Sara gave a weak smile. She was telling herself she should be like one of her book’s heroines and demand, “How dare you say such a thing to me?” then she’d storm out in a dress with an eighteen-inch waist. But Sara just felt guilt. All the bad that was happening to Bella was caused by Sara’s boredom and curiosity. “Everyone will leave on Monday.” If the police let us, Sara thought. By then, the skeleton will be exposed and hell will have been awakened.
Sara stood up. “I need to...” She couldn’t think of anything she needed to do except escape. She practically threw herself out the door. She didn’t dare go to her room for fear Bella would find her. Instead, she ran up the stairs to the bleak servants’ quarters, then up to the attics. Dear, calm Kate would be there.
Sara smiled at the sight of Kate and Byon together, surrounded by an untidy pile of boxes and suitcases and trunks.
“I can’t find the box,” Byon was saying. “Nicky probably threw it away. Probably threw them in the manure pile.”
Sara rolled her eyes. The Enneagram divided people with nine personality types. Byon was a four. A true creative, but with extreme highs and lows. Just like me, Sara thought, and grimaced.
“We haven’t even begun to make a dent in all of this stuff,” Kate said. “It will take us days.” When she saw Sara, her eyes were pleading for help.
“What’s the box look like?” Sara asked. “And more importantly, what’s in it?”
Byon sat down heavily on an old chair and dust floated up around him. He gave a sigh that told of all life’s burdens. “Writing used to obsess me. It was like a disease that overtook my body and mind.” He looked at Sara for understanding.
“Been there,” Sara said. “And you kept every syllable you wrote, then put it all in a box?”
He nodded.
“The parodies!” Sara said. “You came here after that night. Did you write about that night?”
Again, Byon nodded.
“Hell and damnation,” Sara said. “Get up and start looking. Tell us the size and color of the box. Kate! Call Jack. He can help search.”
“He’s with Nadine. She’s up to something.”
“Probably getting his clothes off,” Byon said.
Sara and Kate turned angry faces to him.
“I’m in the midst of virgins. Stop the scowls. The box is about this big and it’s blue. Maybe green.”
“When did you last see it?”
“It...” His head came up. “I stayed in Nadine’s room after that night.”
“Of course you did,” Sara said. “Finest in the house.”
“Why not?” Byon said. “They all abandoned Nicky. I was the only true friend he had.”
Sara’s anger came to the surface. “Nadine left because she was pregnant with the child of a man who she believed abandoned her. Clive escaped years of bad treatment. Willa ran away because Nicky told her all of you were sick of giving her sympathy, no matter how much she paid for it. And Sean was gone because he was dead. Heaven only knows what happened to poor Diana.”
Byon was unflustered. “Whatever their excuses, I was the only one here.”
“You—” Sara took a step forward.
Kate placed herself between Byon and her aunt. “What happened to Nadine’s things? Did she ask for them to be sent to her?”
“She turned her back on everything,” Byon said. “Left her clothes and her friends. She—”
“Well, then, let’s look for them,” Kate said. “Find Nadine’s clothes and we’ll probably find your box of writing.”
“Unless you wore them out,” Sara said to Byon.
His lips twitched. “Only a few hats, darling. The rest didn’t fit.”
Sara laughed and the anger was gone.