Hold Me Like a Breath

by Tiffany Schmidt

  Father holed up in his office surrounded by the Wards and Miles Banks. Nolan. Anyone. Everyone. His demands of “how” and “why” shook the house to its foundation. His anger scared me. He was never around, except for the moments when I woke up at night to a soft kiss on my forehead or him readjusting my blankets, humming “Tomorrow” or “Any Dream Will Do” or other show tunes lullabies, whispering a quiet, “Go back to sleep, sweet pea, you’re safe.”

  Garrett was always around. I wondered if he slept outside my bedroom door because that’s where I found him every morning and left him every night. He was constantly in some part of my peripheral vision, following me like a ghost. Both of us were silent and haunted.

  We sat on different couches in the den and I turned the TV to C-Span. People were debating something, their names and credentials displayed below them on the split screen, but I couldn’t be bothered to read them or listen. The television provided an excuse not to talk, an excuse to stare straight ahead and not look at the person who’d shared Carter’s last night with me. The person who was supposed to protect him. The person I’d wanted to kiss—still wanted to kiss—and now wanted to punch. The person whose voice and eyes and company made me wistful, resentful, angry, and so, so lonely.

  Our head gardener leaned in the doorway. “Penelope, there are two officers here to see you.” There were grass clippings in his hair and he had work gloves on, but I also knew he had a gun strapped under his jacket. Father insisted most everyone be armed these days. “Should I show them in?”

  “I guess.” I looked to Garrett for confirmation, letting my eyes rest on him for a half second before I had to turn away. Father was off-estate this morning. He, Miles, and Al were at Turtle Island Spa in Connecticut looking into a security breach. It was the first time he had left since the funeral three days ago, and nerves had driven Mother to a bottle of Xanax and her bedroom.

  The officers looked like bookends; they were both around Father’s age, both slightly bald and going soft around the belt. They had the same stride, the same direct eye contact, and they said in near unison, “We’re sorry for your loss, Miss Landlow.”

  They held out hands to shake, but Garrett intercepted these with a gruff “Hey.” He shut off the television. “We were about to head over to the clinic. Penelope needs some blood work. If you have to ask her questions, do it there.”

  I raised my eyebrows but didn’t say anything. Typically my blood work took place after a meal, and Mother had been too distraught to demand I have a CBC today. I’d been looking forward to giving my veins a break.

  My brain may have been spinning with questions about Garrett’s motives, but Mother’s etiquette training was ingrained deeper than my confusion. “Welcome, officers. I’m sorry my parents are unavailable to meet with you today, but I’ll be glad to answer your questions if you don’t mind accompanying us to the clinic.”

  The officers exchanged a look. Now that they were closer I could see they weren’t quite mirror images. One was about three inches taller than the other. He spoke, “Mrs. Landlow had told us this would be a good time.”

  “I apologize; she’s indisposed at the moment.” I aimed my gaze over Garrett’s shoulder. “Who did my father leave in charge?”

  “Nolan.”

  I made a face.

  “Do you want to reschedule?” asked the shorter cop. “You’re a difficult girl to question, Miss Landlow. This is our third trip out here.”

  No one had mentioned this to me.

  Garrett snarled. “It’s hard to question someone when she’s unconscious.”

  “Now is fine,” I reassured them. “I want to help.” I held the door to the library so the two men could follow me through it to the clinic. Garrett had stridden ahead and emerged from Dr. Castillo’s office with the doctor in tow.

  “Make this fast,” Garrett demanded. His face was stone and anger. “You’ve said it’s just a formality, and we’ve told you she doesn’t know anything.”

  I expected them to snap back, to threaten to drag me down to the station if I wouldn’t cooperate—that’s what always happened on TV when cops’ actions were questioned.

  But they didn’t; they shuffled their feet and apologized again. “We’ll try and make this as quick and painless as possible.”

  They were on the Family payroll. They must be.

  “In here, please.” Dr. Castillo put the materials for a CBC on a metal tray. I sat in my usual place, pulled up my sleeves, and tried to remember which arm I should offer today.

  “Left,” the doctor prompted, and I held it out for the rubber tourniquet.

  “Miss Landlow.” The officer’s eyes were on the needle Dr. Castillo was assembling. “You were the one to find your brother, correct?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Around what time?”

  “A little after noon. It was during lunch.”

  “Why were you by the fence?”

  “I was going for a walk. I called him, and I heard his phone—his ringtone for me. I followed it and found …”

  I felt Garrett’s eyes on me too—his anguished gaze heavier than the policemen’s.

  “When did you last see him alive?”

  “Around midnight. He said he had to go somewhere.”

  “Where?” The cops were taking turns asking the questions; it left me uneasy, not quite sure where to aim my answers.

  “I don’t know. Sorry. We made plans to meet for breakfast—I was going to ask him then—but he never showed up.”

  The shorter cop steepled his fingers and pointed them at me. “Miss Landlow, it seems you were the last person to talk to him—we don’t know what happened in the twelve hours before you found his body. I need you to think. Did he seem agitated at all? Worried?”

  “I-I-I don’t know,” I sputtered, shaking so much that Dr. Castillo paused and pulled the tip of the needle back from where he was about to plunge it through my skin. I hadn’t been paying enough attention that night, hadn’t known it would matter. Hadn’t known it was the last time I’d see him, the last conversation we’d have.

  Garrett took over. “Carter would never have willingly exposed his baby sister to any danger. Or to this either.” He paused to point slowly between the two men.

  The cops swallowed and looked chastised, but it didn’t stop them from asking, “What about the Zhu family—had he mentioned them to you recently? Said anything that would lead you to believe he perceived them as a threat?”

  “The Zhus? No. What do they—”

  Garrett put a hand on my chair, the backs of his fingers grazing my shirt. “Penelope Landlow is a very sick girl. She doesn’t leave the estate. She has no contact with the Zhus or anyone outside these gates, and she doesn’t know who killed her older brother. Finding those answers is your job. It’s been six days; why don’t you have any? You’re not going to find them in here.”

  I’d stilled enough for Dr. Castillo to insert the needle in my vein. Blood flowed into the test tube and everyone’s eyes were on the red. Were they picturing the crimson of Carter’s blood on the ground, the way it pooled around him, seeped into his shirt, and stained the ends of his blond hair, or was that just me?

  I whimpered.

  An officer reached for my hand, probably in apology or comfort.

  Garrett lunged in front of my chair. “Don’t touch her!”

  “Hold this, please, Penelope,” Dr. Castillo said as he placed gauze on my arm. He turned to the officers with a face of calm fury. “A simple touch like that will harm my patient, causing her platelets to degrade and contusions or ecchymosis to form. I cannot stress how fragile Penelope is, so do your job, but do it quickly, sensitively, and there is absolutely no reason grown men like you need to be touching this girl.”

  I understood his words were deliberate, that Garrett’s had been too—chosen to make me seem as young and delicate as possible and make the officers’ sympathy and duty seem inappropriate. I understood they’d been effective, because the co
ps squirmed and apologized and handed over cards and more apologies along with requests that I call them if I thought of anything and even more apologies and sympathy for my loss. I understood the logic and intelligence of Garrett and Dr. Castillo’s words, but they still stung. Maybe I’d wanted to answer questions, maybe I could be helpful. It hurt that only strangers thought this plausible.

  Garrett left to show them out, and there was a tacit agreement that I’d stay with Dr. Castillo until he returned.

  This would’ve been the ideal opportunity to ask about my counts. To question the empty whiteboard … but next to it on the wall was a calendar.

  Tomorrow I’d be brotherless for a whole week. Seven days. And that would grow to a month, multiply to two. I couldn’t stop time from pushing me farther and farther from Carter.

  It was hard to look from the calendar to the blank space where the ghost of “PL:” could still be read, and to care about the numbers that should be after it.

  Hugh, Garrett’s oldest living brother, banged through the exam room door, swearing and demanding, “What was the idiot thinking? Bringing cops in the clinic? And you agreed with it? Letting her be questioned here?” He ended with another snarl of swears aimed at his brother, Nolan, and the world at large.

  “Excuse me, Hugh?” I stood up. He was nearly a foot taller than I was, but he hadn’t had Mother’s lessons on posture and diction. “I must have misheard you. Your brother was brilliant, Dr. Castillo too. I doubt the officers will be bothering us again.”

  The doctor chimed in agreement and reassurances—but Hugh shrugged us off. “None of this would even be happening if Garrett had done his job and stayed with Carter. It’s his fault your brother’s dead.”

  “Get. Out.” I wasn’t sure if the words were Garrett’s or mine. I tasted them on my gritted teeth, but he was standing in the door to the exam room, glaring flames and hands balled in fists.

  “Oh, did I hurt little Garrett’s feelings? Is that what they teach you at your fancy schools? How to be all sensitive and in touch with your inner girl?”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “Inner girl?”

  “I apologize for my brother,” growled Garrett. “He’s probably too ignorant to understand why that’s offensive.”

  “Whatever,” snorted Hugh. He did a mock bow in my direction on his way out the door. “I don’t have time to play babysitter anyway. Some of us have real responsibilities.”

  “A few words to my father and that can be remedied.” I enjoyed the heartbeat’s worth of panic my threat brought to Hugh’s face before he covered it with a scoff and disappeared down the hall.

  Garrett had always been different from his brothers. He was smarter, better—he’d been set apart to rise above the role of enforcer, to be my brother’s second-in-command. It never occurred to me that they might resent him—blame him for Carter’s death.

  My own deliberate distance, avoidance of eye contact and conversation weren’t any kinder. In fact, they might have been crueler. My throat tightened with guilt.

  “What do you want to do now? More TV or go sit in the solarium?” he asked.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “What I want is for you to find something to keep yourself busy so I can call your father and update him on what just happened.” The frustration in his words wasn’t directed at me, so I shrugged it off. Dr. Castillo was less understanding, clearing his throat and raising his eyebrows. Garrett’s cheeks flushed. “Please.”

  I wondered if he ever hated me for seeming helpless, hated Carter for dying, hated my father for estranging him from his family, hated his brothers for resenting that, hated the Family for dictating all our life choices.

  “What are my counts?”

  Dr. Castillo hadn’t expected me to pivot toward him, hadn’t expected that question. He kept his poker face in place but clicked a relentless rhythm with the pen in his hand. “I’m afraid I don’t remember off the top of my head, and I’m already late for a phone call, so if you’ll excuse me.”

  Before he shut the door to his office across the hall, I caught a glimpse of his whiteboard. Also blank.

  Pity rolled off Garrett. It hit the skin on the back of my neck and my bare arms, bruised at the crook of my elbows for the results Dr. Castillo couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me.

  I rushed away from it. Down the clinic hallway and into the library.

  There were three things waiting on the other side of the oak doors: Mother, Father, and my red folder.

  Chapter 11

  Garrett was a half step behind me, catching the door from my hand. “Penny, can we talk? I—” and then he saw my parents. “Hello, ma’am, sir. Did your trip to Turtle Island go well?”

  Father waved off the question. “Could you excuse us for a minute? We need to speak to Penelope.” His face was only a half shade less intense than the folder he gripped between both hands.

  Mother’s face was wet, splotched with sadness, tight with exhaustion.

  I saw Garrett taking this all in. Confusion, fear, duty, and reluctance all fighting for command of his face. “Of course, sir. I’ll wait for you in the solarium, Penny.”

  In another world, I would have asked him to stay. In a better world, Carter would be by my side for this conversation, interrupting to argue my case or whisper encouragement under his breath. Go. Fight. Win.

  In this world, I’d have to stand on my own two feet and face the consequences of my hope.

  Mother sniffled. She looked so broken, and I fought the urge to apologize for every tear, every “Penny line,” every thought or feeling that would make her worry.

  “How was Turtle Island?” I asked with all the innocence I could fake. “I didn’t expect you back until later.”

  Father ignored me. He threw the folder onto a table and the contents spilled out, glossy brochures and application essays mixed with blood count charts and bullet point lists of arguments. I winced as my careful organization was annihilated beneath the fist he pounded on the table, paper clips flying and pages tearing. “Penelope Maeve, what is this?”

  “I was going to talk to you about it, before …”

  “You want to leave me too?” Mother asked.

  Her “too” crushed my heart. I should have promised to never leave the estate again, to never even want to leave the estate again, but Carter’s voice echoed in my head, This matters.

  “I’m not trying to leave you, but attending a school for my senior year is something I—”

  “You can’t. It’s not safe. If he … And you …” She was wringing her hands, shredding the tissue she clutched between fingers that were gnawed and raw instead of manicured. “Please, excuse me. I—” She left the room before finishing that sentence, before we could see her cry.

  Her sniffles creating an audible trail that I tried to follow, but Father stepped in front of me. “I’ll check on her as soon as we’re done with this conversation,” he said. “Now, explain.”

  “I know I’d need protection. But my counts—” I plucked up a graph and turned to him. “They’ve been really good. Or they were. I can’t get any answers on what they are now. Is that your doing?”

  “Now is not the time to be taking risks, Penny. You will not be going to school in the fall. This topic is closed.” Father slid the papers off the desk into a trash can and reached for the page I was holding.

  “I’m not okay with that.” I held tight to the chart and Carter’s advice, “No” is never the final answer. “I understand if I can’t go in the fall, but I’m not okay with the topic being closed. This is important to me. Maybe by spring semester things will be more settled and I could go then.”

  “Don’t you realize how important you are to this family?”

  I wanted to ask if the f on that word was upper- or lowercase. Did he mean the damaged trio of remaining Landlows, or the greater group of the Business? As the sole remaining heir, had he decided to let me have a role?

  “I’m important?”

  “Ess
ential.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my head, prying the paper from my distracted fingers. “Now more than ever. I’m sorry if I haven’t made that clear.”

  “How about a compromise?” I suggested. I needed to walk away from this confrontation feeling like I had a meager amount of control, some say in my future.

  “Like?” Father’s voice was both amused and wary.

  “No more Nolan. Get me a new tutor.”

  “Done.” His laugh boomed in the quiet room. It startled us both. Laughter was a foreign sound on the post-Carter estate. “Sweet pea, I promise you will never have to endure another one of Nolan’s lectures. I have plans to inflict him on some other Family members instead.”

  “Wow. Thank you.”

  He returned my smile. “Perhaps I’ll start teaching some of your lessons. Would you like that?”

  I could only nod. Only imagine the Family things he could and would be teaching me.

  “Then that’s settled.” He folded the graph in half before dropping it in the trash.

  Father followed me to the solarium. “Wait here. I need to speak with Garrett about what happened in the clinic this morning. Then I need to go calm your mother.”

  I tried to determine if there was anger in his voice, if Hugh’s insults were a reflection of the Family’s opinion of Garrett, or just the Wards’.

  I touched his arm, gripping his sleeve. He froze with his hand on the doorknob and gave me his full attention. “Father, I’ve been meaning to thank you for assigning Garrett to my protection.”

  He looked at me with raised eyebrows. “This is unexpected. I thought you hated having a shadow, sweet pea? Or people carrying guns? Garrett tells me you’ve barely acknowledged him all week.”

  “He makes me feel safe.” I almost choked on my guilt. Because he did, and I’d never told him. I hadn’t thought about whether or not it felt like blame when I excluded him from my cocoon of grief.

  Father’s face softened. “You will always be safe here, Penelope. I will never let anything happen to you.” He kissed the top of my head. “Now wait here a moment.”