Page 31 of The Villains We Make

Closing the box, I get up to go downstairs but the house is unexpectedly still. When I call out to Silas, he doesn’t answer. When I near the kitchen, though, I hear the sound of the TV. I enter, expecting to find Silas but instead see Hamish sitting at the counter watching CNN on the TV against the far wall.

As soon as he sees me, he switches it off and stands. “Mrs. Cruz, good morning.”

I almost correct his assumption that I will take Silas’s name, but I’m distracted by the snippet I heard before he switched the TV off. “Good morning. Is Silas here?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

His forehead creases, and he hesitates, holding out a cell phone instead. “He told me to give you this and asked you to call Ms. Gibson.”

I take the phone. It’s the same one I used to call Mr. Higgins last night. “Where did he go?” I ask, knowing already, anxiety building in my chest, because he told me his plan and if he’s not here, it can only mean one thing.

“You should make the call,” Hamish says.

“What were you watching?”

“Mrs. Cruz?—”

“What were you watching?” I ask again, more forcefully this time. I reach past him for the remote and switch on the TV before he has a chance to answer. And there, on the news, I see Silas. It’s not live and according to the anchor, it was filmed late last night.

“Silas Cruz, wanted on charges of arson and kidnapping was arrested last night at Massachusetts General Hospital. He’s currently being held without bail. It is widely speculated that he came to see Horatio Hart who, within weeks of beginning to serve his decade-long sentence for embezzlement, was stabbed during a prison brawl. Hart was recovering after surgery at Mass General. But in a wild turn of events, Hart has confessed to having hired the men who set his own home ablaze. This story grows stranger and stranger.” The last part she says to her co-anchor before turning back to the TV. “Stay tuned for more breaking news?—”

Hamish takes the remote and switches off the TV.

“You should call Ms. Gibson.”

I grip the edge of the counter.

“Mrs. Cruz? Are you all right?”

I look up at him. The warmth I’d felt upstairs, the strange sense of something being right after last night, has evaporated. In its place is a cold that leaves me shivering.

My father hired someone to burn down our house? I don’t understand.

Hamish takes the phone from me, and a moment later, Nigella’s voice comes over the speaker.

“Ophelia? Are you there?” she asks.

I blink, pick up the phone, taking it off speaker. “Is it true?”

“Well, Silas was arrested,” she says, but that’s not the part I’m asking about. She mutters something about having told Silas it was a bad idea. “His bail hearing isn’t for another hour. I’ll be at the courthouse until then and will call you with any more information.”

“My father. Where is he?”

“He’s still at the hospital.”

“Did he… Did he set that fire?”

She hesitates for a moment before speaking. “I don’t know, hon.”

I disconnect the call and look at Hamish. “I need a car.”

“No, ma’am, I can’t let you go anywhere. Mr. Cruz’s orders.”

“Of course they are.” I shake my head, take the phone, and scroll to find Mr. Higgins’s cell phone number. I notice there was an outbound call to it late last night. Later than when I’d called him. Had Silas contacted him? I hit dial. Mr. Higgins answers right away.

“This is John Higgins,” he says.

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