Page 23 of Girl, Reborn

The housekeeper flinched like she'd beenslapped. For a long, airless moment Ella thought she might shatter altogether,might collapse into glittering shards right there on the imported tile.

The housekeeper blinked, pulled back fromwhatever far shore she'd been walking.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, there'ssomething else.’

Ella and Luca shared a look, a crackle ofanticipation. Of dread, laced with the promise of revelation.

‘Something I probably should have told thepolice a long time ago. But I was just so scared, so sure they wouldn't...thathe'd...’

She trailed off, lost in some distant hellof memory and menace. Luca made an encouraging noise that steered her back ontrack.

‘Follow me,’ Alma said.

And then she was up, moving. A slip ofshadow, a drift of lemon polish and lavender Fabulouso on the stale air. Sheled them out of the kitchen and down a narrow hallway, footsteps hushed on theplush carpeting. They passed a series of closed doors – bedrooms, bathrooms,linen closets filled with overpriced sheets – before stopping at one Ellawould've pegged for a broom cupboard.

Alma produced a key from her pocket withshaking fingers and slotted it home. The lock disengaged with an audible snick,and the door swung inward on well-oiled hinges.

The room beyond was barely larger than awalk-in closet. Nearly every inch of wall space was taken up byfloor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with industrial-sized bottles of bleach,ammonia, drain cleaner. An arsenal of chemical warfare.

But Alma ignored the hazmat supplies,crossing straight to the far wall on unsteady legs.

There, at waist height, was a built-in rowof drawers. The kind handymen installed for stashing extension cords and spareoutlet covers. All the fiddly bits that kept a house humming.

Alma pulled one open, and the runnersshrieked in protest.

‘I collect Mr. Toledo's mail,’ she said.Her voice was far away, faded and brittle as an old photograph. Ella edgedcloser, trying to see over the other woman's hunched shoulders. Alma wasclutching something in one hand. An envelope, Ella realized.

No, more than one. A thick stack of themstuffed haphazardly into the drawer like the world's most depressing game ofTetris.

‘Every few weeks, like clockwork,these...these would come. I tried to throw them away, at first. Thought if Igot rid of them he'd never have to know. Never have to see the horrible thingsthey said.’

With shaking fingers, Alma plucked thefirst envelope free. Held it out to Ella, a wax-sealed warrant for a guiltyconscience.

Ella took it gingerly, hyperaware of thepotential for prints, for trace. Up close she could see the scrawl of RickyToledo's name and address, the lack of return labels. She slid the single sheetfree with a rasp of dry paper on dry paper.

The sheet inside was unremarkable. Plainwhite copy paper, the kind that jammed a thousand printers a day. But there, instark black strokes like spilled ink – a message. Short, crude, with the choppyprint of a child's scrawl.

YOU’RE DEAD.

‘Jesus,’ Luca breathed at her elbow. He'dpried open another envelope to reveal a matching threat, this one even pithier.

WATCH YOUR BACK.

Ella rifled through the rest with risinghorror. Each one worse than the last, a vicious promise repeated ad nauseum.

DIE DIE DIE.

YOU MADE A MISTAKE.

TRECHEROUS SCUM.

Death threats. Dozens of them, spanningGod only knew how long. A concentrated campaign of terror, all aimed squarelyat Ricky Toledo's smug, grinning face.

Ella looked up and met Luca's grimexpression. His jaw pulsed, the muscles jumping like a livewire. This changedthings. Shifted the playing field in a direction she wasn't sure she liked.

‘Did Mr. Toledo ever see these?’ Lucaasked, holding up a particularly lurid SLIT UR THROAT.

Alma shook her head miserably. ‘No. I...Icouldn't. He had so much on his plate already, the campaign, the council. Ididn't want to add to his stress.’

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