Page 3 of Restoration

Jumping out of bed, I pull my soft, knit pajama pants farther up over my hips and run into the hallway with messy hair and bare feet.

The hall is empty. After a minute of peering around and listening, I spot Alicia in the doorway of her room down the hall, wearing slippers and a bathrobe.

“What was that?” I ask.

“I don’t know. It sounded like something falling over.”

We both go to investigate and don’t have to search very far to discover the source of the sound.

Edmund is on the floor next to a fallen marble-topped console table with delicately carved legs. Beside him is the smashed and scattered remains of a large vase of flowers.

He’s sitting up amid the ruins, blinking in bewilderment.

Jeff, one of the security guys who works nights, has run inside, leaving the front door open. He’s leaning over, extending a helping hand that Edmund appears oblivious to.

“What on earth?” I ask with a gasp.

“I fell down,” Edmund announces. His expression is blank, and his eyes are too dark, as if his pupils are overly dilated.

He must have stumbled and tried to use the console table for balance, but it wasn’t stable enough to support his weight.

He doesn’t appear to be injured. Just stunned and weirdly dazed.

Greg comes jogging down the hall from the garage. When he sees what happened, he says, “I’m sorry. He’s high or something, but he said he was fine to walk.”

Increasingly concerned, I kneel down on the floor beside my boss. “Edmund!” I reach over to turn his face toward me. “Hey, Edmund! What did you take?”

He blinks several times like he’s trying to figure out what’s happening. “I don’t know. Some pill. Kontessa said it would...”

I bite back a groan of exasperation and glance up to meet Greg’s eyes. “Where is she?”

“She took off, and Worth said he wanted to come home.”

“We had a fight,” Edmund says, pronouncing every syllable carefully.

I’m relieved he’s able to think enough to put the situation in context and articulate clearly.

“I’ll call the doctor,” Alicia says, turning around to head for a phone.

Edmund has always used a concierge doctor who makes house calls to the wealthy in the area. “Yeah,” I say. “Better to be safe. Edmund, can you stand up?”

“Of course I can stand up.” He glares at me indignantly. “I’m thirty years old.”

“I know you are. Thirty is way too old for this nonsense. What were you thinking, taking a pill you didn’t know anything about?”

“Kontessa said—”

“I can just imagine what she said. It’s still stupid.” I stand up and stretch an arm out. He takes my hand and then Jeff’s, and together we haul him to his feet.

He wobbles briefly but then stabilizes himself. “I feel like my feet are in the sky.”

“That’s because you took that ridiculous pill.”

“Don’t be grumpy with me.” He frowns and reaches out to touch my shoulder. “I don’t like it when you’re grumpy.”

“Well then, the best thing is for you to not do things that make me grumpy.”

“Oh.” Edmund blinks a few more times. “How will I know what they are?”

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