Above me the house was silent for hours, the deep structural quiet of eighteen-inch walls, until just after midnight the joists over my head gave a low dry creak and I heard the rhythmic thud of Jonathan’s leather soles crossing the kitchen, slow and deliberate, stopping near the top of the basement stairs.

I understood, sitting in that dark, that screaming would accomplish nothing.

No one on the road would hear me through a stone foundation, and it would only prove to him that his method was working.

To get out of the cellar I would have to show him exactly what he wanted to see when he finally opened the door, a woman gone quiet and compliant and thoroughly corrected, with every ledger entry and every photographed page hidden behind a face of perfect surrender.

So I sat back down on the cold slate near the door, pulled my knees to my chest against the shivering, and did the thing I am best at, which is to pay close, patient attention.