Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE WHITE DRESS
Paramedics cut the sleeve from my uniform.
The club had fractured my shoulder blade and split the skin near my collarbone. The injury required surgery but had missed the major artery beneath it by less than an inch.
Lily had bruising on one wrist where Victoria grabbed her. She had no broken bones.
The police separated us before the ambulance left.
Detective Mara Ellis took my first statement in the emergency room after medication dulled the sharpest pain.
“Why were you in the private study?” she asked.
“I was looking for a box that belonged to my mother.”
“Did you have permission?”
“No.”
“Why did you believe it was in Mr. Cole’s house?”
“My mother worked for the Cole family for twenty-three years. Before she died, she left me a key and a message referring to the east study.”
“Why did you enter this household as an employee instead of contacting Mr. Cole?”
I looked through the glass wall.
Nathan sat beside Lily’s hospital bed while a child advocate explained that he could not question her about paternity or the assault.
He kept his hands folded between his knees.
“I tried contacting him five years ago.”
“What happened?”
“My letters were returned unopened.”
“By him?”
“I believed so.”
“Do you still?”
I remembered Victoria saying my mother’s words.
“No.”
Detective Ellis recorded the answer.
Victoria was arrested at the mansion after the kitchen footage showed her striking me while Lily stood beside my legs. The recording began less than a minute before the blow.
It did not show what happened in the study.
Victoria claimed I threatened her with a letter opener and used Lily as a shield.
No letter opener was found near me.
One rested on the study desk, carrying only Victoria’s fingerprints.
Nathan remained at the hospital until an officer told him the emergency protective order prohibited Victoria from contacting me or Lily but did not restrict him.
He approached my room after asking permission.
I almost refused.
Then Lily woke and whispered his name again.
Nathan stopped at the doorway.
“I never knew,” he said.
“You should have.”
“I received one message from you after I left. It said you never wanted to see me again.”
“I never sent that.”
His jaw tightened.
“I wrote fourteen letters.”
“I received none.”
“I called the hotel in London. Your assistant said you had instructed him to block me.”
“My assistant was hired by Victoria.”
The pieces were too obvious now.
Five years ago, Nathan’s father had died unexpectedly. Nathan flew to London to stabilize Cole International’s European contracts. Victoria stepped into the company as the daughter of its largest lender.
Within three months, she became indispensable.
Within six, she was publicly beside him.
“You could have found me,” I said.
“I tried. Your apartment was empty.”
“Your family’s attorney offered me money to disappear.”
Nathan stared.
“Who?”
“Edward Cole.”
His uncle.
The current chairman of the board.
“I refused the money. The next week, my mother died.”
Nathan looked toward Lily.
“How?”
“Carbon monoxide exposure in her apartment.”
“I was told Anna died from an undiagnosed heart condition.”
“That is what the amended death certificate said.”
His face hardened.
Detective Ellis entered before he could respond.
“A court will arrange genetic testing,” she said. “Until then, Mr. Cole, you are not legally established as Lily’s parent.”
“I understand.”
He looked at me.
“May I stay until surgery?”
“No.”
The answer hurt him.
It protected me.
Nathan accepted it.
Before leaving, he placed his business card on the table.
The back carried a handwritten private number.
“No assistant answers this one.”
After he walked away, Lily asked:
“Is Daddy mad?”
“No.”
“Does he want me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I would not build safety from promises another adult had not earned.
Detective Ellis received a call from the mansion.
Officers had opened the east study under warrant.
The box I went looking for was gone.
Inside the empty cabinet, they found a recent smear of blood and one strand of gray hair.
May you like
The preliminary laboratory test matched neither Victoria nor me.
It likely belonged to my mother.
