What else has she noticed? What else has she reported back to Gabriel?
I wait by the front door, watching through the windows as James disappears toward the garage. The entrance hall stretches around me with its serpent carvings and shadowed corners—beautiful and oppressive in equal measure.
Five days, and I still haven't explored most of the estate. The east wing remains closed—the wing where I witnessed the murder, where Jack Woolworth died with Gabriel's hands around his throat. I've thought about trying those doors, seeing if they're still locked, but something stops me every time.
Maybe I'm not ready to face what's behind them.
Maybe I'm afraid of what I'll feel if I do.
The car is a sleek black sedan with tinted windows—anonymous, expensive, the kind of vehicle that could belong to anyone wealthy enough to afford it. James holds the door for me, his face professionally blank, and I slide into the back seat feeling like a kept woman.
Which, I suppose, is exactly what I am.
The drive to the city takes forty minutes. I watch the countryside give way to suburbs, suburbs to storefronts, storefronts to the familiar chaos of the flower district. Normally, the motion of the car would lull me into drowsiness, but today my stomach won't settle. Every turn, every acceleration makes the nausea spike.
I crack the window, letting cold air wash over my face, and try to breathe through it.
Just stress. Just exhaustion. Just the accumulated toll of the past month.
The market is crowded even on a weekday morning—vendors calling out prices, customers haggling, the air thick with the smell of vegetation and earth.
Normal. Gloriously, painfully normal.
"I'll be parked on the corner of Maple and Fifth," James says as I climb out. "Call when you're ready."
"I might be a while."
"I'll wait."
Of course he will. He'd wait all day if he had to—that's what Gabriel pays him for.
I walk into the market and let myself disappear.
For an hour, I'm just a florist again. I browse the stalls, running my fingers over petals, checking stems for freshness, haggling with vendors I've known for years. Georgios greets me with his usual warmth, asking where I've been, why I haven't visited. I make excuses—big client, demanding schedule, you know how it is. He doesn't believe me, but he doesn't push.
I buy roses, lilies, greenery for the Harrison arrangements. More than I need, probably, but the act of choosing is soothing. Familiar. A reminder that some part of my old life still exists.
Halfway through my shopping, I pass a food stall selling pastries. The smell of butter and sugar hits me, and suddenly I'm ravenous—desperately, overwhelmingly hungry in a way that makes no sense given the nausea from this morning.
I buy a croissant and devour it in three bites, standing in the middle of the market like a starving animal. Then I buy another one.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I'm loading the last of my purchases into bags when I feel it.
That prickle at the back of my neck. The sense of being watched.
I look up, scanning the crowd. Vendors, customers, a thousand anonymous faces going about their business. Nothing unusual. Nothing threatening.
But the feeling doesn't go away.
I gather my bags and head toward the exit, walking faster than necessary. The crowd parts around me, indifferent to my paranoia. I'm almost to the street when a voice stops me.
"Excuse me—are you Poppy Rivers?"
I spin around. The man standing behind me is older—late fifties, maybe early sixties—with silver hair and a face that might have been handsome twenty years ago. He's dressed casually but expensively, the kind of understated wealth that doesn't need to announce itself.
His smile is warm. His eyes are cold.
