Page 2 of Beautiful Exile

Her eyes flared in surprise. “No. Of course not. Why would you think that?”

I pulled the string a little tighter. “You guys fight a lot now. And Dad isn’t home as much.”

Mom sighed, leaning forward and taking my hand. She quickly unwound the string from my finger and rubbed blood flow back into it. “He’s had a lot going on with work lately. But he’s trying to fix that. To be home more.”

I nodded, not completely convinced. “Are you okay?”

Her entire face changed, her expression gentling. “My sweet girl.” She pressed a kiss to my temple. “I’m just fine.”

I knew that was a lie. She wasn’t herself. Tonight was the first glimpse I’d gotten in a long time of how things used to be. But maybe she’d meant that she knew we’d get back there—to how things had been.

I couldn’t imagine being with someone for as long as my mom and dad had been together. They’d met her first year at Yale when Dad was a junior. They’d gotten together then and had never broken up. When Dad graduated from law school, he’d proposed. There had to be ups and downs when you were with someone for that long. The only problem was that I had plenty of friends whose parents had decided the downs were reason enough to split.

The doorbell rang, the chimes’ three-toned noise echoing through the old house. I couldn’t help but stiffen. If another of Dad’s colleagues interrupted game night, I knew Mom would be pissed.

She squeezed my hand. “Sheridan. We’re fine. I promise. Nothing is going to change.”

God, I wanted to believe her.

Dad’s muffled voice sounded from downstairs, but an unfamiliar sound cut it off. It was somewhere between a crack and a pop, like a firecracker. But I highly doubted Dad was setting those off in a foyer full of priceless art.

As my mind tried to put the pieces together, I watched the blood drain from Mom’s already pale face. I’d always been a mix of them. I had Dad’s dark brown hair, and my skin had just a hint of tanned olive in it like his. But my eyes were all Mom, that gray-violet that could go stormy when I was mad or upset.

Mom’s skin was like ivory silk, the kind that meant she always had to wear sunscreen. But it almost looked gray now. Another firecracker sounded, and Mom leapt to her feet, running for the phone discreetly tucked into a corner of the library. She lifted it to her ear, finger already punching a key on the pad. But then she stilled.

“Dead.” She patted her pocket and cursed, a word sheneverused flying from her lips. “I left my cell in the kitchen…” Her words trailed off as she stood frozen for a moment. A beat of one passed. Then two. Three. When she moved again, she flew across the room, grabbed my arm, and yanked me up.

“Wha—?”

Mom clamped a hand over my mouth, cutting off my words. She lifted the pointer finger of her other hand to her lips in ashhhmotion. Panic flared to life, zinging through my muscles like some sort of foreign energy.

She grabbed my arm again and hurried into the hallway. I heard voices below. Footsteps.

“Where the hell are they?” a voice snarled.

Mom’s fingers trembled around my wrist.

“You’ve been paying him too much. This house is too big,” another voice said, a hint of humor lacing the words.

“Well, I won’t have to do that anymore, will I?” the first voice asked.

Mom hurried down the hall, abruptly stopping at one of the panels. Her fingers ran over the seam until she found the spot she was looking for. She pushed on the wood, and the panel popped open.

There were hidey-holes like this all over the house. Everything from secret closets to a dumbwaiter. It had made for the best games of hide-and-seek growing up, but this was something else. Something bad.

Mom pushed me into the space, where a tall duster and some other cleaning supplies were stashed for our housekeeper. The space was so shallow I didn’t think she’d be able to close the panel with me inside. I grabbed her arm. “Mom, what are you?—?”

“Stay here. No matter what you hear, do not come out. Do you understand me?”

“Mom—”

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “Love you to the ends of the Earth.”

I gripped her sweater, fisting the soft cashmere. “Get in with me.”

Mom peeled my fingers from her arm and shook her head. “I can’t.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

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