Chapter 9: The Morning We Faced Her
Julian didn't remember the second half of the night.
He told me this the next morning over coffee, haltingly, when I asked him directly what he recalled after Victoria had settled in and he had closed his eyes.
He remembered her moving around the room.
He remembered a sound like glass on wood — the vial, probably, being set on the nightstand.
And then nothing until my voice woke him at six.
"I thought I was just exhausted," he said.
"From the wedding."
"You were dr*gged," I said.
He went very still.
I showed him Diane's message.
I showed him Carol's assessment of the residue.
I watched his face move through disbelief, then a stunned, sickening recognition, and then something I had not seen on him before: cold anger.
Not at me.
For the first time, not redirected toward managing me or smoothing things over.
At her.
"She dr*gged me," he said.
"So she could work without you waking up," I said.
"So she could go through my things without you stopping her."
He set down his coffee cup.
He picked up his phone and called Victoria.
She answered on the third ring, her voice warm and bright.
"Julian, darling.
How are the newlyweds this—"
"I need you to come over," he said.
"This morning.
Now."
A brief pause.
"Is everything alright?"
"No," he said.
"It isn't.
Come over."
He hung up.
She arrived forty minutes later.
She was dressed carefully, her hair done, a small smile already in place as Julian opened the door.
She stepped into the hallway and looked past him at me, and for just a fraction of a second, the smile recalibrated.
She had expected to find me upset.
She had not expected to find me calm.
We sat in the sitting room.
Julian and I on the sofa.
Victoria in the chair across from us — the same configuration, I noticed, as a formal meeting.
She noticed it too.
Her handbag stayed on her lap.
"Julian said there was something to discuss," she said pleasantly.
"Yes," Julian said.
"I want you to tell Elena what you put in that vial."
Victoria's expression didn't change.
"I told you.
It's an old family preparation.
Herbs for sleep.
I've used it for years."
"The vial was analyzed," I said.
A pause.
Barely perceptible.
"Analyzed?"
"The residue.
A pharmacist looked at it.
She identified the primary compounds and noted a secondary substance she couldn't identify from a photograph alone.
She recommended a full laboratory analysis." I looked at Victoria steadily.
"We're having that done."
Victoria looked at Julian.
"Julian, I don't know what she's been told, but—"
"She's been told the truth," Julian said.
"Which is more than I can say for what you've told me."
"I have always—"
"You dr*gged me." His voice was flat.
"Whatever was in that vial, you put enough of it in the room that I lost hours.
I don't remember the second half of the night.
I've never not remembered something like that.
You made sure I was under so I wouldn't wake up while you went through Elena's belongings."
Victoria's chin lifted slightly.
"That is an extraordinary accusation."
"Elena's travel bag was disturbed.
The outer pocket was open.
Her letters had been handled."
"I may have bumped the bag in the dark."
"You read them," I said.
She looked at me directly for the first time since sitting down.
"I did nothing of the sort."
"Then you won't mind telling me what my mother's name was."
Silence.
"You read her letters," I said.
"Her name is in every one of them.
If you didn't read them, you don't know it.
So tell me.
What was my mother's name?"
Victoria's jaw tightened.
"I don't see what this—"
"Her name," I said.
The silence stretched.
Victoria set her handbag on the floor.
She smoothed her skirt.
She looked at Julian with an expression I recognized now — the expression she used when she was about to reframe the entire conversation.
"Julian," she said, her voice softening.
"I have given my life to protecting you.
Everything I have ever done has been for your wellbeing.
This woman has been in your life for two years.
I have known you for forty-one.
I think you know, in your heart, who has your best interests—"
"Her name," Julian said.
Victoria stopped.
"Answer her question," he said.
"What was Elena's mother's name?"
The room was absolutely quiet.
Victoria looked at her son for a long moment.
Something shifted in her face — the warmth, the composure, the careful pleasantness — and underneath it was something harder and older and much less kind.
"Margaret," she said.
I hadn't told Julian my mother's name was Margaret.
It wasn't something that had come up.
It was in the letters.
Only in the letters.
Julian heard it.
May you like
I saw the moment he understood.
"Get out," he said.
