Page 163 of The Seven Rings
“Don’t worry. I’m going to. She made a mistake. She made a mistake showing me how she turned the wonderful into the awful. She did that to you, to you and all the others, and I never forget that. But tonight? She vandalized—real or not—she vandalized art. My father’s art. Collin’s, too, but she should never have used my father’s work that way.
“She made a very big mistake,” Sonya said, and closed the door.
She slept poorly, but she slept. At her desk, she worked in fits and starts, but she worked.
When Cleo came out, Yoda got out from under the desk, anticipating his next outdoor romp.
“Coffee first, but then I want to see those pictures again. I’ve got an idea about…” Eyes narrowing, Cleo stepped closer. “Something’s wrong. Not the baby, Anna—”
“No, no, in fact Trey sent a couple more pictures.”
“Then what? Something’s wrong. It’s all over you.”
“Get your coffee.”
“Screw coffee.”
Sonya shook her head, and pushed away from the desk. “Let’s go down. I could use another hit myself. We can have coffee in the garden. I’ll tell you what happened.”
“Shit. More than seeing Owen and Agatha? What did I sleep through?”
“Outside.” Sonya patted her arm. “Coffee and air.”
“All right. You’ve got shadows under your eyes.”
“I didn’t sleep very well.”
As they passed the servants’ door, they heard the distant ringing of the bell. Though it felt like a weak salute, Sonya just shot up a middle finger and kept going.
But she stopped at the music room as she had on her first trip down that morning. As it had then, everything looked perfectly in place.
“Something in here then,” Cleo murmured. “Go on out, sit in the air. I’ll bring the coffee.”
“Thanks.”
And the air felt wonderful. Sitting in the sunlight with the scent of flowers eased some of the fatigue.
When Cleo brought out the coffee, Sonya took the first sip, then nodded. “Just what I needed, sunshine, flowers, more coffee, and Cleo.”
“What did Dobbs do?”
“Cleo, she’s so cruel. That’s not news, but something like last night just cements it. When I left you to go back to bed, Yoda needed to go out,” she began.
Cleo didn’t interrupt, just reached out, took Sonya’s free hand in hers.
“Not just to scare you,” Cleo said when Sonya finished, “but tohurt you. To wring your emotions, to shock and hurt and frighten. To make you see, not just their death, but what death does. And to do it through your father’s art, Collin’s and your dad’s art.”
“There’s a bull’s-eye. I wanted to run, Cleo.”
“Of course you did. I wish I’d come down with you. I wish you hadn’t gone through it alone. The sound effects? I didn’t hear anything. I know I sleep good, Son, but not that good. What you described? It would’ve woken, well, the dead.”
“Just for me then. She didn’t want you to wake up and look for me, to be there with me. She did exactly what you said. Shocked, frightened, hurt. I was sick, Cleo, nearly physically sick right there in the doorway.”
“It stopped at three?”
“The clock chimed, and it stopped. Everything stopped, for a few seconds anyway. Then, it was like all the other nights. Only I watched the piano keys play. It was like—”
Pausing, she shifted to face Cleo.
