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Raleigh’s frown doesn’t fade, but she nods. “I can ask Eaves to order us something. Let me get dressed, kay? We’ll eat out back.”
Once, we wouldn’t have blushed at changing in front of each other. As kids, we slept in each other’s beds more often than not, even bathed together. But that innocent intimacy is lost now. Raleigh closes her door in my face, and I make my way down to the enormous patio behind the house alone.
It takes nearly an hour for Raleigh to appear, but when she does, she’s dressed for a day on the town. And she’s not alone. Iris is at her shoulder, three enormous bags of takeout in her hands. Thomas’s right hand woman sets the bags on one of the round patio tables, then retreats to a rattan seat nearby with a tablet. I realize with a little trepidation that she’s here to keep an eye on me and Raleigh. No doubt she’ll report everything we say back to Thomas.
Raleigh notices me watching Iris and rolls her eyes for me. “Babysitting’s not below her pay grade, I guess,” she says, loud enough for Iris to definitely hear.
I wince, but Iris only holds up her middle finger, not even looking up from her tablet. Raleigh sticks her tongue out in return, then throws herself into a seat beside me and starts unloading styrofoam cartons of food from the bags.
There’s quite a spread. Thick slices of toast slathered in cream cheese and topped with salmon, fruit tarts dripping with glaze, quiches stuffed with spinach and red peppers. Thomas’s housekeeper, Mr. Eaves, who seems to have aged fifty years in the last ten, pours us both fresh coffee and leaves a tray of sugar and cream, which Raleigh immediately pounces on. I try to dig into the food with equal enthusiasm, but my stomach is still in knots.
Raleigh lost her house trying to help me, and now she’s being watched in her brother’s home. From what she said when she opened the door to her room, it sounds like she and Thomas have already fought about it at least once. And somehow I have to tell her that I’ve changed my mind. That I’m going to take a stand against my uncle after all.
I realize for the first time that I don’t know how to talk to my best friend anymore. We’re ten years removed from being attached at the hip and synced up down to our souls. I never would’ve hesitated to tell her what’s on my mind when we were kids. Now I struggle to string words together at all in front of her.
I push a bit of quiche around my plate until I feel Raleigh’s eyes on me. When I look up, she’s halfway through a fruit tart and frowning suspiciously at me. I put on my most apologetic smile.
“So I… I’ve been talking to Thomas,” I start, and Raleigh snorts.
“Not a whole lot else to do when you’re locked up in this place,” she says.
I expect Iris to say something about Raleigh’s open derision for the estate, or Thomas, or both. But Iris’s expression doesn’t so much as twitch.
“I guess,” I hedge. “But, well I mean, we’ve come to an… agreement.”
Raleigh’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “What agreement?”
I lick my lips. “Well… he told me that he planned to destroy my uncle’s businesses, and that if Uncle can’t afford to chase me anymore, I’ll actually be able to live the life I want to live. So… I’m going to try to help him.”
My mind shies away from the most direct confession- I agreed to help Thomas kill my uncle- because I still can’t accept that it has to end that way. We can ruin his businesses but leave him alive. We can get him imprisoned on one charge or another, if Thomas is making the alliances he’s hinted at. This doesn’t have to end in death, I lie to myself over and over.
Raleigh’s face has gone stony. I feel Iris’s attention on me too, but I don’t dare look away from my friend.
“You’re kidding me, right?” she asks. “After everything you said the other night- about not wanting to live the mafia life anymore- you’re just going along with Thomas’s plans?” I open my mouth to explain, but she barrels on. “He said he was trying to get you involved, but I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it.” Her eyes, so like her brother’s, pin me to my chair. “People are going to die, Clara. You realize that, right? And you’re suddenly fine with being responsible?”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” I say desperately, even though she’s saying aloud what I’ve been terrified of for two days. “So long as he doesn’t have the assets to use on tracking me down-”
“Do you hear how naive you sound?” Raleigh demands. “There’s no fighting the role you were born into. You either accept it or you run. Do you not even care about being an artist anymore?”
“Of course I do,” I insist, stunned by the vitriol in her tone. “That’s why I’m doing this! I can’t be free of my uncle if I just run. That was naive to think. But if I play the game for just a little while, I don’t have to run ever again.”
Raleigh barks a laugh. “Sure. That’s realistic.”
“Raleigh-”
She shoves back from the table, abandoning her half full plate. “You know what? Do what you want. Give up on all your plans- at least you had plans, right? That counts for something. At least I tried to move out on my own, even though I didn’t get very far, right?”
I flinch. If it weren’t for me, she’d still be living in her own house, whether Thomas was keeping a close eye on it or not. But no, maybe what she’s truly upset about is the inherent helplessness of our lives, how pathetic it is that we keep trying to gain our own autonomy and keep losing it. Maybe I’m just the only one she thinks will listen to this rage bubbling inside her.
My eyes sting with tears. “Raleigh,” I try again, my voice trembling. But she’s already storming back toward the house.
CHAPTER 19
Thomas
The day before the banquet is a quiet one for me. Too quiet, too full of time to fill with restless thoughts and doubts. I consider taking a drive to clear my thoughts, but what I really need to do is what I’ve been avoiding since I took her to the boutique- I need to have a conversation with Clara.
I’ve been going back and forth about how much I should tell her to expect from this banquet. On one hand, if she’s prepared, I can avoid awkward questions coming out in front of the other guests. On the other, if she’s prepared, it’s possible her reaction to being more than just arm candy won’t be genuine. And I need it to be genuine, because the perceived bond between us is the entire reason I’m bringing her.
