Page 68 of The Beast's Heart

The passageway is done in the same beautiful wallpaper for about a meter. And then it’s just…drywall. There are no fancylight fixtures, just exposed bulbs and hanging sheet plastic. The air is frigid and it smells like concrete. Is Adam renovating?

My feet move of their own accord, taking me further in. Because there’s no way he can be renovating during a pandemic. No, the person whowasrenovating died. Died before he could finish the job. Died fourteen years ago.

“Adam?” I call again, but my voice is constricted. I peek into a side room. Plastic sheeting hangs from the ceiling, the floor is dusty with concrete and wood shavings. This room doesn’t even have a door yet.

Please let him not be sleeping in a room like this. Please let him not be living in this abandoned dream.

I pass a second room. This one is at least carpeted—in the same red as the playroom—and there’s a serviceable fireplace and a battered upright piano. There’s still music in place on the stand. Scribbled notes in a shaky hand that only fill half the page. If it weren’t for the thick layer of dust over everything, I’d think Lloyd just got up to make a cup of tea.

The only decoration in this room is a silver vase on the mantlepiece and…No.My heart shudders and starts beating double time. Not a vase. An urn.

I know I shouldn’t—if I wasn’t trespassing before, I certainly am now—but I step closer. Beside the urn, there’s a photograph of Adam and Lloyd together.

I lift the silver frame for a closer look at Lloyd. I feel like I understand him so much better now than the first time I saw him in a photo. So maybe that’s why this time I notice that even though he’s smiling, his eyes look sad.

I set the frame back in its place. There was something else on the mantle here too. There’s a rectangular space in the dust.Could it be…?

I reach into my pocket and withdraw the cigarette box. It’s the exact right size. Did Mal sneak in here? Did he see this cold,abandoned space? I carefully set the box back. As I do, I notice a yellowed note sticking out of the picture frame. It’s so out of place that I find myself reaching for it. To slide it back into the frame? Maybe. I’m sure I don’t mean to read the top edge.

Please don’t be sad, mon cher. All the great musicians die at 27.

My heart stutters again. Does Adam know this is here? He must. It surely hasn’t been hidden all this time? As I lift the picture frame, it slips further out and I catch the next few words.

I know this will be hard for you, but don’t think of me as gone, think of me visiting Paris on tour. This will be difficult, but it won’t destroy you the way the illness would.

What illness?

“What are you doing?”

I spin. Adam is standing in the doorway. He’s half naked—there’s a towel slung low on his hips—but my gaze locks on his face. Hurt. Betrayal.

“I—I called you?—”

He strides towards me, brow furrowed, searching my face.

“I’m sorry, I?—”

He snatches the frame from my grip and I jerk in fright. “How many times have you come here?” he asks. His voice cracks with anger or pain.

I step back automatically. My spine hits the mantle.

“What are you doing here?” He bears down on me.

“I— I— I was looking for you.”

“Were you?”

I don’t understand the question.

“Were you looking for me, or were you looking for information? Something you could sell? To the tabloids perhaps?”

I open my mouth to try to answer, but the breath is frozen in my chest.

He slices the air, sending the picture frame across the room. I jump as the glass shatters. He doesn’t even look in its direction. Instead, he pins me—hands on the mantle on either side of me—his gaze boring into mine. And I understand for the first time why everyone still calls him The Beast.

“Whyare you here?”

Where is Adam? Where is the man who made puns and opened up to me about his childhood?

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