Chapter 6: The Woman Who Wasn't Afraid
Victoria called at seven the next morning.
Beatrice was in the kitchen making oatmeal for Lily when Leo's phone lit up on the counter between them.
He had been sitting at the kitchen table since six, a cup of coffee going cold in front of him, his phone face-up.
When the screen showed Victoria's name, he didn't reach for it immediately.
He looked at Beatrice.
She nodded once.
He answered and put it on speaker.
"Leo." Victoria's voice was composed.
Warm, even.
The voice of a woman who had rehearsed this.
"I'm so sorry about last night.
I panicked.
I should have stayed and explained."
"Where are you, Victoria?"
"Somewhere safe.
I needed to think." A pause, perfectly timed.
"I'm worried about you.
About Lily.
That woman — Beatrice — she's been filling Lily's head with stories.
I've seen it for weeks.
The way Lily clings to her.
It isn't healthy."
Leo said nothing.
Victoria continued.
"I know how it looked.
I know you're angry.
But Leo, I came here because I loved Elena.
I came here for Lily.
Everything I've done has been for that little girl."
"Including the cellar."
A beat of silence.
Just one.
"She was having a violent episode.
She bit me.
I needed her to calm down somewhere safe while I called the doctor.
I should have called you first — I know that.
I made a terrible mistake and I'm sorry."
Beatrice stirred the oatmeal.
She did not look up.
"And the three times before?" Leo said.
Another silence.
Longer this time.
"Lily told you that." Victoria's voice had changed — still controlled, but with something harder underneath it now, like tile under carpet.
"Leo, she's six years old.
She has night terrors.
She confuses things.
I love that child, but she is not always a reliable—"
"Don't," Leo said.
"—narrator of events.
I think you need to consider what Beatrice has been telling her.
What ideas she's been—"
"Victoria." His voice dropped.
"Stop talking about Beatrice.
Answer my question."
"I've answered it."
"You've lied about it."
"Leo, I think you're under enormous stress and I think that woman is exploiting it.
She's been in your house for two years.
She's attached herself to your daughter.
Don't you think that's worth examining?"
Beatrice set the spoon down.
"I think," Leo said slowly, "that you should tell your father his envelope is gone."
Complete silence.
Ten seconds.
Fifteen.
"I don't know what you mean," Victoria said.
But the warmth was gone entirely now.
What was left was something thin and precise.
"Tell him I've been waiting for him to make a move for two years.
Tell him Elena was smarter than both of you.
And tell him—" Leo paused.
"Tell him I know about the deal.
The original one.
The one with Elena's father.
The one she witnessed when she was nineteen years old."
A sound on the line.
Not a word.
Something involuntary.
"You can't prove any of—"
"I can," Leo said.
"Elena made sure of that."
The line went dead.
Leo set the phone down on the table.
He looked at it for a moment, then picked up his coffee and drank it cold without expression.
Beatrice put a bowl of oatmeal in front of him.
He looked up at her.
"She'll call her father now," Beatrice said.
"Yes."
"And he'll come."
"Yes."
"Are you ready for that?"
Leo looked at the bowl.
He picked up the spoon.
"I've been ready for two years," he said.
"I just didn't know what I was ready for."
Lily appeared in the kitchen doorway in her pajamas, rabbit under one arm, hair tangled from sleep.
She looked at Leo.
She looked at Beatrice.
She looked at the bowl of oatmeal.
"Is there enough for me?" she asked.
Beatrice turned back to the stove.
"There's always enough for you."
Lily climbed into the chair beside her father.
Leo put his arm around her without a word and pulled her close, and she leaned into him and yawned, and for one moment the kitchen was just a kitchen — warm and ordinary and smelling of oats and coffee.
Then Leo's second phone — the one he kept in his inside coat pocket, the one Beatrice had never seen him use — buzzed once.
He read the message.
His arm tightened around Lily.
He looked at Beatrice over his daughter's head.
May you like
"Richard Kensington landed at O'Hare forty minutes ago," he said quietly.
"He wasn't supposed to be in the country until Thursday."
