Chapter 5: What Victoria Called Protection
Julian didn't move toward her.
He stood in the center of the room with his hands at his sides, and he waited.
Victoria seemed to understand that the waiting was not patience.
It was a door that would not stay open much longer.
She turned away from the hallway.
She walked to the window and stood with her back to both of them, looking out at the city.
"You were going to leave me," she said.
Julian said nothing.
"Don't pretend you weren't.
You'd been pulling away for months.
I knew about Elise.
I knew what she meant to you.
And when she got pregnant—" Victoria stopped.
Started again.
"You told me it was over between you and me.
That you were going to do the right thing.
That you were going to be with her."
"That's true," Julian said.
"So I did what I had to do."
"Tell me what that means."
She turned from the window.
Her eyes were dry.
Whatever she felt, she had decided not to show it.
"I had a contact at Mercy General.
Someone who owed me a significant favor.
When Elise went into labor, I was notified.
When the hemorrhage happened and she was unconscious — when there was a window — I had the records adjusted.
Her name.
Her status.
The death certificate was filed under her real identity.
A Jane Doe was reclassified.
The paperwork was clean."
"You told her she was d*ad," Julian said.
"You told her the babies d*ed."
"I told her what she needed to believe to disappear."
"And then you came to me." His voice was flat.
"You came to me with a death certificate and a grief I didn't know was manufactured, and you—"
"I came to you because you were falling apart." Victoria's composure cracked — just at the edges.
"You couldn't function.
You couldn't work.
You were going to destroy everything you'd built over a woman you'd known for two years.
I held you together.
I took care of the boys.
I raised them."
"They're not your sons," Clara said from the chair.
Victoria's eyes moved to her.
The look was not angry.
It was something colder.
"I am the only mother they have ever known."
"They don't let you hold them," Clara said quietly.
"Leo told me.
He said your hugs feel like being held by someone who is counting."
The silence that followed was a different kind than the ones before it.
Julian walked to the coffee table.
He picked up the pendant.
He turned it over once in his palm, then set it down again.
"Who else knew?" he said.
"My contact at the hospital.
He moved abroad two years ago."
"Anyone else?"
A pause.
"My sister helped with the paperwork.
The authorization for the pendant."
"I'll need her name."
Victoria's chin lifted.
"You're not a police officer, Julian."
"No," he said.
"But I'm going to need to speak with one.
And it will go better for your sister if her name comes from you first."
Victoria's composure held for another three seconds.
Then something behind her eyes shifted — not collapse, not remorse, but a kind of recalculation.
The same look she got when a deal had moved past the point where she could negotiate the terms and she was deciding how to minimize the loss.
"If you do this," she said, "the boys lose everything they know.
Their home.
Their school.
Their routines.
Everything stable in their lives gets torn apart.
You want to do that to them?"
"You did that to them," Julian said.
"The moment you walked into that hospital room."
"I gave them a mother."
"You gave them a performance." He looked at her steadily.
"Leo said your hugs feel like being held by someone who is counting."
Victoria flinched.
It was small.
It was real.
"I want you to go to the guest suite," Julian said.
"Tonight.
I'll have Hartley bring you whatever you need.
In the morning, I'll have my attorney here at nine.
You will be present.
You will not contact your sister before then, and you will not contact anyone at the hospital or anywhere else.
If you do—" He stopped.
Chose his words.
"I will not be able to help you with what comes next."
"Help me?" A short, disbelieving sound.
"You think you're helping me?"
"I think you're the mother of record for my sons and that a court is going to want to know everything that happened in that hospital.
I think how this goes for you depends very heavily on whether you cooperate or whether you make me find it all out the hard way." He held her gaze.
"Go to the guest suite, Victoria."
She looked at him.
At Clara.
At the pendant on the table.
Then she walked out of the room without another word.
Julian listened to her footsteps cross the marble hallway.
The guest suite door opened.
Closed.
He sat down heavily in the chair across from Clara.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
"Your sons," he finally said.
"They know you."
"They don't know who I am," Clara said.
"They just know how I feel about them."
Julian looked at the doorway where Leo had disappeared an hour ago.
"He said she sings us the secret song." His voice was rough.
"He said it makes the sad feeling go away."
"I didn't know if they'd remember it.
They were newborns when I—" She stopped.
"I used to sing it when I was pregnant.
Every night.
I thought—" Another stop.
"I thought it might help them feel safe.
Even with a stranger.
Even if I couldn't be there."
Julian pressed his hand over his eyes.
"I have to call my attorney," he said.
"And then I need to call someone else."
"Who?"
He looked up.
"The detective who handled Elise Voss's death investigation.
Because there was one.
And I want to know what he found."
Clara went very still.
"What is it?" Julian said.
"The detective," she said slowly.
"Four years ago.
His name — was it Marsh?
Daniel Marsh?"
Julian frowned.
"Yes.
Why?"
Clara reached into the pocket of her jacket.
May you like
She withdrew a folded envelope — worn at the creases, as if it had been opened and refolded many times.
"Because three months ago," she said, "he found me."
