Chapter 1 - WHAT VICTORIA WAS TRYING TO HIDE
Table of Contents 5
Victoria reached the cabinet before anyone understood what she was doing.
She yanked the door open so violently that a bottle of dish soap tipped over and rolled across the tile. Her hand disappeared behind a box of trash bags, searching desperately for something hidden against the back wall.
“Victoria.”
Dad said her name once.
She froze.
For the first time since I had known my mother-in-law, the woman who always had an answer for everything seemed genuinely afraid.
Derek moved toward her.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
She ignored him.
Dad stepped closer.
“Take your hand out of the cabinet.”
Victoria finally pulled it free.
Empty.
“I dropped an earring.”
Nobody believed her.
Not even Derek.
Dad looked toward one of my birthday guests.
“Someone call the police.”
Victoria stood so quickly that she struck her shoulder against the counter.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”
Dad still did not raise his voice.
“My daughter has just been assaulted in front of fourteen witnesses.”
“It was a family argument.”
“No.”
He looked toward Derek.
“It became a criminal matter when he hit her.”
Derek laughed nervously.
“You think because you used to be some big federal prosecutor you can walk into my house and—”
“My house.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Everyone turned toward me.
My cheek still burned.
My hands were shaking.
But something had shifted when I heard myself say it.
“This house is mine.”
Derek stared at me.
“Lucy.”
“My grandmother left it to me.”
Derek’s jaw tightened.
“We’re married.”
“That doesn’t make it yours.”
Victoria looked at him sharply.
Too sharply.
Dad noticed.
So did I.
My grandmother had left me the house five years earlier, one year before Derek and I married. I had never added him to the deed despite repeated suggestions from Victoria that “a wife shouldn’t keep property separate from her husband.”
I always thought she was old-fashioned.
Suddenly, I wondered whether she had another reason.
Dad walked toward the sink cabinet.
Victoria stepped in front of him.
“You cannot search someone else’s home.”
He looked toward me.
“Lucy?”
I understood the question.
“You have my permission.”
Victoria’s face went white.
Dad crouched.
He moved the trash bags.
Cleaning supplies.
A roll of foil.
Then his hand stopped.
There was a small black pouch taped beneath the bottom shelf.
I had never seen it before.
Dad removed it carefully and placed it on the counter.
Derek swore.
Victoria whispered, “Don’t.”
Dad looked at her.
Interesting.
Not Derek.
Her.
Inside the pouch was a small digital recorder.
A flash drive.
And three prescription bottles.
My name was printed on all three.
I stared.
“What is that?”
Victoria recovered quickly.
“Your medication.”
“I don’t take any of those.”
Silence.
Dad picked up the first bottle without opening it.
Clonazepam.
The second contained zolpidem.
The third was a bottle labeled with my name but no recognizable prescription information beyond a compounding pharmacy in Connecticut.
My stomach tightened.
I had experienced strange episodes during the past six months.
Mornings when I woke disoriented.
Nights I could barely remember.
Once, I woke on the bathroom floor and Derek told me I had mixed wine with an allergy pill.
Another time, I slept almost fourteen hours after dinner.
Derek laughed afterward and said I was becoming “dramatic like my mother.”
My mother had died when I was twenty-seven.
She had never been dramatic.
“Why are those here?”
I asked.
Victoria crossed her arms.
“You forget what you take.”
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
My father turned toward me.
“Lucy, has anyone prescribed you sedatives?”
“No.”
Derek stepped forward.
“She has anxiety.”
“I do not have a prescription for anxiety.”
Dad’s face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
Then one of the guests spoke.
My friend Monica.
“I’ve seen Derek put something in her wine.”
The room went completely silent.
Derek looked at her.
“What?”
Monica’s face flushed.
“At Christmas.”
“You’re insane.”
“I thought it was vitamins or something.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“I asked Lucy later if she was okay. She said she was tired.”
I remembered Christmas.
Dinner at Victoria’s.
One glass of wine.
Then almost nothing.
I woke at noon the next day with Derek beside me, irritated because I had supposedly embarrassed him by falling asleep at the table.
Dad looked toward the recorder.
“Do you know what’s on this?”
Victoria said nothing.
He did not touch the buttons.
Instead, he placed everything inside a clean plastic cake box from the counter.
“Leave it for police.”
Derek scoffed.
“This is absurd.”
Then Dad asked me something.
“Has Derek ever asked you to sign documents after you were drinking?”
My stomach dropped.
Memories arrived slowly.
A refinancing form.
Insurance paperwork.
Something involving a family trust.
Derek would place papers in front of me late at night and say, “Just sign here, babe. It’s routine.”
I had refused several times.
But had I always?
“I don’t know.”
That answer terrified me.
Victoria moved toward the front door.
Dad stepped aside rather than stopping her.
“Go ahead.”
She stopped.
“Why?”
“Because the police are outside.”
Blue lights flashed through the windows.
Someone must have called before Dad finished asking.
Two officers entered.
Derek immediately changed.
His shoulders dropped.
His voice softened.
“My wife and I had a misunderstanding.”
I almost laughed.
One officer looked at my cheek.
“Ma’am, did he strike you?”
Derek answered.
“She—”
The officer raised one hand.
“I asked her.”
Again.
A question meant for me.
I looked at Derek.
Then Victoria.
Then fourteen witnesses.
“Yes.”
The word came easily.
“He slapped me.”
Derek’s face hardened.
“And this wasn’t the first time.”
Dad looked at me.
Pain moved across his face.
Not disappointment.
Grief.
I continued.
“He has grabbed me. Shoved me. Punched holes in doors beside my head.”
Victoria whispered, “Lucy, stop.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
The officer separated Derek from the room.
Another began photographing my injury.
Victoria demanded a lawyer.
Dad said nothing.
Then one officer looked at the contents of the cake box.
“Whose recorder?”
Nobody answered.
The officer asked whether he could secure it as potential evidence.
I agreed.
Then Monica suddenly said:
“There’s something else.”
Everyone looked at her.
She reached into her purse.
“I didn’t know if I should tell Lucy because Derek said it was a surprise.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
She handed me a photograph she had taken three weeks earlier while helping Derek organize decorations in his home office.
On his desk was a document.
My name across the top.
PETITION FOR TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP OF LUCY VANCE MORGAN.
My breath stopped.
Applicant:
Victoria Morgan.
The room tilted beneath me.
Dad caught my elbow.
I stared at my mother-in-law.
“You were trying to have me declared incompetent?”
Victoria’s lips parted.
Then closed.
Derek started shouting from the hallway.
“Mom, don’t say anything!”
That was the moment everyone understood the slap was not the beginning of the story.
It was the first part they had witnessed.
And whatever Victoria had hidden beneath my kitchen sink suggested Derek and his mother had been preparing something far worse than bruises.
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