Chương 7
The delivery driver had forgotten chopsticks.
Madeline hated mushrooms.
Ethan had somehow ordered six spring rolls for three people and looked offended when Victoria asked why.
“I panicked.”
“You panic-order appetizers?”
“Apparently.”
The normality was almost unbearable.
Then Victoria asked, “Who called Richard?”
Madeline’s face changed.
“I did.”
“From the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You were asking for him.”
Victoria frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“You were terrified, but you kept asking me to call your father.”
A memory pressed against the edge of consciousness.
Her own voice saying Dad.
Not because he would save her.
Because she needed to know where he was.
“Did he sound surprised?”
Madeline considered.
“No.”
That mattered.
“How fast did he arrive?”
“Twenty-five minutes, maybe.”
“From where?”
“He said home.”
Richard’s townhouse was at least forty minutes away at that hour if traffic was kind.
Ethan noticed too.
“He wasn’t home.”
Madeline shook her head.
“No.”
Victoria’s phone vibrated.
Richard.
She watched it ring.
Then stop.
A message arrived.
We should speak before you make choices you cannot undo.
Victoria showed the screen to Madeline.
Madeline said, “That sounds like him.”
Ethan looked ill.
Victoria typed nothing.
Another message appeared.
There are facts Madeline has not told you.
Madeline read it.
“Also sounds like him.”
Victoria looked at her.
“Are there?”
“Yes.”
Ethan made a small frustrated noise.
Madeline snapped, “You don’t get to be impatient.”
Victoria said, “What facts?”
Madeline folded her hands.
“At the hospital, after Richard arrived, he sent me outside.”
“You left?”
“For maybe twenty minutes.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. When I came back, Nolan was there.”
Richard’s head of security.
“And?”
“Your clothes were gone.”
Victoria stared at her.
“The blouse?”
“Everything you’d been wearing.”
“I thought the hospital disposed of them.”
“No.”
“Who took them?”
“Nolan.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“Carrying them?”
“A plastic bag.”
“Did he say what it was?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Madeline’s face became hard again.
“Because Richard told me if the police became involved, they would investigate why I had brought you in under a false name. He said Ethan would be dragged into it. He said your foundation would lose donors. He said the press would call you unstable because of your treatment history.”
Victoria stared.
Ethan said, “Treatment history?”
Victoria looked at him.
“Therapy. After my mother died.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s enough if somebody says it with the right tone.”
Richard had taught her that too.
Madeline picked at a loose thread on her wedding gown.
“He knew exactly what each of us was afraid of.”
The sentence settled over them.
Ethan was afraid of losing the career that had allowed him to stop being the son of a bankrupt contractor from Ohio.
Madeline was afraid of becoming publicly ridiculous, the ambitious woman who married into power and discovered too late that the power owned her.
Victoria was afraid of being disbelieved.
Richard knew all three.
He had not invented their weaknesses.
He had merely organized them.
At four, Ethan left.
Madeline did not go with him.
Victoria found her clean sweatpants and a T-shirt. Madeline emerged from the bathroom carrying the wedding gown over one arm.
Without it she looked younger.
Not softer.
Just tired.
She folded the gown carefully over a dining chair.
“Ridiculous thing,” she said.
“It was pretty.”
“I spent nine thousand dollars on it.”
Victoria stared.
Madeline pointed at her.
“Do not judge me in the apartment your father gave you.”
“I bought this apartment.”
“With what?”
“My salary.”
“From his company.”
Victoria opened her mouth.
Closed it.
“Fair.”
Madeline lay on the guest-room bed but did not sleep.
Neither did Victoria.
At six fifteen, they heard one of Richard’s security men leave the hallway outside.
At six forty, Victoria photographed the email copy and uploaded it to three places.
Madeline watched.
“You learned.”
“I’m learning.”
“What now?”
Victoria looked at the hospital wristband on the table.
“Now I find out why my father has the original.”
The hospital would not discuss records over the phone beyond basic procedures. Victoria expected that.
At nine thirty she called the attorney who had represented her independently during the settlement of her mother’s estate.
Elaine Porter answered while apparently chewing toast.
“Victoria?”
“I need help.”
“Are you safe?”
The question made Victoria sit straighter.
“Yes.”
“Is Richard with you?”
“No.”
“Good. Keep it that way until I understand what I’m walking into.”
Victoria told her enough.
Not everything.
Elaine did not gasp, promise justice, or say she knew Richard had always been dangerous.
She asked dates.
Names.
Who possessed which documents.
Whether Victoria had signed any releases.
Whether she had made a police report.
Whether Madeline was willing to give a statement.
Madeline, sitting across the kitchen island, nodded.
Elaine said, “Don’t send me anything yet. I’ll create a secure way to transfer copies. Keep originals where they are. Don’t confront anyone alone.”
Victoria looked toward the windows.
“I was planning to confront him alone.”
“Of course you were.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Because you’re Richard’s daughter.”
“That’s rude.”
“It’s accurate.”
Victoria almost smiled.
Elaine continued. “And Victoria?”
“Yes?”
“Do not confuse finding the truth with proving every piece of it immediately. Those are different problems.”
That became important faster than Victoria expected.
The hospital record confirmed that she had arrived at 2:21 a.m. and initially been registered as Victoria Brooks.
It also showed that the name had been corrected at 5:16 a.m.
The correction request had been authorized by Victoria herself.
She remembered none of it.
Her discharge paperwork contained no note about police involvement because no police report had been made.
The hospital could not tell her who had taken her clothes.
The private foundation building retained entry logs for one year but most camera footage for only thirty days unless flagged.
Eleven weeks had passed.
The garage footage was gone.
May you like
Richard knew that.
The security clip from the hospital survived because, according to Elaine’s preliminary inquiry, somebody had requested and preserved it within a week of Victoria’s admission.
