Chapter 1
I stared at the open pantry cabinet and understood immediately that the butter on my breakfast table was not the most frightening thing inside it.
There were several identical dishes arranged on the shelf. Same porcelain. Same portion. Same careful presentation. Beside them sat the white bottle Annie had described and the small crusher Victoria clearly had not expected me to find.
I looked back at her.
“Eat all of this in front of me. Right now.”
Victoria’s face lost color.
Caleb, half buried beneath the collapsed breakfast rack, stopped moving.
That reaction was all I wanted.
I had no intention of letting anyone actually swallow something that might be dangerous. I wanted to see whether Victoria believed the food was harmless.
She did not.
I set the dish down.
“Thank you.”
Victoria blinked. “For what?”
“For answering.”
Her eyes hardened.
Annie stood behind Grace with her stuffed rabbit crushed against her chest. The hundred-dollar bill still lay beside my untouched breakfast, absurdly clean against the white tablecloth.
I looked at the cabinet again.
“One dish would have been enough for this morning.”
Nobody answered.
I turned toward Caleb.
“Why are there several?”
He looked at Victoria.
Wrong move.
“Don’t look at her.”
His jaw tightened.
I stepped closer.
“How many mornings?”
Victoria spoke first.
“You’re assuming they were for you.”
I looked at her.
“Good.”
That surprised her.
“Then tell me who else they were for.”
Silence.
Grace suddenly made a small sound behind me.
I turned.
She was staring into the cabinet.
Not at the butter.
At the bottom shelf.
A silver breakfast tray sat pushed almost completely into shadow.
Grace’s face changed.
“I’ve seen that tray before.”
“Where?”
She looked at Victoria.
Then at me.
“Your mother’s room.”
May you like
My mother had been dead for eight months.
And just like that, the plan in front of me became older than my engagement.
