A medication schedule written in Vivienne’s narrow, elegant hand. Two drops in tea. One at noon if agitated. Increase before appointment. A note beside the schedule read, Make her look confused, not unconscious.
Leah closed her eyes for half a second.
When she opened them, Clara was watching her.
‘They’ve been drugging you.’
‘Some days.’ Clara’s breath shuddered. ‘Some days I spit it into the violets.’
The tiny cup.
The one Rowan hated.
Leah thought of Clara carrying it everywhere, insisting no other cup would do. Not stubbornness. Strategy.
‘Why?’ Leah asked, though she already knew the shape of the answer.
Clara’s gaze drifted toward the ceiling camera, then returned. ‘Bellweather Lane is worth more than all Rowan’s lies. A developer wants the whole block. I said no. I changed my will. Then I became inconvenient.’
Leah stared at the forged document again.
Her marriage, in that moment, rearranged itself backward.
Rowan’s impatience when Clara asked questions about her mail. Vivienne’s sudden interest in Clara’s doctors. The way Rowan had discouraged Leah from visiting Clara’s room after dinner because Aunt Clara needs routine. The strange fatigue Clara had shown lately, the slurred words Rowan called deterioration, the apologies he made on Clara’s behalf when she accused him of taking her checkbook.
Leah had believed she was walking into a family strain.
She had walked into a theft.
Worse than theft.
A slow erasure.
A front door opened.
Leah froze.
Voices sounded from the entry. Vivienne’s soft laugh. Rowan answering, low and amused.
Clara’s fingers closed over the edge of the blanket.
‘Put it back,’ she whispered. ‘Make them think you are useful.’
Leah shoved everything into the hatbox, retied the scarf with trembling hands, and pushed it behind the towels. She put the detergent bottles back exactly as she had found them. Then she stood, wiped her palms on her coat, and stepped into the hall.
Vivienne appeared near the powder room, still wearing her cream raincoat. Diamonds glowed at her ears. Her silver-blond hair had not moved in the weather. She looked like a woman painted into a portrait of money.
Behind her came Rowan, tall, handsome, loosening his tie with one hand. His dark hair was damp at the edges. He smiled when he saw Leah, but the smile did not reach his eyes.
‘You’re early,’ he said.
‘I got on standby.’
His glance moved past her to the laundry room door. ‘Did she work herself up again?’
Leah made herself look tired instead of horrified.
‘She looks sick.’
Vivienne sighed. Not with worry. With disappointment. ‘Clara has discovered that distress brings attention. It is a very old habit.’
Leah wanted to say that old habits did not crack lips or lock doors or forge signatures.
Instead, she lowered her eyes.
‘I’m sorry. I just got in. I don’t understand what you need me to do.’
Relief crossed Rowan’s face so quickly most people would have missed it.
Leah did not.
He believed confusion meant obedience.
‘Nothing complicated,’ he said. ‘There are drops on the hall table. Give her two if she starts ringing again. She’ll sleep.’
‘Did a doctor prescribe them?’
Vivienne answered before Rowan could. ‘The doctor instructed us to keep her calm.’
That was not an answer.
Leah took the amber bottle from Rowan’s hand.
