Page 22 of Atonement

He shrugged “Whatever you want—within reason.” The latter half of his sentence punctuated the swing of my head toward Madeline. Of course not.

“I want to leave.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it.”

“I was never stopping you.”

Bullshit.

Maddie spoke around a bite of potatoes. “What’s the solution?”

Conrad winked at her as he cut off another sliver of steak. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head. It was rude of my son to discuss business matters at the dinner table.”

“I thought you never talked about anything else.” She tapped her fork against the plate as she studied him. Trying to see how far she should push before he snapped.

“Sure we do.”

“Like what? The children you’re kidnapping off the street and keeping as pleasure slaves?”

He set aside his utensils and wiped his mouth slowly, deliberately, before dropping the napkin to his lap.

“That’s an excellent segue to what I would like to talk about, actually.” He reached into his jacket, rustling around in the inner pocket. “I would like for someone to explain how this letter came to be hidden in Meyer’s house.” He held up a piece of paper by one corner, as if afraid of touching it too much.

I was past not being able to breathe; my lungs felt like they’d been removed from my body entirely. He had the letter Eva wrote to Madeline. The letter that told of all his crimes against her, what happened after she left, and of course her visit to me in the hospital.

Conrad was still looking at Madeline. “Did you know, it actually wasn’t when my son made his dramatic little suicide attempt that I found her. It was pure coincidence—a private investigator finally dug her up. I can’t believe she buried herself so well when the only person she had to help her was a high-school dropout working for minimum wage at a paper factory.”

“You had no right to read that,” I finally managed to choke out. I hadn't even gotten to read it. I didn't dare. Conrad regarded me impassively.

“Everything you have belongs to me. That includes her, and it includes this letter. What I really want to know is how this came to be in your possession in the first place?”

I exhaled too loudly, but didn’t speak.

Madeleine spoke, giving me precious time to think. “Maybe your security isn’t—”

“Hush!” He didn’t look at her as he brought his hand down on the table, silverware and glasses rattling all the way to the far end. “I’m speaking to my son.”

“She gave it to me.” I swallowed, stilling the tremble in his voice. “Eva.”

“And how exactly did she come to see you?”

I shook my head, looking down and away. “I misspoke. It was mailed. I never saw her.”

“I might have believed that for the letter you had. But this was still in its envelope. No address. Just a name.”

The steak on my plate bled red across the white porcelain. I pressed my finger into the blood and brought the salty liquid to my lips. "Maybe she bribed the mailman to put it in my box."

"Oh, I doubt that very much." Conrad resumed eating, bringing a chunk of pink meat to his mouth. "You should know by now that I review all your mail before you get it, Meyer."

Of course he did. I knew that, somewhere in the back of my brain. Some part of me always tried to hold on to every little illusion of freedom, knowing eventually it would be snatched away.

"I'll ask you one more time, which is more leeway than I usually give. How did you get this letter?"

"I brought it with me," Madeleine interjected.

Conrad snorted. "That's pathetic. You were in your underwear when you disappeared into the back of my son's car. You mean to tell me your mother had preemptively written you a note regarding your kidnapping and that you hid it in your bra for safekeeping?"

---