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HILL HOUSE, NOW
The night eventually turned to day and Camille still hadn't slept. She stayed with Shirley and they sat with cups of coffee in silence, neither of them completely ready to talk about the situation. The two had never had the best relationship. They were never really that close and ever since Steve's book was published, she'd stopped talking to Camille all together. The few words they'd spoken to each other over the course of the morning, were the first words they'd said to each other in months.
Theo, however, was too tired to stay awake and she went back to the guest house to get some sleep. Something in Camille told her that Theo was just going back to bed because, until she woke up the next morning, she would forget the Nell was dead.
The morning went on and they were all gathered in Shirley and Kevin's office. The couple stood next to each other while Millie sat comfortably in the chair in front of their desk, Theo stayed in the corner of the room with her cup of coffee, completely silent as Kevin and Shirley continued to argue.
"Shirl, she's fantastic! You have nothing to worry about," Kevin desperately tried to persuade his wife, but to no avail. Camille wanted to say something, tell him there was no point in trying to change Shirley's mind. Once she's set on something, there's no way of deterring her from it.
"You don't know her," Shirley responded, not looking up from the scrapbook she was flipping through.
"You don't need to know someone to do the cosmetics."
"-And restoration. The coroner ruled it a suicide, and there's restorative work I've got to do."
"Shirl-"
"The blood pooled, and the insects, and the injuries. She was only refrigerated for a couple of hours, and then in transport, the level of—" Shirley rambled before sighing. "In the time it would take me to explain to you what to do with her, I could just do it, so I'm doing her myself."
Kevin huffed and shook his head. He turned to look at the other two forgotten girl's in the room. Camille met his eyes, and he raised his brows and pointed to Shirley nonchalantly — silently asking for help. Millie sighed, knowing there was no way she was going to change Shirley's mind, but she decided to speak up anyway.
"Shirl," she started and the older girl scoffed. "This is insane. This is too much for anyone... You've got to be able to grieve."
Shirley ignored Camille's statement, and brought up something else entirely. "What about Luke?" she asked, finally looking to Millie. "Does he even know that Nellie's dead?"
Camille opened her mouth to say something but closed it again, she simply shook her head no. "I have a flight back to California later today. Me and Steve wanted to tell him in person."
