Chapter 2
For two years, I remembered Vivian’s last dinner incorrectly.
Grief does that.
It preserves pain clearly and everything around it as fog.
Elspeth’s house.
Winter rain.
A long table.
Vivian laughing beside me.
Then panic.
Movement.
A glass breaking.
My wife becoming frighteningly ill.
Afterward, everyone told me the same thing.
An accidental exposure.
Something unsafe had reached her plate despite precautions.
Elspeth cried harder than anyone.
I believed her.
Why wouldn’t I?
She was Vivian’s sister.
Now Franklin stood in my conservatory and told me Vivian had refused dessert completely.
“What happened after she refused?”
He looked at Elspeth.
She looked away.
Franklin continued.
“She asked whether a different plate could be brought.”
I remembered that.
Barely.
Vivian turning toward someone.
Her hand raised.
A conversation at the far end of the table.
Then?
“Elspeth told her it had been checked.”
My stomach tightened.
Elspeth finally snapped:
“It had.”
Franklin shook his head.
“You told her it had.”
Different.
Important.
I moved closer to him.
“Did you see Vivian eat?”
“Yes.”
“Willingly?”
Franklin hesitated.
Elspeth laughed bitterly.
“She wasn’t held down, Ronan.”
I turned.
My voice stayed low.
“That wasn’t the question.”
Franklin answered.
“She didn’t want to make a scene.”
There.
Vivian had been reassured by her own sister in front of a table full of people.
Then she ate.
Not because she was careless.
Because she trusted.
I looked at Elspeth.
“Why did every person who spoke to me afterward use the phrase accidental exposure?”
She stared at me.
No answer.
Franklin gave one.
“Because Dorian told us to.”
My pulse slowed.
Dorian Vale.
My chief security adviser for eleven years.
The man who had stood beside me through Vivian’s funeral.
The man who had told me there was nothing to investigate inside the family.
I turned toward Dominic.
“Find Dorian.”
Elspeth’s face changed again.
May you like
There it was.
Her fear had just acquired another name.
