Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 72

Chapter 72

“Wait.” Julian stood up. “What about the rest of us?”

“You shouldn’t wait to be asked! Elizabeth’s voice was sharp and immediate. “We have been here for hours and you haven’t offered us so much as a glass of water. What kind of woman are you?”

I looked at her.

I thought about hot food soaking through my clothes. I thought about the hospital. I thought about standing in her kitchen with burned skin while she told Julian it had been an accident.

“First of all,” I said, keeping my voice completely pleasant, “I did not invite you here. That being the case, you would do well to ask your host to take care of you. Secondly, if you are that hungry, you have two perfectly functional hands.”

“Celeste.” Julian said my name in the warning tone.

“Goodnight,” I said over my shoulder, and kept walking.

I did not stop until I was in the guest room with the door locked behind me.

The house settled into a different kind of quiet eventually.

I lay on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling and thought about what Dominic had said on the phone.

A handyman. Tomorrow morning. Take him to the bedroom and lock the door. The message is confidential and for your eyes only.

I turned that over in my mind from several angles.

A handyman. Right.

I knew Dominic Ford well enough by now to know that he did not do things without a reason. He did not make casual requests. Everything he did was thought through several steps ahead, considered and deliberate, the way a chess player considers the board rather than just the next move.

So what was the message?

Something that could not be sent by text or call. Something physical, something he needed to deliver in person through a proxy, something he did not want anyone else in the house to see.

I thought about it for a while longer and then another thought crept in, warm and completely unhelpful, and I felt heat move across my face in the dark of the guest room.

I pressed my lips together and stared harder at the ceiling.

Then, I heard a car start outside.

I got up and looked through the curtain. Julian’s car, pulling out of the driveway, his headlights sweeping the gate as he turned onto the road. Leaving at this hour. I watched the taillights disappear and then let the curtain fall back.

I picked up my phone.

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