"I'd like to know them."
"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
She freezes for a second, then glares at me. "You should learn to crack a smile when you joke. Might tip people off to the fact that they're not about to get murdered."
"If murdering you was the plan, I would have left your cat out of it."
"Fair." She gives me a sidelong glance. "I have work, though. I can't just disappear."
"You have colleagues. And much unused PTO."
"How do you know that?"
"I told you." I fix my gaze on the spines rather than her piercing dark eyes. "I've been watching."
She doesn't say anything to that.
After a while, I fill the silence. "Is there anything else you need from home?”
She thinks about it, brow furrowing, then shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Just… Nori, I guess. If he shows up.”
“Nori?” I repeat.
She nods quickly, like she’s afraid it sounds stupid. “A cat. He’s not really mine. Just a stray. Black, mangy, mean as hell. I feed him sometimes. Clean his wounds when he lets me. He disappears for weeks and then comes back like nothing happened.”
"You have weird taste in cats."
"It's been said."
My mouth twitches. “I’ll have someone keep an eye out,” I say.
Her shoulders drop a little. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
She looks startled, like she’s been caught doing something she didn’t plan. “For—” She gestures vaguely around the room, then grimaces. “For everything. For bringing me here. And my cat. And my... plants.”
A smirk slips from me. “You look more at ease surrounded by flowers,” I say. “It was the least I could do.”
She studies me for a second, something unreadable in her eyes. “You’ve already done more than anyone else in your position would have.”
I don’t respond to that. There isn’t anything I could say that wouldn’t cheapen it, so I let the silence stand.
She turns back to the shelves, already half-lost again, and I take that as my cue to leave her to it.
Outside the library, I pull my phone from my pocket. “Ottavio,” I say as soon as he answers. “Have the car ready. Five minutes.”
“On it,” he replies. Then, after a beat, “You stopping by the west wing before you head out?”
I pause in the corridor, my hand resting briefly against the wall.
“No,” I say finally. “Not today.”
Another pause, heavier this time. “Later, then?”
“Maybe,” I mutter, and end the call.
I start toward the front of the house, leaving the library—and Rose—behind me. The west wing remains closed, silent as ever, its doors undisturbed.
