A little shiver of unease races through me as he reenters his office, beckoning for me to follow.
But there's nothing to be worried about.
If Ambrose noticed something amiss in his office, he would've mentioned it three days ago. He wouldn't have waited until now.
I'm not a spy,I say in my head, the mask leveling out my expression to a pleasant one.
I'm his daughter.
The daughter he laughed with at dinner last night. The same one he promised to teach how to ride a horse, since we missed out on bike riding and playing catch.
I'm harmless.
I don't enter the same office I exited three days ago. Not exactly.
It's impossible not to notice the empty spot on the wall where Florence's painting was, but I try not to stare at it. The other painting is gone, too.
…and so is the computer monitor.
But Ambrose's harmless daughter, Delilah, hasn't ever been in this room, so she does a little turn to admire the space. The shelves are still filled with rich people office things—hourglasses and vintage books and little fancy trinkets—so I focus on those as Ambrose sits opposite me at his desk.
He pulls a thin stack of pages from a drawer and sets them down atop the desk where his computer monitor once rested, giving me a curious look. He looks different, and I can't place why. He's in the same style of tailored shirt and vest he wears every day. His salt-and-pepper hair is the same. Is it his beard? Maybe it's a little shorter than last night—the edges crisp as if he's had a straight razor shave. That's got to be it.
It takes me a little too long to realize he's waiting for me to sit down opposite him, in the chair that wasn't there before.
I perch at the edge of it and pull my bag onto my lap.
Ambrose pauses between glancing over one page of the document on his desk and another, dark eyes dropping to my lap. "Why do you have your bag?"
I bark a laugh. "Just making sure I'm ready to go when you are."
He stares at me long enough that I know it's not the beard that's different. It's something else.
The laughter chokes off in my throat when Ambrose cocks his head at me, his thick brows pulling together.
"Go?"
My fingers flex against the leather of my bag. "To the airport."
Why did that sound like a question?
"Airport?" he asks as if he has no idea what I'm talking about, and it's hard to hear my own thoughts over the drum beating loudly in my chest, making my palms slick against my bag.
"We're supposed to leave for the airport around eight this morning," I remind him, struggling to maintain the pleasant expression on my face.
A drip of cold sweat drops between my breasts, and the mask nearly slips, but I manage to catch it before it falls completely. "Landing in Charlotte by about one o'clock eastern, right?"
I didnotget the times wrong.
I told 'Céce' I'd be back at the apartment by four at the latest, and I am not missing a very important—very overdue—snuggle with my Ellie girl.
The expression of confusion on Ambrose's stupid face doesn't shift even a fraction, and my stomach sours.
"Did I get the times wrong?"
He frowns and sets the papers down, clasping his hands atop them slowly, like he's about to give a lecture or scold a child. "Aurora, we've talked about this."
I gape at him.
