Chapter 7: What Rosa Didn't Expect Anyone to Say
The detective took Eleanor's formal statement in the study with the door closed.
Rosa sat with Daniel in the kitchen.
He had his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee he hadn't touched.
She refilled it once without asking.
He didn't seem to notice.
"She really thought she could talk her way out of it," he said finally.
"She's talked her way out of things before."
He looked up.
"How long have you known she didn't like Grace?"
Rosa considered the question carefully.
"Since before the wedding."
"And you didn't say anything."
"It wasn't my place."
"Rosa." He said her name with a kind of tiredness that had nothing to do with the hour.
"You've worked for this family for nine years.
You've worked for me for three.
When is it your place?"
She didn't have a clean answer for that.
She gave him the honest one instead.
"I didn't think she'd go this far.
I thought it was cruelty.
I didn't think it was—" She stopped.
"Didn't think it was what?"
"Planned."
He nodded slowly, like she'd confirmed something he'd been sitting with all morning.
"The wire cutters were in the garden shed," he said.
"Marsh found them an hour ago.
There's residue on the blade that matches the cable." He looked at the table.
"She put them back.
After.
She put them back in the shed with the other tools."
Rosa thought about that.
About Eleanor walking back across the terrace in the early morning quiet, tools in hand, returning them to their proper place, going inside to have her breakfast.
"She was going to let it look like an accident," Rosa said.
"Yes."
"And if Grace had fallen—"
"Yes." He said it before she could finish.
He didn't want her to finish.
The study door opened.
Detective Marsh came out first, followed by Eleanor and Eleanor's attorney, who had arrived forty minutes ago and had been speaking in low urgent tones with his client ever since.
Eleanor walked through the kitchen without looking at Daniel or Rosa.
Her attorney put a hand briefly on her arm and murmured something.
She shook it off.
At the kitchen doorway she stopped.
She turned around.
Rosa expected her to look at Daniel.
Instead she looked at Rosa.
"You should know," Eleanor said, "that I never disliked you personally."
Rosa waited.
"You were always very good at your job.
Efficient.
Discreet." A pause.
"I assumed you'd be discreet about this too."
The silence in the kitchen stretched out.
"She was hanging over that pool," Rosa said.
"She asked me not to let go.
I didn't let go.
That's all I was."
Eleanor held her gaze for one more moment.
Then she walked out.
The front door opened.
Closed.
Daniel put his face in his hands.
Rosa stayed where she was.
After a moment she got up, found a clean mug, poured coffee into it, and set it in front of him alongside the one that had gone cold.
"Drink one of them," she said.
He made a sound that was almost a laugh.
He picked up the fresh one.
"Grace is being discharged this afternoon," he said.
"I'm going to pick her up at two."
"I'll have the house ready."
"Rosa." He looked up.
"Thank you.
For yesterday.
For this morning.
For—" He stopped.
Started again.
"She would have told me you were making it up.
If you hadn't held onto that cable end.
If you hadn't kept it exactly where it was.
She would have said you misremembered, or exaggerated, or—"
"I know," Rosa said.
"That's why I didn't touch it."
He looked at her for a long moment.
"Nine years," he said quietly.
"I should have said it before now.
Thank you for being in this house."
Rosa picked up her own coffee.
Outside, through the kitchen window, the terrace was bright and still in the morning sun.
The pool reflected the sky.
Somewhere in the garden a bird was making an ordinary sound.
"She'll fight the charges," Rosa said.
"Her attorney will find angles."
"Probably."
"Are you ready for that?"
Daniel looked out the window at the same terrace.
"Grace is alive," he said.
"The babies are fine.
May you like
Whatever comes next — yes.
I'm ready."
