Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
AURELIA
Iwoke up earlier today, and it isn’t from lack of sleep. It’s because I can’t sleep without Nathaniel around. Last night, I heard him talking to Victor about having to take care of Daniel’s remains. They took off around three in the morning, and they still aren’t back.
A dull sickness sits in my stomach, like something inside me already knows this day won’t end well.
I push out of bed and hurry to the bathroom. The second I reach it, I drop to my knees and bury my head over the toilet, the nausea tearing up from my stomach until there’s nothing left to do but let it happen.
I stay there for a moment, one hand hanging at my side while the other grips the toilet seat.
Some things in life hit before you’re ready, and this is one of them. I’m not ready to be sick. Not now, when everything finally feels like it’s starting to fall into place.
I force myself back to my feet and move to the sink, turning on the water and letting the steam crawl up the mirror until the glass clouds over. I see a shadow. Something moving behind me.
I rub at my face and reach for the towel, freezing in place.
I can’t turn around. The feeling of someone’s hand comes to my shoulder, and the second I open my eyes, a scream rips out of me.
“Miss Vale,” Margaret says.
My breathing turns shallow as I spin toward her. “Margaret, you scared me.”
“I just wanted to see if you’d like some breakfast,” she says. “I prepared eggs and bacon.”
At the mere mention of eggs, my stomach twists again. I gently move her out of the way and drop back to my knees, burying my head over the toilet.
“How long have you been sick?” she asks.
“I woke up like this,” I manage, choking on my own spit.
She gathers my hair and holds it back while I spill my guts out again. When it passes, I push myself up and move to the sink, splashing water over my face before wiping it dry with a towel. In the mirror, my skin looks ghost-pale, and dark circles sink beneath my eyes.
As I turn, she places a hand on my stomach, pressing lightly. Then she lifts it to my forehead.
“You might be pregnant.”
The words hit so hard I choke on my breath.
“No,” I say. “I can’t be.”
My voice drops to a whisper as I stare at myself in the mirror and take a step back.
She raises a brow. “You remind me of her,” she says.
“Who?” I turn to face her.
“Vivianne,” she says. “She found out the same way.” A small smile touches her mouth. “She was a good person, and I know you are too.”
“Thank you,” I say, then ask, “What was she like?”
“Brilliant,” she says with a soft laugh. “She filled this house with laughter. Nothing was the same after the accident.”
“So you knew she was Helena’s mother?” I ask.
She nods. “She told me everything. We used to be close before she went back to England.”
My lips part to ask her more, but the doorbell rings from downstairs.
“I’ll get it,” she says, then makes her way out.
The moment she’s gone, I walk to the closet, my eyes dragging over everything inside while I try to decide what to wear.
In the end, I go with the usual, simple low-waisted jeans and a white blouse.
I pull it on, tuck the blouse in, and just as I’m about to slip into my sneakers, Margaret comes back inside.
“Miss Vale,” she says, “the detective is here. He wants to speak with you.”
“To me?” I lift a brow and look at her.
“He says they found something, and they want to talk to you.”
I follow her out of the bedroom, down the stairs, where a man in a black suit waits by the front door.
“Miss Vale,” he says, “we need to speak with you.”
“Is something wrong?” I ask.
But he only says, “Everything is alright. We just need to question everyone who works for Mr. Rosewood.”
“Okay,” I say as I step closer to the door. “Lead the way.”
“I’m coming with you,” Margaret says, following me outside.
We climb into the back seat of the police car, and they drive us to the station. For a while, I start to think the ride might never end, but it does. By the time we get there, the motion and the smell inside the car have my stomach churning all over again.
I keep wondering what they want from me, what else they could possibly need when I barely knew Lilibeth. Most of what I know about her comes from the diary she kept.
They walk me through a long hallway and lead me into an empty interrogation room, then leave me there alone.
The second the door shuts, my thoughts start clawing at me. I pace the room because standing still feels impossible, because maybe if I keep moving, an answer will come to me before the questions do. I try to think ahead, to prepare for something tricky, but my mind gives me nothing.
Nothing except Nathaniel.
Nothing except the way Margaret’s words keep repeating in my head. That I might be pregnant.
I never dreamed about this moment. I never really wanted kids, not like this, not here. If it ever happened, I thought it would be later. Somewhere far from all of this. Somewhere away from California, away from this house and everything buried inside it.
I make another slow circle around the table in the middle of the room, dragging the tip of my finger over my mouth, and only then does the detective finally walk in.
“You can sit, Miss Vale,” he says.
I drag the chair out and sit down, pulling it closer to the table once I’m settled.
“We have a couple of questions,” he says, opening the thick file in front of him. “Can you tell us how you got the job?”
“I saw an ad in the newspaper saying they were looking for a house sitter, so I called. A woman answered. The housemaid, Margaret Danvers.” I fold my arms and lean slightly over the table.
“Not the owner of the house, Mr. Rosewood?”
“No,” I say simply. “He wasn’t at the property at the time.”
“And?”
“And I went there for an interview,” I say, letting out a tired breath. “Then I got the job.”
“Did you know the owner from before?”
I glance down at my fingertips, the skin around them raw and bloody from nervous biting.
“No,” I say, then lift my eyes back to his. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I’m having trouble remembering people,” I say. “I was in a car accident four months ago.”
He lets out a quiet chuckle. “Hmm.” Then he closes the file.
“Funny thing is, he disappeared after a car accident,” he says. “Strange, isn’t it?”
I frown and shake my head. “What do you mean, disappeared?”
“No one could find him,” he says. “We found his car at the scene of the accident, but not him. We only found out he was alive when we knocked on the door of the house.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say, clearing my throat.
He exhales and sits down again. “You’re saying you lived in his house, wrote about murder, and never once questioned why the man who hired you was nowhere to be found?”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Wrote about murder?”
“We found a strange page in the diary. A list of ten ways to murder someone,” he says. “Just like we found a couple of bodies that keep appearing whenever you’re around.”
I stare at him.
“That list was just a joke I made with the owner...” I start.
“So it’s also a joke that you’re sleeping with him?”
I swallow hard. “No,” I snap. “It’s not.” I straighten in my chair. “It’s private.”
“Well, Miss Vale, either you’re the only one lying, or everyone is,” he says, opening the file again.
“Your handwriting is oddly similar to Lilibeth’s. We have reason to suspect you planted it on purpose so you could free your lover.”
Before he can say another word, the door swings open.
“Detective,” a young man says, breathless, “we got a confession.”
He turns to me, his eyes narrowing. “Who confessed?”
“The housemaid,” the man says.
“Well,” he says, closing the file, “you may go, Miss Vale. Unless you have a different story to tell?”
My brows pull together, a quiet, “No,” slipping from my lips.
He gestures to the door and says nothing else.
I rise from the chair and walk toward it, ready to leave all of this behind, but my mind keeps snagging on Mrs. Danvers and what she did, trying to make it fit, trying to make it make sense.
I see her.
They lead her past me in handcuffs.
“Margaret,” I gasp. “Why?”
She turns her head and smiles. “Because we do everything for family, right?”
Family?
The word hits so hard it steals the air from my lungs.
As they take her away, I lower myself onto one of the plastic chairs in the hallway. I bury my face in my hands and shut my eyes.
An image comes behind my eyes.
Her face, just younger.
We were at a funeral. She was holding me in her arms, and Viviane stood beside us. I was only two when my real parents died. She was there. I see a man walk up to her and offer his condolences, telling her that if she ever needed anything, she could come to him for help.
I remember reaching up with my tiny hand and touching her face, staring into her eyes.
My mother’s eyes. They were the same.
I was only two, just a child. Maybe even then I knew she wasn’t my mother. Maybe some part of me felt she would become one. But I still remember the words tumbling off my tongue.
“Auntie Maggie.”
She is my aunt.
My eyes fly open, and I stare at the door in front of me as nausea twists through my stomach again. I sit there wondering how long she knew. How long everyone knew.
And how long they kept it from me.