Page 2 of The Silence of Monsters

I leaned my head back and banged it on the wall in frustration. “If you won’t let her stay with me for a few days, then the very least you can do is come and get her yourself. If she’s feeling trapped and frustrated, the last thing she needs is to get hauled back to the Cove by your goons. Stop treating her like a subordinate and start treating her like your niece.”

I hung up the call before I said something I might regret.

Mostly, Win and I stayed in our respective bubbles and didn’t interact. We had no reason to. And since we easily enraged each other, there was no point. It was never far from my mind that if I spoke to the man the way I really wanted to and told him what I honestly thought about him and the way he was raising my niece, he could ruin me. The Hallidays had the means and mindset to crush the life out of anyone who wronged them with a mere phone call. Getting on Win’s bad side was never the best idea. Since I lived there permanently, I walked on eggshells around him to make sure I never pushed my luck so far that there was no coming back.

When I went back to the break room, I found my niece munching on snacks and holding a can of soda. It looked like my boss did his best to cheer her up and make her comfortable while I argued with Win.

I took a seat across from the teenager and forced a smile. “I talked to your uncle. He’s worried about you.”

Winnie snorted and rolled her eyes. “I bet he didn’t even know I was gone. He’s always working. He’s so busy, I haven’t seen his face for more than a couple of minutes in months.”

I cursed the man silently and reached out to bop the end of her nose. “You need to tell him you want to spend time with him. Running away doesn’t solve the problem.”

“You can’t tell me you believe that Uncle Win listens to anyone. You know him better than that.”

I let out a rough laugh. “You’re right. I don’t think he cares what anyone has to say. But you aren’t anyone, Winnie.” She was his family, a Halliday, which made her special.

Winnie made a face, showing she did not believe a word of what I just said. She took a drink of the sugary soda and set the can down on the table in front of her. “I’m sorry I showed up here unannounced. I remember where your old apartment is, but last time we talked, you told me you moved. You always move. I didn’t know where to look for you, Aunt Channing.” I wasn’t sure if she knew how much she’d just sounded like her uncle. I could hear Win in her accusatory tone.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve made sure you had my new address.” I moved more often than the average thirty-five-year-old woman.

I jumped into new relationships with both feet and a blind heart. I always optimistically believed whomever I was with would be the one. Which left me without a roof over my head once the relationship ended. I didn’t get married and divorced like it was a hobby, as Win suggested. However, I had two ex-husbands. I married and divorced both when I was too young to know better. After the trauma of those relationships, I now changed boyfriends as frequently as others changed the oil in their cars, trying to find my idea of happily ever after. My New Year’s resolution for this year, after I hit my mid-thirties, was to stay single until my birthday. So far, I managed to stick to it. For the first time in forever, I was living on my own, in a place I could afford with my sole income. It was the most responsible I’d felt in a long time, which made Win’s dismissive words toward me even more infuriating.

“Come on.” I shook off the dark mood that always followed conversations with Win and focused on my niece. “Let’s go to my apartment. We can figure out a way to handle your Uncle Chester on the way.”

Winnie laughed and followed me out of the fun, quirky store. “He hates it to death when you call him that.”

I grinned down at her. “I know.” I wrapped my arm around her thin shoulders as we walked toward my small apartment. “Do you want to tell me why it was suddenly so bad at home that you left without telling anyone?” She had always lived a life controlled down to the minute. The tradeoff was that she grew up with privilege only a handful of people would ever experience. Winnie had the very best of everything at her fingertips. Even if I didn’t like Win and his mother, I couldn’t argue that they gave Winnie a wealth of opportunities and experiences. As a teenager, she’d already been to Rome and Paris. I rarely ventured far from the East Coast.

She sniffed and looked down at the dirty sidewalk. “I hate it there. There are so many rules. There’s no privacy. Their expectations are too high. I failed an advanced math class, and Grandma told me she was looking into private schools overseas for me. I don’t feel like playing the piano. I don’t want to learn ballet. I don’t even know what a cotillion is, but she’s making me attend classes for one. I’m tired, Aunt Channing.” She gave her head a small shake and muttered, “Plus, I think that house is haunted. It gives me the creeps.”

I pulled her into a tight side hug and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “That is a lot.” It was too much. I agreed with her. “What do you mean, you think the house is haunted?”

My older sister and Win’s younger brother had passed away in a fire that ravaged their wing of the Halliday estate when Winnie was just a baby. I always thought it was an awful idea for the remaining family to rebuild and move on. They acted as if the tragedy had never happened. Of course, they would never leave the sprawling, opulent property that had been in their family for generations. It didn’t surprise me that Winnie felt spooked about staying under the same roof where her parents died.

“I keep hearing things. Thumps and bumps that sound like someone is hiding in the walls. And I swear, the other day when I was studying, I could hear someone singing. I looked in every room and wandered around the entire estate, but I couldn’t find where the sound was coming from. Grandma told me that I was making excuses to avoid studying. Uncle Win told me the house is hundreds of years old, so it’s going to make noises.”

I begrudgingly nodded in agreement. “I think your uncle is probably right. Old houses like that make strange noises. They moan and groan and even whistle. That’s how they speak their history. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Winnie sighed and shrugged her shoulders at my reassurance. She changed the subject so fast that I had to scramble to keep up with her.

“Grandma wants Uncle Win to get married. She keeps telling me he’s getting too old to start a family. She’s harping on him to settle down and have kids. He never responds to her, so she started inviting all these different women over for these fancy dinners and ambushing him with blind dates. Dinnertime was the only time Uncle Win would put down work and spend some normal time with me. Now, he rarely comes home before midnight. It’s so awkward and uncomfortable. I just want a regular family.”

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but there is no such thing as a regular family.”

Just look at mine.

My older sister was gone. My mother was institutionalized. My father was God knows where, shacked up with God knows who. Even though he and my mother were still very much married. I’d mostly been on my own since I was a teenager. Which is why I let myself fall in love so easily. I was always trying to fill in the holes in my heart that my fractured family left behind.

“You’re too young to realize that all the privilege you have now is going to ensure not only you, but whomever you bring into your life, have a promising future. It’s much better to have too much than not enough, Winnie.”

She sniffed again and wrapped her arm around my waist. “But all I want is my mom and dad.”

Her words stabbed into the center of my chest. I felt tears sting my eyes as I pulled her closer. “I know, sweetie. I wish more than anything that’s something I could give you.”

Even with all the money and connections in the world, it was impossible for Winchester Halliday to bring the dead back to life. If he could, he would resurrect his younger brother in a heartbeat.

We were equally helpless to give our niece the thing she desperately wanted above all else. That was the only commonality we shared.

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