Gabriel. Gabriel. Gabriel.
Around four o'clock, my mother calls.
I stare at the screen for a long moment, watching her name flash. I should answer. I've been avoiding her since the gala, giving her half-truths and deflections, and she's too perceptive not to notice. If I keep dodging her calls, she'll show up at my door.
I answer.
"Hi, Mom."
"Sweetheart. I tried calling yesterday, but you didn't pick up." Her voice is tight with worry. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine. Just busy with work."
"You don't sound fine. You sound exhausted."
"I haven't been sleeping well. It's nothing."
A pause. I can hear her thinking, weighing whether to push or let it go. My mother has never been good at letting things go.
"The gala," she says finally. "The Ambrose event. Something happened there, didn't it?"
My hand tightens on the phone. "What makes you say that?"
"Because I know you. Because you've been different since that night—distant, evasive. Because every time I ask about it, you change the subject."
"Nothing happened, Mom. It was just a job. I did the flowers, I got paid, end of story."
"Poppy." Her voice is gentle but firm. "I'm your mother. Don't lie to me."
The words stick in my throat. I want to tell her. I want to pour out everything—the murder, the dahlia, the market, the phone call—and let her make it better the way she did when I was small, and the world was full of monsters that could be banished with a nightlight.
But I'm not small anymore. And these monsters don't live under beds.
"I'm just tired," I say. "The job was bigger than I expected. It took a lot out of me."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Those people," she says slowly. "The Ambroses. They're not... they're not the kind of people you want to be involved with."
Something cold trickles down my spine. "What do you mean?"
"I don't mean anything specific. I just..." She sighs. "Rich people. Powerful people. They think they own the world. They think they can do whatever they want and no one can stop them. I've seen it before. You get too close to people like that, and they'll swallow you whole."
"When have you seen that?"
Silence. I can hear her breathing, can almost feel her pulling back.
"It doesn't matter," she says. "Just... be careful, sweetheart. Stay away from those kinds of people. They're dangerous."
"Mom." I grip the phone tighter. "If there's something you're not telling me—"
"There's nothing to tell." Her voice is firm, but there's a tremor beneath it. "I'm just a mother who worries about her daughter. That's all."
I want to push harder. I want to demand answers, to crack open the vault of her silence and see what's inside. But something in her tone stops me—a fragility I've never heard before. A fear that seems older than this conversation, older than the gala, older than my entire life.
"Okay," I say quietly. "I'll be careful."
"Promise me."
