Chapter 7: What Victoria Set in Motion
Julian opened the guest suite door without knocking.
Victoria spun around.
The phone was at her ear.
Her expression lasted one full second — caught, calculating, deciding — and then she lowered the phone slowly.
"End the call," Julian said.
"Julian—"
"End it now."
She looked at him for another moment.
Then she said into the phone, "I'll call you back." She set it on the dresser.
Julian held out his hand.
She didn't move.
"The phone, Victoria."
"You don't have the right—"
"You are in my home.
You have just confessed to falsifying a d*ath certificate, separating a mother from her newborn children, and deceiving me for eleven years.
You do not get to negotiate what rights I have tonight." His voice was even.
Controlled.
The way it got in boardrooms when the number on the table was an insult and everyone in the room knew it.
"Give me the phone."
She picked it up and held it out.
Her hand was steady.
He had to give her that.
He took it.
He looked at the recent calls.
One outgoing, forty seconds long.
The name on the contact read simply: *R.*
"Who is R?" he said.
"A friend."
"A friend who helped you at the hospital?"
"A friend."
Julian pocketed the phone.
"My attorney will be here at nine.
I meant what I said — if you cooperate, that matters.
If R disappears tonight, or if any of the records Marsh has been building suddenly become inaccessible, that matters too.
In the opposite direction."
Victoria sat down on the edge of the bed.
For the first time since he'd come home that evening, she looked tired.
Not defeated — not yet — but tired in the way of someone who has been holding a structure together by sheer force of will and has just felt the first beam give way.
"You're going to take them from me," she said.
"You took them from their mother."
"I raised them." Her voice was quiet now.
The performance was gone.
"Julian, whatever else I did — I was there.
Every fever.
Every nightmare.
Every first word.
I was there."
"Leo's first word was Mama," Julian said.
"He told me once.
He said he stopped saying it because it made you uncomfortable."
Victoria's face went through something complicated and private.
"He's four years old," Julian said.
"And he already knows which feelings are safe to have around you."
She said nothing.
"Get some rest," he said.
"Nine o'clock."
He pulled the door closed behind him.
In the living room, Clara was standing at the window.
She had her arms wrapped around herself, looking out at the lights below.
She turned when she heard him.
"She called someone," he said.
"Forty seconds.
I don't know what she said."
"Marsh needs to know."
"I'm calling him now." He paused.
"And then I want to call Hartley.
I want the boys moved to my study tonight — there's a sofa in there, it pulls out.
I want them close."
Clara nodded.
Something in her face shifted — gratitude, or relief, or both.
Julian dialed Marsh.
It rang twice.
"Mr.
Sterling." The voice was measured.
The voice of a man who had been waiting for this call for a long time.
"She made a call," Julian said.
"Forty seconds.
Contact listed as R."
A pause.
"Richard Hale.
Her contact at the hospital.
I've had a flag on his number for six weeks." Another pause, shorter.
"She just triggered it."
"Can you move tonight?"
"I've been ready to move for a month." Marsh's voice was calm.
Almost quiet.
"I just needed you in the room."
"Then move," Julian said.
"There's one more thing you should know before I do." Marsh stopped.
The pause had weight to it.
"The nurse — Patricia Odum.
She agreed to give a full statement.
But she told me something last week that I haven't shared with Ms.
Voss yet."
Julian glanced at Clara across the room.
She was watching him.
"What is it?" he said.
"The night of the transfer," Marsh said, "Odum saw two women in that room.
Not one."
Julian went very still.
"Victoria," he said.
May you like
"And who else?"
"That," Marsh said, "is what I need you to sit down for."
