible."

"It may be inconvenient," Charles said, "but it is not impossible."

Nathan carried Eliza to the green drawing room just off the foyer and set her carefully on the long sofa. Marta brought a blanket, though the house was warm. Eliza clutched it to her chest with shaking hands. Her left wrist was reddening. Finger marks. Someone had grabbed her.

Nathan crouched beside her. "Did you see who it was?"

She closed her eyes. The memory came in pieces. Dinner music from the next room. The crystal chandelier reflected in the marble. A voice behind her. A sharp pull. Then empty air.

"I heard someone say my name," she whispered. "I turned. Then I felt a hand."

"Whose voice?" Nathan asked.

Before she could answer, Vivian stepped in. "This has gone far enough. Eliza has had a shock. She shouldn't be questioned."

Nathan rose slowly. "Funny. You weren't worried about her comfort a minute ago."

The room tightened around those words. Vivian looked away first.

Charles entered last, leaning on his cane. Eliza stared at him as though she could force him back into the grave where memory had placed him. "Why are you here?"

His face softened. "Because your mother asked me to stay away. And because I was a coward long enough."

Eliza's breath caught. Her mother had died believing Charles abandoned them.

Nathan looked from one to the other. "You knew him?"

Charles answered before Vivian could. "I know all of you. Better than you think."

Then he reached into his coat and placed a sealed envelope on the table.

"Your mother wrote this the week before she died," he said to Eliza. "She wanted you to read it if anything ever happened in this house."

On the front, in her mother's unmistakable handwriting, were four words:

Don't trust Vivian Ashcroft.

"I saw a hand."