Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 468

I sat on the edge of my bed with a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote down every skill I could think of that Tasha might love. Baking and pastry, because she lit up like a lantern whenever she cooked. Painting, because she had told me once, in a quiet voice, that she had always wanted to learn. Tailoring and fashion, because she had an eye for clothes even if she never said so. Cosmetology, because she deserved to feel beautiful and to know exactly how to make herself so. Bookkeeping and business, because a woman who could read numbers would never be helpless again.

I crossed out some, kept five, and looked at the list. Then I smiled. I would ask her first, and if she had nothing, I would show her this.

When I came out of my room, the hallway was quiet and I was smiling, already rehearsing how I would ask her. That was when I heard it. A sound that stopped me cold in the middle of the hallway.

Crying.

It was muffled, the way crying sounds when someone is trying very hard not to be heard, and it was coming from behind Tasha's door. My heart lurched. I knocked, quick and hard. "Tasha?"

No answer, only the crying, which stopped abruptly, like a hand clapped over a mouth.

"Tasha, open the door."

Still nothing. I tried the handle. It turned, and I pushed the door open, and the world stopped.

Tasha was on the floor at the foot of her bed, huddled against the frame, a white sheet wrapped around her from the waist down. Her upper body was bare, and it was a ruin. Dark red welts ran across her shoulder and her arm, across the side of her neck, down her back, and blood had smeared over her skin where the wounds had wept. Her face was a mess of heavy makeup and tears, mascara streaked down her cheeks like rain on a window.

"Who else would it be?" She snapped it through her tears, her voice cracking. "It is just the three of us in this house. Are you saying you did this to me? I only asked him a few questions, and he beat me like an animal." She broke down, sobbing into her hands. "He is a monster, Scarlett. He is a monster."

I looked at the welts on her skin, at the blood, at the wreckage of her face, and something in me went very quiet and very cold. Tasha was right. It was just the three of us in this house. Who else could have done this? Why would she lie about something like this?

I got to my feet and walked out of her room without another word.

I found Sparrow's room empty. The bathroom empty. I called his name as I moved through the house, my voice getting harder and louder each time, and I did not care who heard me. I finally found him outside, standing in the dark at the edge of the garden, a cigar glowing between his fingers, smoke curling up into the night.