Chapter 5
1406words
In the "Thornbird" gallery, Elsie was cleaning her paintbrushes, the sound of running water particularly clear in the silent space.
Leo was upstairs playing with his toy train, the rhythmic "choo-choo" sounds creating an illusion of tranquility. However, this tranquility was suddenly broken by the crisp sound of wind chimes.
Elsie's heart clenched sharply; this timing was too unusual.
She quickly turned off the faucet, turned around, and saw a tall male figure standing backlit in the doorway.
The warm yellow light inside the gallery only outlined his blurry yet tall silhouette, his face hidden in the shadows of the corridor, bringing an intangible sense of pressure.
"Sorry, we're closed," Elsie instinctively said, her body subtly shifting to block the entrance to the back room and stairs, her left hand unconsciously touching the plain band ring on her ring finger.
The person didn't leave, but instead stepped forward, stepping onto the floor inside the door. A deep, disturbingly familiar voice calmly spoke:
"I'm looking for 'The Rose Lady.'"
This voice... like a lightning bolt wrapped in ice shards, suddenly splitting open the barrier of seven years.
Elsie's blood seemed to freeze instantly, her limbs growing cold.
She stared incredulously at that silhouette, watching as he walked step by step from the shadows outside the door into the light, which gradually and clearly illuminated his cold, chiseled face, unchanged after seven years.
"Sebastian...?" her voice was hoarse and distorted from extreme shock and fear, barely intelligible.
Sebastian Deville stood right there, his gaze sweeping over her pale face like something tangible, then falling on the still-wet water marks on the floor, and finally slowly surveying this small yet vibrant gallery. "It seems you've found yourself a nice hiding place," his tone revealed neither pleasure nor anger, yet carried a sense of looking down from above in scrutiny.
Elsie forcibly broke free from her initial shock, intense hostility and self-protective instinct surging within her.
"How did you find this place?" she demanded sharply, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. "It was you! You were the one who bought those paintings?!"
The mysterious collector, that comment about "thorns surrounding a rose"—all now had the most terrifying answer.
Sebastian didn't answer directly. His gaze refocused on her face with a cold scrutiny.
"Dr. Hammond is dead," he abruptly threw out the words like tossing a block of ice. "Three days ago. Rhineland Principality. Gas leak and explosion at a vacation house."
Dr. Hammond? Elsie's thoughts froze for a moment, then the image of the always-smiling, white-coated private doctor of the Deville family emerged—the same person who had issued Emily's death certificate years ago!
Her breathing suddenly stopped, a chill rushing from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. Coincidence? She absolutely didn't believe it!
"It seems you still remember him." Sebastian caught the flash of fear across her face, his tone still flat yet with sharp edges. "This wasn't an accident. Just like the 'accident' that happened to Emily seven years ago, neither of them was."
He admitted it himself! Elsie stared at him intently, trying to find traces of lies in his eyes, but there was only a bottomless coldness and an anger suppressed to the extreme.
"Why are you telling me this?" Her voice trembled with tension. "Did you kill to silence them?"
Sebastian's lips curled into a faint, almost cruel smile. "If it were me," he stepped forward, instantly shortening the distance between them, and Elsie could feel the cold aura emanating from him, "I wouldn't be standing here now, wasting time with you."
His gaze pierced sharply toward her: "Elsie Lane. Or should I call you my 'stand-in' who left without saying goodbye?"
He finally tore away his disguise completely! Elsie's heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand, but she forced herself to stand firm, not backing down: "You knew all along?"
"From the first time you deliberately hummed that song in front of me, the one only known between you sisters." Sebastian's tone carried undisguised mockery. "Emily could never remember the complete melody of that song. Only her twin sister could hum it without missing a note." He leaned slightly forward, lowering his voice even more, with a dangerous sense of pressure. "Who did you think you could fool with those little probes? Why do you think I kept you by my side for so long?"
The truth hit Elsie like a hammer, making her ears ring. What she had considered a secret investigation was nothing but a poor performance already seen through in his eyes!
The footsteps outside the studio door that night, those subtle scrutinizing glances... All along she had been living under his surveillance and manipulation! Humiliation and anger made her whole body tremble.
"So, you kept me around like bait?" Her voice rose with anger. "To draw out the killer of Emily that you believe exists?"
"Correct." Sebastian straightened up, admitting it bluntly and coldly. "I need a living 'Emily', and I also need an obvious target. You are... suitable."
"Bastard!" Elsie squeezed the word through her clenched teeth, intense hatred almost consuming her.
"Call me what you want." Sebastian remained unmoved, his gaze once again fleetingly sweeping over the stairs leading to the second floor, where Leo's faint sounds of play could be heard. "But now, things have changed. Hammond's death proves one thing: that viper is still alive, and it's starting to clean up its tracks. It dealt with Emily, and now, who do you think its next target will be?" His gaze locked onto Elsie again, the implication clear. "You? Or that child?"
The word "child" was like a poisoned needle, piercing Elsie's most vulnerable spot. Her face instantly turned paper-white, and all her forced toughness nearly collapsed in this moment. Leo... she absolutely couldn't let Leo suffer any harm!
"What exactly do you want?" her voice was hoarse with desperation.
"Cooperation." Sebastian uttered this word, clear and cold. "We have a common enemy, Elsie. I know you hate me, don't trust me. But the reality is, fighting alone, neither of us is a match for it. I've been tracking it for seven years, I know of its existence, understand its methods. And you..." he paused, his gaze sharp, "you are the person who, besides me, knows Emily best and is most likely to discover clues I've overlooked. We need to share information."
Cooperation? With this man who treated her as a chess piece and coldly used her for seven years? Elsie was engaged in an internal struggle. Trust him? That would be like asking a tiger for its skin! How much of what he said could be believed? Could this be another, more intricate trap? But... Dr. Hammond's death was a fact, as were that strange emblem and the threatening letter... If what he said was true, then Leo was indeed in grave danger.
Refusing him meant that she might have to face alone the enemy hiding in the shadows—one that even Sebastian found troublesome. Her and Leo's fate would be filled with unknown terrors.
Accepting him meant jumping into a known, but equally dangerous wolf's den, where every step could lead to irreversible doom.
Her gaze involuntarily turned toward the staircase, from where came Leo's soft humming of the nursery rhyme she had taught him.
That childlike voice was like the final push that collapsed all her hesitation and wishful thinking. She had no choice. To protect Leo, she would stop at nothing, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.
After a long, suffocating silence, Elsie finally raised her head, forcibly suppressing all emotions in her eyes, leaving only a cold, desperate resolution.
She looked into Sebastian's unfathomable eyes, her voice hoarse yet exceptionally clear:
"How do we cooperate?"
In Sebastian's eyes, an emotion flashed by too quickly to catch, as if this was expected, yet also something else.
He nodded slightly: "Good. First, we need to have a proper talk. About that painting, about... the warning you received."
A fragile alliance, riddled with thorns and suspicion, was preliminarily formed at this moment, amid the dusky twilight of Crescent Harbor and the innocent songs of children.
The boundary between hunter and prey had already blurred; the chessboard had been reset, and both sides of the game knew full well that the stake was life itself.
