Page 64 of A Thin Line

And I was trying to release the overwhelming disappointment I felt that I couldn’t share it with him tonight.

When I’d brought the book to breakfast the next morning, Sinclair all but dismissed it, as if forgetting our earlier conversation. He said, “I’ll try to get to it” before returning to that day’s WSJ. But when we left for our respective jobs, he did take it with him and seemed to glance at the description on the back.

It gave me a little hope.

Returning to the dungeon, I wanted nothing more than to pick up where I’d left off with the red journal—and I also wanted to go through the rest of what was in the trunk; but, if I did that, I’d really have to fudge the details of what I’d done down here, and it might be obvious that I hadn’t been doing the work I’d agreed to do. While I couldn’t remember if slacking off was technically a breach of contract, I thought that might be one of the things I wasn’t supposed to do. And although I’d never signed another contract in my life, I knew there were real consequences that came with breaking them. I didn’t want to be separated from my father for more than ten years, something I believed Sinclair would have no problem asserting, but that was just the beginning. It was my hope that, if I could be viewed as a good employee who did what she was told, I could earn privileges—like seeing my father on occasion during my restitution.

As it was, I still needed to get Sinclair to agree to have my father taken to the clinic in Colorado Springs in October—but I was waiting for the perfect moment to again broach the subject.

When I reached the bottom of the now-solid staircase, I surveyed the room. It really didn’t look like I’d done much, considering there were boxes and big things everywhere. So I decided to tackle more of the boxes, because I’d discovered with the few I’d already opened that many of them only had a few items in them. I was trying to organize by category, but it was difficult when almost everything seemed to be decorative rather than functional.

I opened a bigger box first—one in front of all the others—and nearly gasped at its contents. Framed photographs. But, as I lifted one after another, that wasn’t all. There were also several photo albums and loose snapshots on the bottom.

All those personal pictures I’d asked Sinclair about and they were all right here, neglected and forgotten about. There were some old black-and-white photos that I couldn’t date but, if I’d had to guess, were early 1900s—a man, a woman, both unsmiling, and another photo of four children, among others. Some of the color photos had that sepia tone, looking much older, but the facial resemblance among many of the people was undeniable.

These were pictures of the Whittier family.

As if to confirm my suspicions, I found lots of pictures of the two older Whittier boys, as well as their mother and father—together and separate and even of the whole family pre-Sinclair. But what I found odd was that there were few pictures of Sinclair and also not many of the older boys past early adolescence—which led me to hope I might find other boxes of photos down here.

I spent far too long looking in the photo albums, making the same discovery. Then it dawned on me: Sinclair’s mother died when he was a baby—and perhaps she had been the main chronicler of their visual history. Her husband had seemed to lack much emotion, so I doubted he cared about capturing pictures of his sons in their youth. Had all that died with Sinclair’s mother?

Even if I believed so, why was everything down here? Hadn’t his brothers wanted any of the pictures? Why weren’t they displayed throughout the mansion? Considering they were in frames far superior to anything I’d ever owned, I knew they must have been hung in the mansion at one time.

Why not now?

Another mystery about Sinclair I hoped to understand at some point.

Once again, though, I’d allowed myself to get slowed down by my curiosity, so I spent the rest of the day cataloging bigger items, moving them to their spots, and then evaluating their worth on Mrs. Whittier’s laptop.

One painting in particular I suspected was quite valuable—another reason why it shouldn’t have been stored down here untended. It was by an artist named Ellen Downey, someone I’d never heard of. But I looked her up and, in the past five years, she’d become quite respected, her paintings desired by the rich and famous. One painting sold at an auction for over one million dollars—so if this was one of her earlier works, I didn’t know how much it would bring, but surely her current celebrity status would increase its value.

Unfortunately, I had no time to return to the journal—but there was always tomorrow.

I wasn’t sure if I should say anything about what I’d found or wait for the weekly turning in of the tracking sheet to advise Sinclair of the painting.

I decided dinner would be the perfect time. Not only would it show that I had, in fact, been working, but I thought it would underscore my value.

I’d spent so much time downstairs, I only had a few minutes to clean up for dinner—and I already knew Sinclair expected punctuality. After changing clothes and taking my hair out of its ponytail, I rushed downstairs to the dining room, ready to share news of my day’s work.

When I entered the dining room, I knew I had barely made it on time—mainly because of the way Sinclair glanced at his watch and scowled but didn’t say a thing. His furrowed brow made him appear intimidating but oh, so gorgeous. Edna rolled her cart in right behind me, placing drinks and salads in front of us, along with the usual basket of bread and selection of dressings.

We ate in silence for a bit, which I found unusual, because Sinclair usually had plenty to say—so I decided to go ahead and talk. “The project downstairs is going well. And thank you again for having the stairs fixed.”

No actual words seemed to come out of his mouth as he instead grunted an unintelligible reply.

If I wasn’t mistaken, he was…grouchy, for lack of a better word.

So I decided to ask a question instead. “Have you heard of the painter Ellen Downey?”

“No. I don’t pay much attention to contemporary artists. I have interior designers worry about that.”

Was this another one of his ways to lord over me the fact that he had unending sums of money to play with? But I finished chewing my bite of salad, hoping to let that little flair of annoyance go before talking again. “Well…she happens to be famous and respected and, nowadays, her paintings sell for millions of dollars.”

He simply looked over the rim of his glass and, as he lowered it to the table, raised his eyebrows in question—but still didn’t speak.

“You own one of her early paintings. I found it downstairs today.”

Still, he appeared unmoved. “Obviously someone here didn’t find her art so captivating.”

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