I don’t try to go to bed right away.
After Daniel’s footsteps fade upstairs, the living room settles into a silence that hums in my ears. The fire sinks into a low orange glow, more coal than flame now, and the windows reflect my shape back at me instead of the harbor. I sit there long enough for the hot chocolate to turn thick and cool, long enough for my own reflection to start looking like someone I don’t quite recognize—so I stand up before I talk myself out of moving.
The rug is soft under my bare feet, but the hardwood beyond it bites with cold. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and pick up my mug, then abandon it on a side table when the smell of cooled cocoa curdles my stomach. Somewhere in the distance, the house creaks, the old bones of the place shifting on the cliff. Wind presses against the glass, low and steady, like the sea is breathing on the other side.
I tell myself I’m just walking off the fight. Just getting my heart rate back to normal before I crawl into bed next to the man who thinks I’m turning his life into a conspiracy theory.
The Mercer crest greets me even in the hallway—etched into a brass sconce plate, woven into the runner’s border, that same abstract wave over and over, curling and recurling. I trail my fingers along the wall instead of the design, counting door frames to keep my hands busy. The air here smells like beeswax and fir, the nice front-of-house scent, curated for donors and family.
When I reach the main gallery that leads toward the kitchen, the air changes. A faint current of something savory, leftover from dinner—garlic and butter, maybe—threads through, cut with lemon and the sharper sting of industrial cleaner. Underneath that, the familiar tang of salt and woodsmoke leaks from somewhere, joining the thin medicinal bite that always seems to drift in from the hospital on the hill. Harbor Glen in one breath.
I’m about to turn back toward the guest wing when I hear it.
A clink. Then another. The dull, rhythmic sound of plates stacking, coming from deeper in the house. Not the main kitchen, where everything is stainless steel and choreographed efficiency, but somewhere behind it. A back channel.
I hesitate. I know there’s a whole second maze back there—the service corridors I only glimpsed when Evelyn did her grand tour and then steered me politely away.
We like to keep staff traffic separate, dear. It keeps everything running smoothly.
Translation: Stay in your lane.
My insomnia and my temper team up and tug me forward. I follow the clinking, my steps lighter now, toes curling for traction on the slick wood. The overhead lights thin out as I go, giving way to a softer, more utilitarian glow. At the end of the hallway, a narrower passage breaks off to the right, painted the same pale color but scuffed near the baseboards.
I pause at the corner and peer around.
This is the artery I haven’t been invited into. The ceiling drops a few inches, the floors switch from polished wood to linoleum softened by years of footsteps. There’s a bulletin board half-covered with neat notices—holiday schedule, foundation event reminders, a flyer about staff parking near the back road that bypasses the town center. Someone has pinned a brochure from the “Light the Harbor” boat parade near the bottom, the Mercer crest stamped on the sponsor line.
The clink of dishes comes again, louder now, along with the whoosh of a dishwasher cycling, the low buzz of a fluorescent light. Voices float toward me, weaving in and out of the mechanical sounds.
“—told you, I don’t want to talk about it,” one says. A woman’s voice, low, with a Harbor Glen lilt that rounds her vowels.
“You brought her up,” another answers, this one older, roughened with smoke or age or both. “Mentioned the tree and then you get skittish.”
I flatten myself against the wall, pulse thudding in my throat. I shouldn’t eavesdrop. I’ve already been accused of snooping tonight. But my feet root to the tile.
I edge forward until I find the source of the sound: a partly open door, light spilling through the crack. The smell of dish soap and wet ceramic pours out, along with a fresher hit of citrus from recently scrubbed counters. I can just make out the industrial gleam of a staff dish room beyond.
I don’t want to spy on anyone washing plates. I tell myself I’ll just turn around.
Then I hear it.
“I still see her sometimes,” the older voice says. “Coming around that corner by the study with those little socks sliding on the floor. Drives me mad that I can picture that but I’m supposed to pretend—”
The younger woman cuts in. “Shh. You’ll get us both sacked.”
My breath stops.
Little socks. The study. I press closer to the door, letting the noise of the dishwasher cover my own breathing.
“No one’s here,” the older woman mutters. “They all went to bed. The princess and her charity prince, too.”
Charity prince. That has to be Daniel.
A utensil hits the counter with a small clatter, then water rushes. I imagine them standing at the deep sinks, hands in hot water, talking in low, tired voices the way my mom and her nurse friends used to in our kitchen after night shifts.
“You know I’m right,” the older woman continues. “When the other one was here, everything had to be perfect. Remember that Christmas? The table settings, the napkins with the crest just so. Mrs. Mercer fussed like royalty was coming.”
When the other one was here.
My heart lurches against my ribs so hard I press a hand flat to my chest. The words slot into the black space where the trust beneficiary’s name should be, where the extra girl in the portrait stands with her painted-over face.
“I remember,” the younger one says softly. There’s a scrape, the sound of a dish set down more gently. “But we’re not supposed to. Those were Mrs. Mercer’s words. ‘We never saw her. Not properly.’”
“Mrs. Mercer said we never saw her,” the older woman corrects. “Present tense. Not past.”
Mrs. Mercer. Evelyn. My skin prickles.
“She said that after the accident,” the younger one whispers. “She came down here herself, do you remember? To the staff hallway. In the middle of the night. I’d never seen her out of that wing. Told us straight-faced there had only ever been one little girl. I thought I’d lost my mind.”
Accident. One little girl. I grip the cold edge of the doorframe. My fingertips go numb.
“You didn’t,” the older woman says. “That’s the worst part. We both know we didn’t. But knowing doesn’t feed you if she decides you’re a problem.”
There’s a pause heavy enough to bend the air.
My mind races. Accident. Harbor Glen’s favorite story: the Mercer family boating tragedy, the memorial plaque near the docks. I saw it once on a previous visit, polished metal telling a sanitized version of grief. One daughter, lost too young, a town that lit candles for her every year at the boat parade. One, not two.
Love and harm share the same hands, I think. The same hands that write checks for a hospital wing can also tap a staff hallway wall and rewrite the number of children who existed in this house.
I shift my weight, and the tile betrays me.
A tiny squeak.
Their voices cut off mid-breath.
The dishwasher roar continues, but the human sound drops away. I hear only the hum of the fluorescent, the drip of water into the sink.
“Hello?” the younger woman calls, louder now, professional brightness snapped on like a switch.
I freeze.
Then I do the only thing that feels less suspicious than running—I push the door open gently and step into the light.
The room is smaller than I imagined, warmed by steam and lit by the harsh overhead bar. Racks of white plates gleam along one wall, stacked in precise towers. A rolling cart loaded with glassware waits near the door, each rim catching the glare. Two women stand at the sink: one petite, probably mid-thirties, with her dark hair twisted into a bun and a Mercer-crest dish towel slung over her shoulder, and another in her fifties, tall and sturdy, gray threaded through her curls.
Both of them go stiff when they see me.
“Oh!” I say, pushing my voice lighter than I feel. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I couldn’t sleep and I heard dishes. I was going to offer to help or—” I hold up my empty hands. “Or at least say thank you.”
The younger one recovers first. She plasters on a smile so wide it pulls at the corners of her mouth. “Mrs. Cole-Mercer,” she says. “You scared us half to death.”
Hearing my new name in this bright, brittle tone makes my stomach twist. “Just Hannah is fine,” I say automatically. “I didn’t want to interrupt. I can go.”
“No interruption at all,” the older woman says. Her eyes flick to her colleague, sharp, then back to me. Whatever softness lived in her voice a minute ago has been ironed out. “We were just talking nonsense. Long night. Too many dishes.”
I glance at the sink, where her hands are buried up to the wrists in suds. Her knuckles are red, the skin wrinkled from the hot water. I notice a small wave crest pin on the pocket of her uniform—staff issue, smaller than the donor versions but still that same relentless motif.
“Sounded like more interesting than dishes,” I say before I can stop myself. “I heard something about a Christmas. And… the other one?”
Their eyes widen in tandem, then shut down like someone flipped a breaker.
“Oh,” the younger woman says with a nervous laugh. “The other one. I was telling Regina about a show. That streaming thing, with the twins and the rich family on the cliff? Did you see it?”
“No, that’s not what you—” I start, then bite the rest of the sentence back. The air in the room tightens.
“Very dramatic,” the older one—Regina—adds. “Too dramatic for us. We prefer nice stories here.”
Her gaze pins me briefly, and I read the message there: Drop it.
“Right.” I force a small smile. “The boat parade is dramatic enough, I guess. Do you watch from down in town or up here?”
“We’re usually working the party,” the younger woman says quickly. “Plenty of lights from the terrace.”
Harbor Glen’s annual census of who belongs where, I think. The Mercers watching the fleet from above, staff ferrying trays between the kitchen and the balcony, other people blowing into their hands down on the docks, looking up.
“I, um…” I shift my weight from one foot to the other, blanket slipping off my shoulder. “I really don’t want to get in your way. I just wanted to—”
Regina lifts one soapy hand out of the sink and wipes it on her apron, then takes a step forward, closer to me. Up close, I see the fine lines around her eyes, etched deeper on one side like she squints often. Her voice drops half a notch.
“You should get some rest, Mrs. Cole-Mercer,” she says. “These hallways are draughty at night. Bad for your health.”
The words themselves are harmless. Her eyes are not. In them, I see that same flicker I used to spot on callers at the crisis line when they were trying to warn me around the edges of what they couldn’t say out loud.
Leave this alone. For your sake. For ours.
I swallow. “I’ll try,” I say. “Sleep, I mean.”
“Good,” she answers. She steps back into her place at the sink. “Wouldn’t want Mrs. Mercer worrying.”
Something in the way she says Mrs. Mercer makes it clear which one she’s talking about.
The younger woman nods vigorously. “She hates to think guests aren’t comfortable.”
Guests. Not family. The word scratches down my spine.
“Of course,” I say. “Well. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Hannah,” the younger one says, daring the less formal name now that I’m retreating. “Thank you for… stopping by.”
Regina doesn’t say anything else. She turns the tap on higher instead, drowning out any further words.
I step back into the hallway, the fluorescent light giving way to the dimmer sconces of the staff corridor. The air feels colder out here, the draft she mentioned sliding along the floor to wrap around my ankles. The door clicks shut behind me with a soft finality.
I lean against the nearby wall for a second, hand over my mouth.
When the other one was here.
Mrs. Mercer said we never saw her.
The phrases replay in my head, syncing up with other things: the smeared brushstrokes in the portrait, the blacked-out name on the trust, Evelyn’s key turning in the office lock, Daniel’s voice insisting there was only ever Lydia.
The house is more honest than the people who own it. The art, the paper, the staff with their tired hands and careful tongues—they all carry pieces of a story Evelyn is trying to bury under polished floors and donor walls.
I push off the wall and start back toward the guest wing, blanket trailing behind me. My footsteps echo in the empty corridor. At each turn, the Mercer crest waits for me in another form—carved into a side table, embroidered on a runner, stamped on a framed invitation to last year’s “Light the Harbor” gala. Waves, waves, waves, all motion and no straightforward line.
When I pass the junction where the front-of-house polish begins again, I pause and look back once toward the staff hallway. The fluorescent hum is faint from here, but I can still smell the dish soap, the heat of the machines.
I could push. I could walk back in and say the word out loud: second daughter. I could watch their faces and force the truth to the surface.
But I picture Regina’s red knuckles, the flyer about staff parking on the back road, the way her eyes carried the weight of someone who knows what Evelyn can do to people who forget their place. If I push too hard, I don’t just risk myself. I risk them.
Harbor Glen knows who rides on which yacht and who washes which glasses after. No one on the dock ever forgets.
I turn away and head for the guest room, heart pounding a new rhythm now. Not the panicked flutter of doubt, but a slower, heavier beat.
I am not crazy. I am not inventing a girl out of grief and paranoia.
There was another child in this house.
As I slip back into my room and close the door softly behind me, I press my palm to the wood and make a quiet promise to her—whoever she is, wherever she ended up.
The Mercers may pretend they never saw her.
I am going to make sure she’s seen.