The Return To The Foyer
Chapter 08 - The Return To The Foyer
Victor returned to the mansion at dusk.
The front double doors opened to the same foyer, but the room had changed. Eduardo sat in his wheelchair near the center of the marble floor, not hidden, not ashamed. Clara stood beside him in beige silk, arms relaxed, face unreadable. Sofia sat on the bottom stair with her knees together, light brown hair falling forward, pink cardigan bright against the black railing.
The phone rested on the console table again.
Visible.
Untouched.
Victor noticed it immediately.
That was his first mistake.
Guilty people look at evidence before innocent people know it matters.
“Eduardo,” he said warmly. “Clara sounded concerned.”
Eduardo’s eyes stayed on him. “She is.”
Victor glanced toward the wheelchair, then the marble floor. “I heard you had a difficult afternoon.”
Sofia’s fingers tightened around the stair edge.
Clara saw it.
Eduardo did too.
“Yes,” Eduardo said. “Someone moved my chair.”
Victor’s expression shifted into practiced alarm. “What? Who would do that?”
Clara stepped toward the console table but did not pick up the phone. Not yet.
“That is what we wondered.”
Victor laughed softly. “Surely it rolled.”
Eduardo’s face hardened.
“You know the brakes were locked?”
“I assume you locked them.”
“I always lock them.”
Victor lifted both hands. “Then perhaps staff—”
“No staff were in the foyer.”
A flicker crossed Victor’s face.
Sofia stood on the bottom stair.
“I was outside,” she said.
Victor looked at her as if seeing the child for the first time.
Fear did not show fully.
But it reached his eyes.
Eduardo’s voice lowered.
“My daughter saw you.”
May you like
Victor smiled again.
This time, nobody believed it.
