Chapter 6: Marlowe House
Eleanor drove.
She was a better driver than I expected — precise, unhurried, hands steady on the wheel.
We didn't talk much for the first forty minutes.
The silence wasn't uncomfortable.
It was the silence of two people who both had too much to say and were saving it.
"What was she like?" I asked finally.
"Catherine."
Eleanor kept her eyes on the road.
"She laughed too loudly in restaurants.
She argued with waiters about wine.
She read three books at a time and finished none of them." A pause.
"She would have been fifty-four this year."
I looked out the window.
"She sounds like someone I would have liked."
"Yes," Eleanor said.
"I think you would have."
Marlowe House was a large colonial set back from the road behind an iron gate and a row of old maples.
The kind of house that announced money without needing to try.
The gate was open.
Eleanor pulled through without hesitating.
"You've been here before," I said.
"Once.
Years ago.
Before I understood what kind of man he was."
She parked on the gravel drive.
We sat for a moment.
"Let me do the talking first," she said.
"He won't be expecting me.
That matters."
"And when he sees me?"
"Then we'll know something."
A housekeeper answered the door.
Eleanor gave her name.
We were shown into a sitting room with high ceilings and old furniture and a fireplace that hadn't been used in some time.
The room felt maintained rather than lived in.
Richard Hale came in three minutes later.
He was in his late sixties.
Silver-haired, trim, wearing a pressed shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows.
He looked like a man who had spent decades making sure he appeared reasonable.
He saw Eleanor and stopped.
"Eleanor." His voice was smooth.
"It's been a long time."
"It has."
Then he saw me.
His expression didn't break.
It was more subtle than that.
A slight stillness.
A recalibration behind the eyes.
The look of a man who had prepared for something and was now deciding which version of his preparation to use.
"I don't believe we've met," he said to me.
"My name is Ava," I said.
"Ava Mercer."
He was quiet for exactly two seconds.
"Mercer," he said.
"Thomas Mercer's daughter?"
"That's what I was told growing up, yes."
He looked at Eleanor.
"What is this?"
"Sit down, Richard," Eleanor said.
"We have some things to discuss."
He didn't sit.
"I'm not sure I appreciate being ambushed in my own home."
"You locked my daughter in a burning room," Eleanor said.
"I think you can tolerate an unannounced visit."
The room went very still.
Richard's jaw tightened.
"That is a serious accusation."
"It is.
And I have the fire marshal's report.
And Catherine's letter.
And thirty years of patience that I have completely exhausted." Eleanor's voice didn't rise.
It didn't need to.
"So you can sit down and talk to us, or I can make three phone calls on the way out of your driveway.
Your choice."
He sat down.
I placed the photograph on the coffee table between us.
The one of my father holding the baby outside the burning building.
Richard looked at it.
His hands were in his lap.
He didn't reach for it.
"You've been searching for me," I said.
"My father wrote it down.
He knew you were looking."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Richard." Eleanor's voice was a warning.
"I want to know why," I said.
"Catherine gave me to my father to protect me from you.
My father spent thirty years making sure you couldn't find me.
And now he's g\*ne and here I am, sitting in your house." I leaned forward slightly.
"So tell me what you wanted."
May you like
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he said: "I wanted to make sure you were d\*ad."
