Chapter 2 - The Man in the Reflection
"That's impossible," Adrian said.
Sofia watched him carefully. "You told me you were in Philadelphia that night."
"I was." He reached for the phone. Elena pulled it away.
"I thought she'd confess when she saw this. Now I wonder which one of you is lying."
June began crying. Sofia carried her into the breakfast alcove and sat down, shaking. Adrian followed with a clean towel and a glass of water.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For which part? Not believing me, or leaving me alone with your mother?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it. That was new. Adrian usually had an answer for everything.
"The reflection could be anyone," he said finally.
"Anyone wearing your college ring?"
His eyes flicked back toward the kitchen.
Sofia remembered why she had entered the study. At two in the morning, she had heard June's baby monitor crackle, then a woman's whisper: Don't let him sign it. The sound wasn't coming from the nursery. It was coming through the monitor's second receiver, which Elena kept on her desk.
Sofia had walked downstairs, found the study door unlocked, and seen an open folder bearing the name of her late father, Mateo Reyes.
She had never told Adrian. Her father had died when she was sixteen, and his name had no business being in the Whitmore house.
Elena appeared at the alcove doorway. "I want her out before morning."
"She isn't going anywhere," Adrian said.
"Then your access to the family accounts ends tonight."
"Fine."
Elena's jaw tightened. She had expected him to bargain.
When she left, Adrian sat beside Sofia and tried to take her hand. Sofia moved it away.
"Tell me about the study," he said.
She told him about the monitor, the folder, and her father's name.
Adrian went unnaturally still. "You're sure it said Mateo Reyes?"
"Why?"
In the nursery Adrian noticed the changing table was missing the diapers Sofia had stacked there that morning. His mother had moved them to a locked linen closet because, according to the house manager, she wanted to teach Sofia not to waste supplies. He fetched the spare package from his car and placed it beside the bassinet. Sofia watched his hands. He was a competent man in every office he entered. At home, he had never noticed that his wife had been asking permission for things that should never have required it.
May you like
He looked toward the dark hall. "Because a man named Mateo Reyes saved my life when I was seventeen."
THE LAST CANDLE
