Chapter 15 - VICTORIA'S SECRET
Victoria sat across from me in a monitored interview room.
She looked older than I remembered.
Not weak.
Just stripped of the confidence I once mistook for kindness.
"What happened before I arrived?"
She stared at her hands.
"Marcus told Lily you were leaving."
I felt cold.
"I know."
"No. Not for the business trip."
She looked up.
"He told her you were leaving her."
My jaw tightened.
"He said you had a new family planned. That you were tired of being a single father."
"Why?"
"To make her panic."
My hands flattened on the table.
"Anything else?"
Victoria cried.
"He told her if she behaved badly enough at the party, you might come back."
I looked away.
That explained why Lily had stayed in the chair longer than anyone expected.
She thought obedience might bring me home.
Victoria continued.
"She kept asking me what she needed to do."
I stood.
"Sit down," Nora said from behind the glass.
I sat.
Barely.
"What did you tell her?"
Victoria covered her face.
"I told her to stay quiet and do what we said."
"Why are you telling me now?"
"Because I heard what she whispered when you untied her."
I remembered.
Daddy, they said you would never come back for me.
Victoria nodded through tears.
"I knew then we'd gone too far."
"You tied a five-year-old to a chair."
"I know."
"You bruised her."
"I know."
"You watched her believe her father abandoned her."
"I know."
"Stop saying that."
She flinched.
I forced myself to breathe.
"Who told Marcus to say it?"
"Harold."
Then Victoria shook her head.
"No. Wait."
She closed her eyes.
"Harold repeated it. But Marcus wrote the script."
"The script?"
Victoria nodded.
"There were lines. For all of us."
Nora entered.
"What lines?"
Victoria looked at her.
"Things to say to Lily."
A written script.
Investigators searched Elaine's files again.
They found it buried inside a folder called PARTY GAMES.
At the bottom, beneath the lines assigned to Victoria and Marcus, was one final instruction.
IF LIAM REMAINS CALM, LILY SAYS: DADDY, PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME AGAIN.
They had scripted my daughter's fear.
But next to that sentence was a handwritten note.
May you like
DO NOT USE. TOO FAR.
The handwriting belonged to my father.
