Page 168 of The Grosvenor's Ghost

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My sister goes silent on the other end. I hear some rustling, a door closing.

“I need you to know that if anything happens to me that it was Lenny.”

My stomach dips. “What do you mean?”

“If anything happens,” she whispers. “It was Lenny.”

“What’s going to happen to you?”

Nothing.

“Freddy?”

Silence.

“Freddy? What the fuck is going on? Why would he do anything to you?”

Again, the line is quiet.

“Freddy!” I shout down the phone. “Fucking answer me!”

The line goes dead.

She ended the call.

I stare down at my phone, my lock screen staring back at me. I imagine her calling again, the number popping up—but it doesn’t. She doesn’t call me back. I watch the time change for five straight minutes and still nothing.

What did she mean by that? Like, seriously? When someone says that to you what do they mean?

If anything happens, it’s Lenny.

Lenny, Lenny, Lenny.

If anything happens, it’s Lenny.

I don’t even clock that I’m crying until I glance up and catch myself in the bathroom mirror.

Fuck.

I don’t know what to do.

If there was any moment in my entire life when I needed a step-by-step guide on knowing what to do, it would be now. I need to know. If my sister told me that, she’s expecting me to know what to do, right? Why don’t I know what to do?

I run out of the bedroom, into the hallway, grab my shoes, keys and coat and leave.

I don’t have time to walk or run. I grab the first cab I see and jump in, tell him to take me to Mayfair.

Twenty minutes, he tells me.

That’s not long. In the very, broad, grand scheme of time, twenty minutes is nothing.

I think I black out as we drive through London, the street lights blinding me as we seem to go faster than the speed limit. Or maybe we don’t. Maybe he drives the speed limit but it feels faster because maybe twenty minutes is longer than what it seems?

We stop.

I look out the window and we’re outside Stratton House.

I give him the money, jump out of the car and push through the huge black doors. The bouncers don’t say anything to me. They just let me through.

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