False Note

By Pamela Love

I stormed through mahogany doors into our mansion’s library. Due to my limp, my sensible shoes’ wooden heels hammered an uneven beat on the hardwood floor. My older siblings flinched, looked up from their phones, and winced a bit as I scanned their faces. When we were kids, Milton used to call my current expression ‘Ethel’s resentful robot look.’ By his grimace, I could tell he was thinking it now, but by his thirties, he’d mostly graduated from employing such childish insults. Not that I’d ever minded. Robots are brilliant, highly valued, and belong to the future.

I dug my fingernails into the back of my favorite leather chair. “I took Fresco to the vet for a routine checkup this afternoon. When I departed, my bedroom door was locked and my special notepad—the one Mom gave me—was on my desk. Would anyone care to reveal its current location?”

Ida, Ambrose, and Milton exchanged glances that moved faster than the koi in our garden’s pond. Ida bit her nails while Milton tapped a foot so fast it was almost a blur. Ambrose practically writhed on the recliner, but he has always been the most sensitive among us—far too sensitive for a member of the Grieves criminal empire.

At last, the tension reached the breaking point. Ambrose sprang to his feet, stabbing a slightly crooked finger toward our sister. “You did it, Ida! How could you? You know it was Mom’s last gift to Ethel before she passed.”

“Do you have proof?” I had to raise my voice to be heard over Ida’s snarl of denial. She sounded more feline than Fresco—though my cat has a far more serene disposition.

Ambrose ran a hand over his balding head. The stress of being Ida’s twin would cause anyone hair loss before they hit thirty. “She’s always been jealous of you, especially after you got that notepad. She said you were Mom’s golden child because you’re disabled. Mom never gave her any telepathic tech.” His mouth twisted to match his mocking tone—that of a whining toddler.

“You wish. You fear the sisterly bond Ethel and I share.” Ida strode across the carpet to stand beside me as if we were comrades-in-arms. It was the first time she had ever willingly come within twelve inches of me. “But it was actually—”

“Ambrose.” Milton rose to his towering six feet, six inches. He got all the height in the family and frankly gloried in it. People seldom appreciate the advantages of being short. “I agree with Ida. You stole Ethel’s notepad, you sniveling centipede. You wanted to read what she wrote about you, invading her room to invade her thoughts.” He shook his head as if he were a judge about to pass sentence. “You’re unfit to be a Grieves.”

I folded my arms. “Ambrose—”

“Wait!” Ida held out her hand as if she were a traffic cop. “Quit putting words in my mouth, Milton. I think you did it. Why would Ambrose want to find out what Ethel thinks about him, when everyone in the family, in fact, in the city, knows he’s the weak link?”

She turned to me. “Ethel, Milton must have broken into your room. He’s the one with a talent for breaking and entering anyway.” Which was true. Uncle Hugh had taught him personally. “He did it because he wants to know what you think about everyone else.”

Her eyes focused on me—as they almost never did—as Ida went on. “You’re the smartest one in the family. Who comes up with the key to manipulating every person we need to control? Who’s the one who knows which people we can trust, and precisely how far? We all benefit from your analytical skills.

“But Milton got greedy. It’s obvious that he’s the thief.” Ida hesitated, tilting her head. “To be fair, Ambrose is a sniveling centipede.”

Through clenched teeth, I inquired, “Do any of you have concrete evidence proving your accusations?” Silence. “Very well. I shall wait in the garden. If my notepad is on my desk in fifteen minutes, I won’t say anything more. For the sake of family harmony, I suggest that you return to your respective bedrooms and not listen for any hallway tiptoeing.”

Fresco tended to follow me around. He had wandered to the library door by that point, so I scooped him up and found my way to a wooden bench in the garden. Time dragged. Don’t fidget, I reminded myself. Although I felt tense, my cool exterior couldn’t reflect that. Any watching sibling had to see me calm, controlled.

When I returned to my room, my notepad lay right on my desk, just where I wanted to find it. Unsurprising, since that’s where it had been all along. I didn’t actually tell my brothers and sister it was missing, after all, not that I have any problem with lying.

I wrapped my arms around Fresco. “With that exercise, I’ve injected a lack of trust into their relationships—an essential step for my security. Those three have been spending far too much time together lately. I can’t afford for them to form an alliance against me, can I?”

On my notepad, the submicroscopic nanites linked to my mind moved in answer to my own question. CERTAINLY NOT.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pamela Love was born in New Jersey and worked as a teacher and in marketing before becoming a writer. Her work has appeared in Havok, Page & Spine, and Luna Station Quarterly. She is the 2020 winner of the Magazine Merit Fiction Award for her story “The Fog Test,” which appeared in Cricket. She and her family live in Maryland.

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