Chapter Forty-One
A pair of strong hands grasped Isla by her arms and pulled her back to the door and out of the room. It was Mae, holding on firmly as she guided Isla away from the scene.
She’d poisoned Victor Corrigan. It was all over for her. Not only would she be kicked out, but she’d also be sent to prison.
“Mr. Russell,” Mae greeted Jackson as they passed him right outside the room, as he had yet to enter.
While he didn’t reply, she could see how tense he was.
How he radiated anger as he stared into the room like he was trying to restrain himself, his mouth in a tight line.
Whoever he was looking at like that, Isla was just glad it wasn’t directed at her.
The staff in the house were silent as Mae led Isla downstairs and outside to an awaiting golf cart.
There was no salacious gossip or dirty looks.
If there had been, Isla must have missed them.
That was how out of it she was. It was when they finally made it to the staff building that the shock wore off and was replaced by anger and guilt.
Mae sat her down on the sofa, the others milling around.
The word had gotten out. Isla was a hot commodity today, and all she wanted was for it to end so she could regroup.
She wished she could run to the Red Roof and really be alone, but she was stuck here.
They had gotten her today. They had made her look bad and put Victor’s life in danger. Not they. She.
With Mae, Lisa, and Doris around her, Isla recalled what had happened from the point she and Brooke had left the kitchen for the parlor. As she was finishing, the back sliding door opened, and Lawrence came in after removing his dirt-crusted boots at the door.
“I’ve never been so terrified in all my life,” Isla admitted, her hands still shaking.
She felt outside herself. As if this wasn’t real life, her life, but a movie.
“I gave someone something that could have killed him. I nearly put a man in the hospital. How I’m not outside the gate and walking down the mountain, I don’t know. ”
Doris said, “Well, they say Brooke interceded on your behalf. She said it was an honest mistake.”
Lawrence and Mae shared a long, solemn look worth a thousand words. It was too long for the three of them not to notice.
“What is it, Mae?” Lisa asked. “You’ve been here the longest. With Mr. Corrigan the longest. You know all the skeletons.”
Mae shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t know about all the skeletons because the Corrigans are a different kind of people. Ones you don’t cross even if you come from them.”
“But what was the look you two shared? What is it?”
Mae seemed to debate with herself. She was the house manager. She was supposed to be above the fray and gossip. She was the liaison between the Corrigans and the staff. But she was also the one who needed to look out for the staff, especially when she knew how this family could be.
Lawrence said in his low, gravelly voice, “Mae, you aren’t betraying anything by telling her what just happened. It’s happening again, and Isla seems to be walking a similar path as Edie. She needs to know what she might be dealing with.”
Isla looked from Lawrence, and the way he squeezed his hat between his hands, to Mae, who sat prim and proper, like the grand auntie she was to them all. Hard and soft all at once.
“What does he mean it happened before?” Isla asked.
Mae looked around. “What I say here stays between us. Lisa, Doris, don’t go around saying anything to anyone unless you want to stir up a hornet’s nest and be cast on your rears.” They shook their heads, appropriately scared into silence.
“There was no way you would have known about the almond allergy. Mr. Corrigan doesn’t let anyone know about that. Holland shares the same allergy as he does.”
That was right, Isla thought, remembering when Hasaan, the Uber driver, had thrown the bag of almonds to Holland. She’d mentioned being allergic. She hadn’t said her father shared the same allergy.
Mae continued, “What happened tonight, the ‘suggestion’ that you make him an apology drink and the almond liqueur suddenly being available for use, is too much of a coincidence. I can assure you there was no bottle of almond anything at that bar—or in the house, period. She put it there and manipulated you into using it.”
Isla dropped into the cushions, totally blown away.
Replaying the whole thing in her mind. How Brooke had stood at the stand.
How she had touched the decanters and bottles, moved them around.
Like one of those con people who said to watch the ball as they shuffled boxes around only to reveal there wasn’t a ball under any of the boxes.
She had done a bait and switch. And Isla, normally shrewd and not so believing, had walked right on into it because she’d felt bad about the room situation.
“No one can be that evil,” Lisa whispered. “Can they? That could have killed her husband.”
Mae shook her head. “It wouldn’t, because she knew Dixon would be right there with the EpiPen. And if he wasn’t, Victor has another in his desk. And if we checked her, I’d bet you she had a pen on her too, just in case A and B were unavailable.”
Isla scoffed. It was the only thing she could trust herself to do.
“You asked why Eden left in the middle of the school year and so quickly.”
The note! Isla remembered the item she’d taken from Eden’s room and pulled it out, telling them where she’d gotten it. The other four leaned in to read it. Mae sat back in her chair, her face grim and angry.
“That proves it,” Lawrence said. “In Edie’s own words.”
Doris asked, “You found it where?”
Isla told them.
Lawrence clapped his hands proudly. “That’s a smart girl. Smart girl.”
Mae said, “When Holland was young, Brooke suggested Edie make her a snack. They should have sister time because she was tired and needed rest. Mind you, there was a nanny, and Brooke isn’t the mommy-duty type of wife.
But Edie was happy to do it. She was told where to find the snack.
Cookies from the local bakery that were okay to eat, no almonds.
It wasn’t until after Edie and Holland started eating them that Brooke came running down, frantic.
The cookies had almond paste in them. Eden would have never known.
But Brooke sprang into action. Holland started to react, but Brooke was there, ready with the EpiPen before it got bad.
When Victor came home, she made up some story like she’d asked Edie to help her out with Holland and that Edie was upset because she wanted to do other things.
Brooke made it seem as if Edie took her anger out on Holland, as crazy as that sounds.
She put her own child in jeopardy to get rid of Edie. ”
“Why, though? What did Edie do that made Brooke treat her that way?” Isla asked.
“Edie was the reminder of the wife that should have been, you see,” Mae said.
“Mr. Corrigan loved Myles’s mother, his first wife, but she passed not long after Myles was born, leaving him independently wealthy.
Edie’s mother Elise took care of Mrs. Corrigan while she was ill and stayed on to be Mr. Corrigan’s assistant and caretaker for Myles.
The two of them fell in love. Real, deep love.
With the first Mrs. Corrigan there was an equal partnership and respect.
He loved her. But with Elise . . . he was in love with Elise and she with him.
I think she would have been the next wife if Brooke hadn’t slid in with her eyes on Mr. Corrigan.
She made her daddy pressure him with a huge business merger.
She acted sweet as pie to Myles to kiss up.
In the end, Victor chose business and married Brooke, who immediately got pregnant.
I’m sure Elise was hurt, but she still stayed.
They were still together. Mr. Corrigan was going to make it work somehow.
Then Elise also got pregnant about a year and a half after Brooke.
There was no way Brooke was going to stand for having Elise and her child in the house.
One of them had to go, and Elise decided to leave so Eden could be raised according to her birthright.
She cut herself off entirely from Mr. Corrigan.
She gave him up, knowing she would never have all of him. ”
Lisa and Doris both had tears in their eyes. “This is like a drama I watched the other day. Oh my gosh. Why didn’t he leave Mrs. Corrigan and go with the nice lady?”
“Because Brooke came with an opportunity to grow his wealth and resources. Brooke was high class, her family Virginia nobility, and he could move within their circles without any thought. Everyone would see Elise as low class, a caregiver, gold digger—whatever you can think of, she would have been that. And now Brooke’s doing it again.
Back to her old ways. She doesn’t change her colors.
Anyone who’s a hint of a threat, she gets them out.
Anyone who Victor Corrigan slightly likes, even if it’s wholesome, she removes one way or the other.
Even though he only tolerates her for the kids, she can be the only woman in his life, and her kids can be the only apples of his eye.
That’s why Myles went into the military for a while.
And that’s why Eden left. She was driven out, and her dad let it happen. ”
“Maybe he didn’t know?” Lisa asked.
Isla shook her head, angrier than ever before. “Willful ignorance doesn’t excuse his responsibility,” Isla muttered. “At the center of everything is Victor Corrigan, whether he knows it or not. He is the big catch that everyone is fighting over.”
Now it all made sense. Now Isla understood Eden’s animosity toward the Corrigans for how they had treated her mother and then her.
Eden had come back to settle some scores, and the person who’d had most to lose was Brooke.
She wasn’t above putting her own child and husband in harm’s way to clear her path.
If Eden had returned to blow up the world Brooke had carefully crafted, she wouldn’t have been above taking care of Eden.
Permanently.