By the time the car drops me at the estate gates, the last of the fireworks are smearing the sky over the harbor.
The peninsula below glows in pockets—boat lights still winking, bonfires on the beach, the hospital on the hill shining like an immaculate lighthouse. Up here, the Mercer house watches everything, its glass walls reflecting Harbor Glen back at itself. When the driver opens my door, cold air rushes in, smelling of wet stone and distant woodsmoke.
“Thank you,” I murmur, pulling my coat tighter. My borrowed boots are back in my tote bag, replaced by the heels Evelyn picked for me earlier. My feet hate me again in seconds.
The foyer doors sweep open before I reach them. Warmth and the scent of citrus polish and evergreen hit me like a stage cue. Louise, the evening housekeeper, stands just inside, hands folded.
“Mrs. Mercer,” she says. “We were wondering if you’d made it back with the crowd.”
“Traffic was slow around the docks.” My voice lands lightly, the way I practiced. “I needed a minute, that’s all.”
The foyer is a magazine spread: massive tree glittering with white lights and glass ornaments, the Mercer crest looping through the garlands like a signature. The grand staircase curves up in a perfect arc, its cream runner stitched with that same abstract wave. Above us, a chandelier scatters soft light over everything, erasing shadows where it can.
I shrug off my coat. “Is Daniel back yet?”
“He and Mrs. Mercer returned with the first wave of guests.” Louise moves to take the coat. “They’re in the blue parlor, waiting for the kitchen tray. Coffee, dessert bites. She asked if you’d mind bringing it up?”
Of course she did.
“Sure,” I say. “Happy to help.”
Louise gives me a look that says I know what that means here and leads me toward the kitchen. As we pass the base of the grand staircase, the runner gleams under the chandelier, smooth and perfect. My throat tightens without warning. The image hits my brain in a flash: that same curve, one long slide, my body at the bottom like a broken ornament.
I force myself to keep walking.
In the kitchen, the staff is already breaking down from the earlier event. Steam rises from industrial sinks, mingling with the smell of coffee, butter, and dish soap. Someone has put on low music from a local station; a DJ counts down the top hits of the year while a dishwasher hums along.
On the island, a silver tray waits, loaded with a coffee pot, cream, sugar, and a plate of petit fours in Mercer colors: navy, white, a faint coral ribbon of jelly in the center. Little edible brand statements.
“I can take it up,” I say, picking it up with both hands. The metal is cool against my palms, the weight reassuringly solid. “They’re in the blue parlor?”
“Second floor landing, to the right,” Louise says. She lowers her voice. “Watch your step. The wax on the stairs is fresh.”
My chest gives a small, traitorous jump. “I’ll be careful.”
I step back into the foyer, tray balanced, coffee scent curling up into my face. The house hums quietly—the soft whir of the heating system, the murmur of distant conversation, a faint, ever-present echo of the sea smashing itself against the cliffs below. The grand staircase rises in front of me, thirty polished steps curving to the landing where the family’s smiling portraits begin.
Everyday task, I tell myself. People carry trays up stairs in this house every night. I place my foot on the first step.
The runner feels plush and steady under my heel. I climb slowly, counting the steps in my head, syncing my breath to the numbers. Ten. Twelve. Fifteen. My hands tighten around the tray, metal edge digging into my fingers. Coffee sloshes gently in the pot but doesn’t spill.
At the midway curve, the staircase opens out over the foyer, the drop to the marble floor directly below me. The chandelier’s crystals hang at eye level now, catching bits of my reflection between their facets. I focus on the next step.
Seventeen.
The carpet under my foot gives.
One second I’m stepping forward, the next the runner slides under my heel, silk against silk, a sickening lurch of fabric and gravity. The tray tilts. Cups skid, porcelain clinking like teeth. The coffee pot pitches sideways.
My stomach throws itself into my throat.
My right leg shoots forward, searching for purchase that isn’t there. The tray yanks me off-balance. For a fraction of a breath, my body hangs suspended over the open stairwell, weight tipped toward the drop.
“No—” The word tears out of me, raw and useless.
Instinct takes over. I wrench my left hand off the tray and slam it into the banister. Pain explodes through my palm and up my arm, white-hot. The edge of the wooden rail bites into my ribs. My hip smashes into the newel post. Something cracks—wood, not bone, I pray.
The tray goes flying.
Silver flashes in my peripheral vision, then clangs against the steps, metal screaming against marble. Cups shatter, sugar cubes scatter, coffee splashes my ankle in a scalding arc. Petit fours bounce down the stairs like pastel stones.
I hang there, torso twisted, half my weight over the void, the rest anchored in the bruising grip of my fingers on the rail. Breath burns in my lungs. The runner is bunched under my right foot now, folded into a treacherous ridge.
Below me, broken porcelain gleams on the foyer floor.
Above me, near the top of the stairs, something moves.
I drag my head up, neck protesting. At the edge of the landing, just beyond the chandelier’s glow, a shadow pulls back—shoulders, a hint of pale sleeve, then nothing. The sound is soft but unmistakable: the sigh of weight eased off carpet, the click of a door easing shut.
“Hey!” My voice cracks. “Who’s—”
“Hannah?” Daniel’s shout slices through the house from the right. “Hannah!”
Footsteps hammer toward the foyer from two directions at once—Daniel from the parlor corridor, Louise from the service hallway. My grip on the rail screams in protest, fingers slick with a mix of sweat and coffee.
“Don’t move,” Daniel calls. “I’m coming—don’t move.”
“Fantastic advice,” I mutter between clenched teeth.
He bursts into view at the base of the stairs, tuxedo jacket open, bow tie tugged loose. His face goes bloodless when he takes in the scene: the shattered cups, the coffee, my body slung over the banister like a dropped marionette.
“Jesus, Hannah.” His voice drops low, tight. “Okay. Okay. Hold on.”
He takes the steps two at a time, ignoring Louise’s protest behind him.
“Mr. Mercer, please—”
“Louise, call someone to get this mess cleaned up,” he snaps. “Then bring a towel for her hand.”
The wood under my palm has started to pulse in time with my heartbeat. My ribs throb where they hit the rail. Beneath my right foot, the runner still feels wrong—loose where it should be taut, the edge lifted just enough to catch.
Daniel reaches me, sliding in behind my back, his hands bracketing my waist. “On three,” he says near my ear. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m not letting go of this rail,” I say.
“You don’t have to.” His fingers dig in, solid and familiar. “Just shift your weight back toward me, okay? I’ll do the rest.”
I count with him under my breath. One. Two. Three.
I push backward, hauling on the banister. Pain flares through my side. Daniel pulls, hard, anchoring me against his chest. For a moment the world narrows to the feel of his arms, the smell of his cologne cut with coffee and floor polish.
Then both my feet land on solid wood again. The runner squishes under my soles, still bunched.
I breathe. Once. Twice.
Louise arrives with a white towel and a worried expression. “Oh, Mrs. Mercer,” she says. “The wax. I warned—”
“It wasn’t the wax,” I say.
Daniel eases me a step up, away from the worst of the spilled coffee. “Let’s get you sitting down,” he says. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.” I’m not. My legs vibrate with leftover adrenaline, and my hand throbs against the towel. But a different kind of energy is rising under the fear now, cold and bright.
I turn and look down. The runner has peeled away from the side of the steps in a jagged line. Near the edge of the tread where my heel slipped, a brass tack lies glittering on the wood, head dented. Two more glint farther down, near the curve. The holes where they used to sit are visible—clean, empty.
Those tacks did not leap out on their own.
Behind us, a familiar voice carries across the foyer, cool and controlled. “What on earth is going on?”
Evelyn appears below, framed by the archway that leads to the parlor hall. Her gown tonight is deep green, velvet catching the light, the Mercer crest winking from a pendant at her throat. She takes in the shattered china, the coffee, the angle of the runner, me clinging to Daniel.
Her eyes widen by a calibrated degree.
“Hannah.” She moves to the base of the stairs. “Are you hurt?”
“We’ve got it,” Daniel says. “She slipped.”
“The runner moved,” I say, keeping my gaze on Evelyn. “It slid under my foot. Someone pulled the tacks.”
For half a second, something sharp flickers behind her eyes. Then her expression smooths into concern.
“That carpet is older than you are, dear,” she says. “We’ve been meaning to replace it. I’m so sorry we didn’t do it sooner. Louise, call maintenance at once. I want this hazard secured immediately.”
Her tone on the second sentence shifts, not louder, but edged with steel. Louise nods quickly and retreats.
“I warned her the wax was fresh,” Louise says to Evelyn as she goes, trying to give me cover.
“Fresh wax does not pull tacks out of wood,” I say.
Evelyn’s gaze flicks to the scattered brass pins, then back to my face. “Thank goodness you’re all right,” she says. “A fall from that height…” She lets the sentence trail off, glancing meaningfully toward the marble floor below.
I follow her gaze. For a moment, I see my body down there, limbs at wrong angles, paramedics shaking their heads before wheeling me out under the watchful eyes of Mercer donor portraits.
My fingers curl tighter in the towel.
“We should get you checked out at the hospital,” Daniel says, already moving toward protective mode. “Your ribs—”
“No,” I cut in. “I’m bruised, not broken. I don’t need Harbor Glen Memorial putting my name on another chart tonight.”
Evelyn’s brows lift a fraction. “Hannah, darling, our doctors—”
“Our doctors write very thorough narratives,” I say. “I’d prefer one less chapter.”
The air in the foyer shifts, just a degree colder. Daniel glances between us, confusion tightening his jaw.
“She’s shaken,” he says to his mother. “She just had a fall, she just—”
“A near-fall,” I correct. “Almost accidents seem to be a pattern around here.”
The words hang in the double-height space, heavier than the chandelier.
Evelyn’s eyes narrow the tiniest amount before she turns to the nearest footman hovering in the doorway. “Bring Mrs. Mercer a glass of water,” she says. “And have maintenance here within ten minutes. I want this entire staircase inspected. Every tack, every step.”
Her tone leaves no room for argument. The staff scatters to obey.
“Of course,” I say. “Wouldn’t want anyone else hurt.”
Our eyes meet again. Her smile doesn’t reach them this time.
“Accidents happen in old houses by the sea,” she says lightly. “The air here corrodes everything a little faster. Salt, wind, time.” She reaches out, brushing a bit of coffee-stained porcelain off the stair with the toe of her shoe. “We’re very fortunate you have such quick reflexes.”
My ribs throb where they hit the rail. I picture the car skidding on black ice on the back road Daniel recommended, the guardrail scrape, the drop beyond. I picture the loosened tacks glittering like teeth.
“Some people are just lucky,” she adds softly.
I hold her gaze and let the silence between us fill with all the things we’re not saying.
“I’ll walk her to the sitting room,” Daniel says finally. “Then I’ll help with the cleanup.”
“That’s not necessary,” Evelyn replies, but there’s a note in her voice that says she’s weighing appearances. “On second thought, yes. Of course. Let people see we take care of our own.”
The phrase curls under my skin like a hook.
Daniel guides me up the remaining steps, hand firm at my back. The runner squishes under our feet, already re-smoothed by Louise’s hands in a quick, efficient pass. Someone has picked up the visible tacks, but I saw them. I know.
“You really scared me,” Daniel says when we reach the landing. His voice is low now, just for me. “You could have—”
“Died,” I finish. “I know.”
“We’ve talked about being careful,” he says. “Those heels on these stairs—”
I stop and turn to face him. “This wasn’t my shoes,” I say. “The carpet was pulled.”
He hesitates. “It’s old.”
“Old carpets don’t un-nail themselves in three places at the exact center of the tread,” I say. “Somebody did that. Somebody in this house.”
His fingers flex on my arm. “You’re upset.”
“I’m alive,” I say. “That’s the bar now, apparently.”
For a moment, anger flares in his eyes—not at me, but at something larger, harder to grab. “I’ll talk to maintenance,” he says. “We’ll get a report. Maybe the nails just worked loose, the wood swelled, the—”
“Daniel.”
He looks at me, really looks, and I watch the fight between his training and his instincts play out across his face. The part of him that’s been told his whole life that Mercers are protected by providence and good lawyers; the part that watched me nearly go over the edge of a road, then over the edge of a staircase, in the space of days.
“Okay,” he says quietly at last. “Okay. We’ll be careful. Extra careful.”
That is not the same as him saying, I believe someone is trying to hurt you.
But it’s closer than before.
In the blue parlor, I lower myself onto a sofa, every bruise protesting. Daniel fetches ice for my ribs. Evelyn drifts in to check on me once, pressing cool fingers to my wrist like she’s feeling for a pulse in more than blood.
“Rest,” she says. “Tomorrow is a new day.”
When she leaves, I see her stop in the doorway and speak to a maintenance man waiting in the hall. I can’t catch every word, but I hear, “Secure that hazard,” in a tone that brooks no misinterpretation.
Later, when the house quiets and Daniel goes to brush his teeth, I sneak back to the staircase in my socks.
The runner has been re-stretched, perfectly aligned, every edge flush. New tacks glint in the low light at the baseboards. But on the third step from where I slipped, a faint scratch mars the wood where the old tack head was pried up—an arc too clean to be accidental.
I crouch, ribs screaming, and run my finger over it. The mark is fresh. No dust in the groove, no wax.
Someone took tools to this house to adjust my odds tonight.
The air smells faintly of cleaning solvent and lemon oil, but under it I still catch the salt through the vent, the ghost of hospital disinfectant that clings to everything the Mercers touch. Love and harm, same hands. Charity and attempted murder sharing the same staircase.
In my pocket, my phone buzzes—a new encrypted message from Riley, the preview line truncated: Confirm you made it back. Any sign of…
I straighten slowly, every bruise burning into focus.
“Yeah,” I whisper to the empty foyer. “There was a sign.”
I take one last look up the length of the staircase, at the shadows pooling on the top landing where that figure disappeared, and tuck the image next to the black ice, the loosened tacks, the trust document, the second daughter, the missing baby.
If I don’t move first, the house is going to move me.
Next time, it might not stop at bruises.