Chapter 14
The air changed.
Daniel stepped out.
Father and daughter faced each other in the hospital doorway.
Charles looked like a man who had won every legal move and lost the only verdict that mattered.
“You were going to tell me about the trust when?” Eve asked.
His face tightened.
“After the birth.”
“And if Grant had succeeded before then?”
“He didn’t.”
“Because he got impatient. Not because your plan was safe.”
Charles took that.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
His eyes met hers.
“I used your life as part of an investigation without your informed consent.”
There it was.
Not an apology yet.
A fact.
A real one.
Eve stepped back into the room.
He followed.
Daniel remained outside.
The officer closed the door.
Charles stood near the chair but did not sit.
Smart.
“Your mother created that trust after she got sick,” he said.
Eve looked at him sharply.
“Sick?”
He stopped.
Eve’s skin chilled.
“You told me it was the accident.”
Charles went pale.
Slowly.
Like blood leaving marble.
“My mother died in a car accident,” Eve said.
Charles closed his eyes.
For one second too long.
“No,” Eve whispered.
The baby monitor kept beating.
Steady.
Merciless.
Charles opened his eyes.
“The accident happened,” he said. “But she was already ill.”
“What kind of illness?”
“Evelyn—”
“What kind?”
He sat then.
Not because he wanted to.
Because his legs had finally betrayed him.
“She believed she was being poisoned.”
Eve stared.
The words did not enter cleanly.
They broke apart.
Being.
May you like
Poisoned.
Her mother with lavender soap.
