Chapter 3: What Martha Knew
Daniel didn't go inside.
He crossed the terrace and crouched at the pool's edge, level with Martha.
He reached out and took her arm — steady, careful — and helped her to her feet.
Bianca watched this without moving.
"Daniel." Her voice was quiet now.
The purr was gone.
"I said go inside."
"I heard you." He kept his hand under Martha's elbow.
"I'm not going."
Martha's legs were unsteady.
She gripped the boy's forearm and tried to straighten, but her soaked dress pulled at her and she stumbled.
Daniel caught her.
The black sludge from her hair transferred onto his white shirt sleeve.
He didn't look at it.
"You're embarrassing yourself," Bianca said.
"Am I?" He turned to face her fully.
"Because from where I'm standing, you just dumped engine grease on a seventy-four-year-old woman because she gave the kids a glass of water."
"She overstepped."
"She works here."
"She is employed here.
There is a difference." Bianca picked up the empty bucket and set it aside with the precise, unhurried movement of a woman who had never once doubted her own authority.
"And her employment is now concluded.
She has until this evening to collect her things."
Martha made a sound.
Not protest.
Something smaller.
Daniel looked at her.
"Martha.
Do you have somewhere to go?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Her eyes moved — not to Daniel, not to Bianca, but somewhere past both of them.
Toward the house.
Toward the upper windows.
"Martha." His voice was gentler.
"Do you have family?
Someone I can call?"
"I have a daughter," she said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"In Connecticut."
"Good.
I'll drive you."
"You will do no such thing." Bianca stepped forward.
"You are seventeen years old and you will not take my car to Connecticut for the benefit of a woman I have just dismissed."
"I'll call a car then."
"With what money?"
Daniel reached into his back pocket and produced his phone.
"Dad gave me a card for emergencies."
The word landed differently than he intended.
He saw it in his mother's face — the slight tightening around her eyes, the fractional pause before she composed herself again.
"Your father," Bianca said, "is in London."
"I know where Dad is."
A silence settled over the terrace.
The two younger children had retreated from the doorway.
The pool surface caught the afternoon light and threw small bright shapes across the marble.
Martha touched Daniel's arm.
"It's all right, sweetheart."
"It's not all right."
"I know." She patted his hand once.
"But I need you to let me handle this."
Something in her tone stopped him.
It wasn't defeat.
It was deliberate.
Like a woman who had been waiting for a specific moment and had just decided this was not yet it.
"Martha—"
"Go get me a towel," she said quietly.
"Please.
Just a towel."
He looked at her for a long moment, then went inside.
Bianca and Martha were alone.
The smile returned to Bianca's face, slower this time.
"How touching.
The boy has a soft heart." She tilted her head.
"He gets that from his father's side."
Martha said nothing.
"You've been very careful all these years," Bianca continued.
"Very quiet.
Very loyal." She paused.
"I've always wondered what exactly you're being so loyal about."
Martha met her eyes.
"I don't know what you mean, Mrs.
Sterling."
"I think you do." Bianca stepped closer.
"I think you've known things about this family for a very long time.
And I think that is the only reason you've lasted eleven years in this house when everyone else lasted eleven months."
Martha's expression didn't change.
But her hand — resting at her side — closed slowly into a fist.
"You should be careful," Bianca said softly.
"Loyalty only protects you as long as the person you're loyal to is worth protecting."
Daniel came back through the terrace door with a folded white towel.
Martha turned away from Bianca and accepted it without a word.
But as Daniel wrapped it around her shoulders, Martha's eyes went back to the upper windows of the house.
Third floor.
May you like
The room that was always locked.
She looked at it the way a person looks at something they have carried for a very long time and are finally, quietly, deciding to put down.
