Chapter 5 - The Fortress
By nine o'clock that evening, the guest room on the second floor smelled of lavender soap and roasted chicken.
I knocked once on the heavy oak door before turning the handle. The room was bathed in the soft amber glow of a bedside lamp. Lily sat in the center of an enormous king-sized canopy bed, wearing a cream-colored cashmere sweater that was five sizes too large for her, her damp hair brushed smooth and shining. A silver tray sat on the nightstand, bearing an empty bowl of potato soup, three rolls, and a glass of milk.
In her hands, she held the butter knife from the tray. She held it with the blade pointed outward, exactly the way a frightened animal bared its teeth.
When she saw it was me, she lowered the knife an inch, but she didn’t drop it.
“You eat fast,” I observed, pulling an upholstered chair over to the side of the bed and sitting down.
“You don't leave food on the plate,” she said flatly. “Someone always takes it.”
“Nobody takes anything in this house.”
She looked around the room—at the velvet drapes, the oil paintings of the Scottish Highlands, the towering fireplace carved from Italian marble.
“Are you a king?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then what are you?”
“A businessman.”
“A bad one?”
I looked at her, noting the sharp, perceptive intelligence behind those hazel eyes. She didn't have the luxury of childish innocence. Life had stripped that away before she had even mastered long division.
“Some people think I am very bad,” I admitted honestly. “I have done things that would terrify you if I told you about them. I don't pretend to be an angel, Lily. But I have rules. And the first rule is that wolves do not prey on lambs who cannot fight back.”
She considered this for a long moment, then reached beneath her oversized sweater and pulled out a crumpled, sweat-stained piece of yellow notebook paper. She smoothed it against the silk duvet and handed it across the space between us.
“This is from my mom,” she said, her voice dropping to a fragile whisper. “She told me to keep it in my shoe. She said if she didn't come back by Monday night, I had to take Sam and get on the bus to Milwaukee to find Aunt Sarah. But the bus tickets were sixty dollars. And I only had thirty-seven.”
I took the paper. The handwriting was frantic, shaky, written with a dying ballpoint pen:
*Lily, my brave girl. If you are reading this, Silas found our room. He says I have to work off what your father borrowed before he ran. Do not let him find you. Take Sam. Go to Milwaukee. Tell Aunt Sarah I’m sorry. I love you both more than the stars. Don't look back.*
My eyes scanned the frantic scrawl. Below the message was an address: *1424 West Huron, Basement Apt 3.*
“Your mother’s name?” I asked.
“Clara,” Lily whispered. Her eyes filled with fresh tears, but she bit her lip until it bled to keep from weeping. “She didn't leave because she didn't love us. She left because two men with iron pipes were standing at our door, and she pushed Sam and me out through the coal chute in the back alley while she blocked the hallway with the dresser. She told me to run and not stop running.”
I carefully folded the paper and slipped it into the breast pocket of my suit, right next to my heart.
“Your mother was right,” I said, standing up. “She is a very brave woman.”
“Is she dead?” Lily’s voice was so small, so impossibly frail, that it cut through every defense I had constructed over forty years of cold, calculating violence.
“I don’t know yet,” I told her. “But by dawn, I will have an answer. And if she is breathing, I will bring her back to this room.”
Lily looked down at the butter knife in her hand. Slowly, with deliberate trust, she laid the dull silver blade on the nightstand.
May you like
“I believe you,” she said.
***
