Page 21 of Behind These Four Walls

“Whatever you want, Holl,” Victor said, already down the hall with Dixon a step behind. Myles had appeared and quietly watched the scene play out, taking in all the players. Not the players—one. Isla. She’d have to be careful with him.

Again, Brooke looked like she was about to say more and override Victor, now that he was out of earshot, but Jackson coughed. When she glanced at him, he gave the slightest headshake, and she retreated.

“Guess I’ll have someone set the table,” Brooke said curtly, though Isla was sure there were always extra settings for moments like this. Surely Donna, Dixon, and Jackson were going to join, since they’d made no moves to dismiss themselves when dinner was called.

Still, Isla didn’t miss the undercurrent of anger in Brooke’s voice as she instructed another staff member to ensure there were enough settings.

Brooke watched each movement her child made with hawkish eyes. Then those eyes slid over to Jackson, and he shook his head ever so slightly. Isla kept her thoughts to herself, processing it all. Had anyone else noticed how Brooke looked to Jackson for assistance or backup instead of her husband? Or how distracted and detached Victor was as they all moved to the dining room?

A bigger person would read the room and bow out of dinner. However, Isla was not a bigger person. Despite Brooke’s obvious and odd hostility, and the ease with which Victor had suddenly lost interest in all of them, and the small comforting smile that Jackson offered Isla as a way of easing his employer’s behavior.

He mouthed,Sorry.

Isla tensed. It felt like an odd action for Jackson. He was probably trying to be helpful, but it came across as throwing shade at the person he was supposed to be loyal to. It was as if he were trying to get into Isla’s good graces and hedge his bets for some game Isla wasn’t yet aware of.

Or maybe, Isla, the man was just trying to make you feel better.

It could just be that too.

Dinner would be awkward but a gold mine of information. It was an opportunity to ingratiate herself while piecing together the family dynamics during a time when they should be enjoying each other’s company. A chance to observe them up close and determine what her next steps would be. Isla would play her role well—polite, graceful, appreciative, awestruck as if she were at Disney World, with occasional flickers of curiosity at the brooding oldest brother across from her.

Myles remained at his perch against the wall, watching everything go down, hands in the pockets of his tailored charcoal slacks. His matching vest hinted that beneath was evidence of fastidious workouts and bench presses.

Not the time, Isla.

But it might have to be. She might have to play up a crush on one of the brothers to keep them off her scent, to cozy up and dig around for any proof of Eden.

Jackson couldn’t apologize away Brooke’s unprovoked hostility toward Isla. For some reason she didn’t want Isla there, sharing space with them. Clearly she thought Isla wasn’t worthy. Maybe she felt Isla was some kind of threat gunning for Victor or one of his sons. Isla absolutely had ulterior motives, but it wasn’t for the reasons Brooke Corrigan thought.

Chapter Fifteen

The Corrigan mansion had settled into quiet, but Isla sat cross-legged in the middle of a king-size bed, fully clothed, wide awake, and trying to unravel the Rubik’s Cube of emotions and thoughts she was having. She should have been elated at the fact that her plan to get in among the Corrigans had worked so well and so quickly. She should have been bursting with the possibilities of where and with whom to begin her search for any clues about Eden’s disappearance, or how to go about getting the family one-on-one to press them about any knowledge they might have about her or her mother.

Instead, Isla was watching every shadow crossing overhead in the beautiful guest room, letting her imagination run childishly wild. She couldn’t help it. Being in new homes and in unfamiliar beds had always been an issue for her since the age of fourteen from living in different group homes before she’d met Eden and they’d decided to leave Daytona.

For one thing, Isla never knew how long she’d have a particular bed, so she never let herself get too comfortable with it. Second, the room and home always had new sounds and smells, creaks and groans that made her imagination spiral out to the point she was often still huddling under her blankets the next morning because she thought she’d seen something in the shadows.

When Isla had made it to LA after the long cross-country bus ride, she’d connected with Charli, grabbing a room in Charli’s halfway house. Eventually, Isla got used to being there and in that space. Thescary shadows became familiar and like family. But Isla’s disconcertion with new spaces and places always remained, creeping up at the most inopportune times. The Slip ’N Slide feeling in her stomach that she could only attribute to homesickness or just feeling displaced and out of place ... that feeling had never gone away.

She tried to take her mind off her unease. Isla was actually surprised she was in the main house. Brooke, once she’d begrudgingly agreed to Holland’s suggestion that it was too late for Isla to be trekking back to her apartment, had originally intended to have Isla stay in one of the guesthouses on the property. But Holland once again came through like a champ, reminding her mother that it was just one night. Why take Isla all the way out there when they had plenty of free rooms right here in the house? Isla chimed in, first to decline the offer, of course. Because she had no intention of intruding, and she’d already horned in on their family dinner, and that was enough, and, well, she didn’t have a change of clothes or toiletries, so she really should be heading back home, but thanks for dinner.

But upon Holland’s insistence, and with no protest from Victor, Brooke gave in. Isla promised she wouldn’t be a bother and would leave first thing. She wouldn’t even need breakfast. She might have been laying it on a little too thick, but it was intentional if Isla was going to come across as an unaware, awestruck new friend.

Isla made sure to avoid Myles’s indifferent and oddly irritating gaze as he tried to figure out this new person who had been sprung on them, and by Holland, no less. Isla worried that Myles might have recognized her from the two-second run-in at the elevators of Crabtree and Elliott six months ago. But she’d kept out of full sight, and he couldn’t have remembered seeing someone so insignificant for two seconds.

That dinner show had ended two hours ago. Now Isla waited in her room. One of a few empty ones in Holland’s section of the gigantic home, with its nineteen bedrooms alone. She had a good understanding of the house’s layout. There were no cameras in the house because Victor valued privacy in his home and didn’t want to feel Big Brother was watching, even if Big Brother was paid by him. She was in the clearthere, but there were locked rooms and a very good security system, with silent alarms for areas like his office and other rooms she assumed were offices of the main family if they worked out of the house.

“The outside property,” Rey had said, “has eyes everywhere, so remember that. Anywhere you walk, eyes are watching. I’ll be able to get a better feel for it once you put in the drive and get me the Wi-Fi. They’ll have the one they use and a guest one. They may have a third Wi-Fi for business—I won’t know until you’re there to pull up the available networks.”

In her hurry to get here, she hadn’t thought to bring her laptop—dumb move—because she hadn’t thought she’d get in far enough to have dinner and spend the night. She’d told Rey so on the burner phone she used for communication with him on job so that the Corrigans’ security wouldn’t have a way to access her phone and her contacts when she signed in to their system.

“Do you have guest Wi-Fi?” Isla asked before Holland unwillingly left her room for the night after Isla had feigned exhaustion.

Holland considered the question. “Yeah, but I don’t know what it is. I’ll just share our main one with you.” Holland pulled out her new phone, and in seconds, Isla had a “Holland wants to share a password” notification pop up on her screen. Main Wi-Fi.

The mansion, as beautiful and picturesque as it was, felt like a gilded cage to Isla—a place anyone would feel lucky to live in, let alone be invited to stay for the night. Isla seemed to be the only person who noticed that while they were the epitome of sophistication and high class, of an idyllic conglomerate family, beautiful and chic, they were more than a little cold to each other. It wasn’t like Isla was an expert on family dynamics, though, since it had always been just her and her dad until he died.

She was an expert at nonnuclear families, making connections and family with found members rather than blood, and she knew family dinners were important, but in this family, the connectivity was absent. She observed them as she ate. The pockets of various conversation that Holland weaved in and out of. The hostile glares from Brooke, as if Isla were intruding upon her territory—and in a way, Isla supposed she was. The way Victor batted awayany conversation either Brooke or Jackson attempted to strike, forcing them to give up. Isla pretended not to notice the cool appraisals from Myles and wondered whether it meant he shared the same feelings as Brooke, disliking her and thinking she was beneath him because she wasn’t their kind or if there were other thoughts Myles had swirling around in that mind of his. The only person missing on this chessboard was Bennett.