house is dark. No music. No dancing. No tuneless singing.
The kitchen is empty. The outer kitchen, too. Then I remember we’re going out for dinner. Everyone has the night off.
Except for security, but I won’t go there yet.
Because that would be admitting something is wrong, and I refuse to let my mind run with such thoughts.
‘Rose?’ I take the stairs two at a time, my heart lodged in my throat when I realise it’s dark up here, too. Our bedroom door rebounds from the wall as I open it. The bed is made, clothes scattered across it. Her clothes.
Underwear. Shoes discarded on the floor. Cosmetics lying spilled.
I move to her dressing area to find coat hangers empty. Clothes lying dropped on the floor.
‘Merde.’ I turn and swipe my hand through my hair. Pull at the ends. My reflection in her mirror shocked yet not at all. Didn’t I deserve this? ‘Fuck! Fuck it all.’
I seem to take the staircase in one leap as I drag my phone from my pocket and dial her number.
‘Pick up. Come on, pick up!’ It cuts out. I dial again, this time the automated message informing me that the subscriber is unavailable.
I send her a text—more than one—panic invading my chest until it aches.
Where are you?
Please call.
Talk to me, Rose.
I check the rooms once more as I make my way to the office she doesn’t use.
The desk lamp is on, the low light illuminating a mess of paperwork.
Photographs.
Documents.
Things she would never have seen if it were up to me.
I step closer, my heart filling with cement because what I’m looking at is betrayal.
My betrayal of her.
My phone is still in my hand. I hit call.
‘Rhett. She’s gone.’
‘Who has?’
‘Rose has left. I don’t know how, but she’s seen everything.’
‘How the fuck can that be? You haven’t even looked at everything.’
I didn’t want to. Like a child, if I’d closed my eyes, I wouldn’t be party to it all.
‘I’m looking at it all now.’ All of it as I begin to sift the things I know and the things I’m now learning about.
‘I’m on my way.’
The phone cuts out.
49
Rose
My head aches and my limbs feel like they don’t belong to me, my feet numb yet tingling.
‘Remy?’ I push myself up to sit, the sensation under my palm as hard as stone.
‘Good. You’re awake.’ A figure swims in and out of focus in the gloom. ‘I worried for a moment that I might’ve given you too much.’
‘Ben? Is that you?’ He steps away from the corner, his arms folded across his chest, his expression grim. I feel like I should be wary. Like something important has happened, but I can’t think what.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I’ve had the flu.’
That’s benzodiazepine for you. It can take you to heaven or make you feel like hell.’
‘Benzo . . .’ I can barely wrap my mouth around the word.
‘Easier just to say roofied.’
Oh my God. ‘By who?’ But even as I’m asking, my mind is whispering the answer.
Sinister.
‘I’d like to tell you it’ll all come back to you, but it doesn’t usually.’ His voice is even, like we’re talking about the weather or the soccer results, as he pulls out a chair from the darkness. Darkness, yes. We’re in a room. Windowless. But the air is cool. There’s a lamp plugged into the corner on my right, and though the light spilling from it is poor, it still hurts to look.
‘That happens sometimes, too,’ he says crossing over to the lamp and tilting the shade to make less glare. ‘Sensitivity to light, headaches, a lack of memory. It sounds like you got all the unfun stuff from your trip.’
‘Why did you do this to me?’
‘Quite simply because I need you incapacitated for a little while.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll tell you, but you need to understand first that if I do, there’s no chance of me letting you go. There will be too much at stake. So, the choice is yours, Rose. Do you want to know all? Know everything?’
‘No,’ I answer immediately. ‘Don’t tell me. I don’t want to stay here. Let me go, Ben, and I promise—I promise you on my life—I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’ Images begin to swim through my head. The girl in the blond wig. An old photograph.
‘Do you promise you’ll leave? You’ll go far, far away and never come back to Monaco?’ His words are earnest, his expression as solemn as any I’ve ever seen.
‘I promise—I’ll go. I’ll leave.’ I’m not entirely sure why I need