Page 59 of Their Arrangement
“She was talking to her,” I added. “Brought that photo. The one from her birthday dinner. You know the one.”
He didn’t speak.
“She cried,” I said, voice lower now. “Said she missed her. Said she tried.”
Still nothing.
I let the silence hang.
Then:
“I shoved her into the headstone.”
His head snapped up.
His eyes—ice cold.Sharpened.
“What?”
“She didn’t fall,” I clarified. “But she felt it.”
“You touched her?”
I shrugged. “She was saying things she shouldn’t.”
Barron stood.
Slow.
Controlled.
His hands braced on the desk like it was the only thing keeping him from losing it.
“You don’t get to decide what Camille meant to her,” he said.
“Neither do you.”
“Then why the fuck did you go?” he snapped.
“Because you won’t.”
That landed.
He didn’t say it, but I felt the energy shift.
“You keep pretending like she’s just another intern,” I said. “But you see her. You watch her. You don’t fire her. You dress her down, and then leave the door unlocked so she can come back in.”
His jaw clenched tighter. A tic in his cheek.
“She smells like her, Barron.”
His eyes closed. Just once.
“She walks like her. Until she doesn’t. And then it’s worse.”
I stepped forward. One step.
“She’s not Camille.”
