TEDDY
I slump forward,gritting my teeth. This was always going to be a tricky play from the start, but I didn’t think the charade would end so fast. I try not to let Julian see my reaction, but he already seems pretty certain that Alessandro sent me down here to get information.
He manipulated me into admitting what I need from him within about five minutes. I really underestimated him.
“Don’t worry, little mouse,” he says with a yawn. “The kitty-cat will come back for you soon enough.” He turns the page of his book. He raises his voice. “The kitty-cat could bring me a few new books when he does.”
So he knows about the wire, too—or assumes it.
I think hard, trying to come up with a new strategy. I’m not going to give up; I’ll stay in here for as long as I have to. Maybe get Alessandro toactuallyhit me, in front of—
Wait.
I raise my head. “Julian?”
“Yes, Teddy MacCallum?”
“Why do you keep calling me ‘little mouse’?”
There’s a long silence, broken only by the turning of another book page. I get off the bunk and go back to the bars, staring at him. “You’ve heard Alessandro call me that, haven’t you?”
The silence continues.
“But what I’m wondering iswhenyou heard him call me that. Because he hasn’t said it in front of you at all.”
“Hasn’t he?” Julian’s boredom drips off the words, but I can hear it now, the faint note of wariness.
He’s fucked up.
He’s fucked up and he knows it.
If Julian has heard Alessandro calling me a little mouse, that means one of three things.
One: he has listening devices throughout the house. But I know from Alessandro that Redwood Manor is regularly swept for all devices.
Or two: Julian has an accomplice in the house. He just mentioned having friends, after all. Wilson, the butler? But why the hell would the butler make a special mention of Alessandro’s nickname for me?
So that leaves three: my least favorite option, but also the most likely.
Julian has a way to get out of the cells.
He has a way out, and he’s been eavesdropping on Alessandro and me. I remember the noise Alessandro thought he heard outside the dining room when we were…
I give a small squeak of embarrassment at the thought.
I guess I really do sound like a mouse sometimes.
So does Julian have a key? That doesn’t make sense, either. Why would Julian randomly carry a key to the cell door around with him all the time, just in case someone decided to lock him up down here? These arehisplayrooms, after all.
I need to think like him. If I was Julian…
I’d assume that at some point—after my father’s death, for example—I might get locked down here by my brother, and I’d want a way out. But I couldn’t count on carrying a key around all the time. I’d need to be sure that whatever method I was using was simple and accessible.
Another secret entrance? Or exit, rather, from his cell?
But that wouldn’t work either, because—if I was Julian—I couldn’t be surewhichcell I’d get locked into. I’d need to be sure I could get in and out ofallof the cells down here.
So that means…
