Die for Me by Amy Plum Page B

looked like it hadn’t been touched since the seventeenth century, and sat down on an ancient stiff-backed couch. Holding my head in my hands, I leaned forward and closed my eyes. “I’ll be right back,” Vincent said, and I heard the door close as he left the room.
    After a few minutes I felt stronger. Resting my head against the couch, I studied the imposing room. Heavy drapes at the window blocked the daylight. A delicate chandelier, which looked like it had originally been set with candles instead of the flame-shaped electric bulbs it now held, threw out just enough light to illuminate walls that were crowded with paintings. A dozen faces of bad-tempered, centuries-old French aristocrats frowned down at me.
    A servants’ door hidden in the back wall swung open, and Vincent walked through. He set a massive porcelain teapot in the shape of a dragon and a matching cup onto the table in front of me next to a plate of paper-thin cookies. The fragrance of strong tea and almonds wafted up from the silver tray.
    â€œSugar and caffeine. Best medicine in the world,” Vincent said as he sat down in an upholstered armchair a few feet away.
    I tried to pick up the heavy teapot, but my hands were shaking so hard I only succeeded in making it clatter against the cup. “Here, let me do that,” he said as he leaned over and poured. “Jeanne, our housekeeper, makes the best tea. Or so I’ve heard. I’m more a coffee man myself.”
    I blanched at his small talk. “Okay, stop. Just stop right there.” My teeth were chattering: I couldn’t tell if it was my shattered nerves or the dawning fear that something was very wrong. “Vincent . . . whoever you are.” I’m in his house and I don’t even know his last name, I realized in a flash before continuing. “Your friend just died a little while ago, and you are talking to me about”—my voice broke—“about coffee?”
    A defensive expression registered on his face, but he remained silent.
    â€œOh my God,” I said softly, and began crying again. “What is wrong with you?”
    The room was silent. I could hear the seconds ticking away on an enormous grandfather clock in the corner. My breathing calmed, and I wiped my eyes, attempting to compose myself.
    â€œIt’s true. I’m not very good at showing my emotions,” Vincent conceded finally.
    â€œNot showing your emotions is one thing. But running off after your friend is demolished by a subway train?”
    In a low, carefully measured tone he said, “If we had stayed, we would have had to talk to the police. They would have questioned both of us, as they must have done with the witnesses who stayed. I wanted to avoid that”—he paused—“at all costs.”
    Vincent’s cold shell was back, or else I had just begun noticing it again. Numbness spread up my arms and throughout my body as I realized what he was saying. “So you’re”—I choked—“you’re what? A criminal?”
    His dark, brooding eyes were drawing me toward him while my mind was telling me to run away. Far away.
    â€œWhat are you? Wanted? Wanted for what? Did you steal all the paintings in this room?” I realized I was yelling and lowered my voice. “Or is it something worse?”
    Vincent cleared his throat to buy time. “Let’s just say that I’m not the kind of guy your mother would want you hanging around with.”
    â€œMy mom’s dead. My dad, too.” The words escaped my lips before I could stop them.
    Vincent closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his forehead as if he were in pain. “Recently?”
    â€œYes.”
    He nodded solemnly, as if it all made sense.
    â€œI’m sorry, Kate.”
    However bad a person he is, he cares about me. The thought crossed my mind so abruptly that I couldn’t stop it from triggering a reaction. My eyes filled