And no closer to finding his wife’s killer.
He crosses the foyer, starts up the stairs, and is on the landing before he registers that he’s walking right over the spot Sienna lay.
The landing of course is empty now, marked only by a dark stain on the runner, and maybe Priscilla was right, and he should have gone to the cottage, but he’s already come this far, and fears that if he stops, he might not have the energy to start again, so he keeps going, up, up, up, retracing the steps he took in the wee hours of that morning, until he’s at the bedroom door.
The room has taken on a different air, a shrine-like atmosphere. The window shut, the last dregs of Sienna’s scent still hanging on the air. He holds his breath, as if afraid to disturb it.
Someone has returned the typewriter to its place on the desk, even taken care to clean the blood off the keys, which he should take issue with—it is, after all, the murder weapon—but a quiet worry is burrowing into the back of his head. A troublingwhat-if.
What if Priscilla’s right, and it really was an accident?
What if the truth is, Sisi simply fell?
He sinks onto the bed, touching the indent of her body before flopping down on top of it. What would Leo Hardwick do, in this position? What would he do, if he based his whole identity on finding his wife’s murderer, only to learn it was nothing but cruel fate? No criminal to catch and punish. Only the universe to blame. Would he feel like his purpose had been taken? Or would he simply feel as if he’d been cut free?
Malcolm would never admit it, of course, but he does feel a little lighter. The last few weeks have been so miserable. A silent war, a systematic destruction of everything they’d built. All because Sienna declared she was no longer satisfied. That she wanted more. It was her own unhappiness that made her decide to leave. Her own unhappiness that made her drive a spike into their lives, cleaving them apart. Her own unhappiness that drove her from Penn Stonely, and from Malcolm, and—if indeed there was no killer—her own unhappiness that made her heft that typewriter from the desk and lay claim to it?
Malcolm cannot help but wonder: Did she pause with it, over his sleeping form? Contemplate, even for a moment, bringing the weight down upon his head? Or had she simply taken it from him and fled, only to lose her balance on the stairs?
Felled by her own ambition.
A grim smile plays across his tired lips.
In that case, it is a rather twisted kind of karma.
Leaving Malcolm, alive but alone, to carry on without her.
A tragedy, to be sure, but then, tragedy is the font from which great stories flow.
He chuckles softly—perhaps he’s not so bad at coming up with metaphors, after all. He simply has to be inspired.
And heis—truth be told, he’s felt more creative stirrings in the last four hours than the last four years. He could write the Leo Hardwick seriesandfinish Fletch’s work.
He rolls onto his side, studying the desk—and sees something he missed before.
The typewriter isn’t sitting flush atop the wood. It’s propped up on something. A shallow stack of pale-yellow pages... and something else. Something blue.
Malcolm sits up—too fast, the room spotting black and white for just a moment. He waits for the world to steady before he stands and shuffles to the desk, sliding the object free.
It’s Sienna’s notebook.
Do you think it was because of her idea?
His heart begins to pound, and he clutches the notebook to his chest, as the knowledge of what he’s holding washes over him.
Her sudden spark of inspiration.
Priscilla handing her a pen.
Her brilliant ending. The one she couldn’t wait to write.
Without him.
“Ironic, isn’t it, dear Sisi?” he murmurs, thoughts racing now.
It would be a crime to let good work go to waste. If anything, he tells himself, she’d probablywanthim to go on, to finish what they started. Malcolm snorts, if only to himself. The truth is, Sienna was petty enough that she’d probably set fire to the notebook just to spite him. But she’s not here to do it. She left him,tragically, to carry on.
And he intends to do just that.
