Chapter 8: What Victoria Did Next
Victoria called Emily directly on a Sunday evening.
Emily was home.
She had spent the day answering emails from Grace, speaking briefly to Carla Webb about two of the fourteen people who had come forward, and eating soup she had made mechanically and couldn't remember the taste of.
When Victoria's name appeared on her screen, Emily sat up straight.
She answered.
"Emily." Victoria's voice had changed.
The smoothness was still there — it was structural, built into the way she formed words — but underneath it was something tight and effortful.
"I think it's time we spoke honestly."
"All right."
A pause.
"Not on the phone.
In person.
Just the two of us."
"No."
"Emily—"
"I'm not meeting you privately, Victoria.
Not without my solicitor present.
If you have something to say, say it now or say it through your lawyers."
A longer pause.
When Victoria spoke again, the smoothness had thinned.
"You have made a very serious error of judgment.
You took something private — something that involved people and circumstances you don't fully understand — and you handed it to a journalist.
Do you have any idea what that has set in motion?"
"Yes," Emily said.
"I do."
"There are people connected to Richard whose situations are now being scrutinized because of what you've done.
People who had nothing to do with your mother.
Employees.
Associates.
Families."
"That's not my responsibility.
That's Richard's."
"You are twenty-two years too late to understand what you're talking about." Victoria's voice sharpened.
"Your mother made a choice.
She was an adult.
She signed those papers.
Whatever she told herself afterward—"
"Stop." Emily's voice came out flat and cold.
"Don't."
"I am trying to help you understand—"
"You are trying to make me feel responsible for what you did to her." Emily stood up from the table.
"It won't work.
I've had three weeks to think about every version of this conversation, and it won't work."
Silence.
Then Victoria said something Emily had not expected.
"I was there when you were born."
Emily said nothing.
"Rose called me from the hospital.
I was the first person outside the family she told." Victoria's voice had shifted — not softer exactly, but different.
Older.
"We were friends for thirty years.
That was real."
"I know it was real," Emily said.
"That's what makes it worse."
Another silence.
Longer.
"What do you want?" Victoria asked.
And for the first time, the question sounded genuine — not strategic, not tactical.
Just tired.
"I want what was taken from her returned.
I want the people you did this to — all of them — to have the same chance." Emily's voice was steady.
"And I want you to stop pretending that friendship was an excuse."
The line was quiet for so long that Emily checked to see if the call had dropped.
It hadn't.
"The settlement offer," Victoria said finally.
"Richard's lawyers will contact Grace Elliot tomorrow with revised terms."
"We'll review them."
"Emily." A pause.
"For what it's worth—"
"It isn't," Emily said.
"Not anymore."
She ended the call.
She stood in her kitchen for a moment, phone in hand.
Then she sat back down, pulled her mother's letter from the folder on the table, and read it again — not for evidence, not for the legal record, but just to hear her mother's voice in the words.
*I'm sorry I didn't fight harder.
I'm sorry I trusted the wrong people.
I hope you find something better than what I left you.*
Emily folded the letter carefully.
"I did, Mum," she said to the empty room.
"I found the truth."
Her phone lit up.
Grace.
*Their lawyers called.
New offer.
Call me when you're ready.*
Emily looked at the message.
May you like
Then at the letter in her hands.
She picked up the phone.
