Page 65 of A Hidden Past

“Yeah. Julian tossed the body in the pool to make it look like an accident, Clara cleaned up the blood, and then Julian’s business partner gave them an alibi.”

“Hmm. I figured Barry would do that. He was very helpful when Julian had Derek Hill killed.”

I pause with my coffee cup halfway to my lips. “How did you know about that?”

“Word travels fast in this neighborhood. You know that. Drink your coffee, dear.”

I sip my coffee. This brew is brighter than the last one, slightly tangy. “Is this a new blend?”

“Yes. Colombian Supreme. I have no idea what that means, but I thought I’d try something different. Do you like it?”

“It’s… interesting.”

She laughs. “I’ll take that as a no. Well…” she looks over at my half-full mug, and her eyes harden. “That should be enough. You don’t have to drink the rest.”

An alarm goes off in my head, but I have no idea why. What do I possibly have to be afraid of?

“It’s too bad that Lila had to get mixed up in all of this,” Edith says offhandedly. “But I don’t think Julian would ever have been pushed far enough if she hadn’t come forward with what she knew.”

Another, far louder alarm goes off in my head. I swallow thickly. “What? What are you…”

I swallow again. My throat feels strangely thick.

“It’s too bad that you had to get involved in this too,” she says. “But when an opportunity comes, you take it. You’re never guaranteed another.”

I swallow a third time and frown. My ears are buzzing. “What are you… What’s… You…”

“I told you that if you wanted to punish someone, you had to be patient. But you also have to be shrewd. And when the time comes to strike, you have to strike fast and hard.”

I lift my eyes to hers. It’s a lot harder than it should be. My head feels so heavy.

Edith’s smile is gone. Even the fake one she wears is gone. Her lips are set in a grim line, and her eyes are cold and flinty. I realize with a shiver that her expression is a dead ringer for Julian Kensington’s.

“I missed my opportunity to punish Oliver Kensington,” she says. “I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

“What… Oliver?”

“Julian’s father,” she explains. “He was a beautiful man. Eyes like a summer sky and hair like the sun that shines in it. An absolutely perfect body too. I took one look at him, and I was head over heels.” She sips her coffee. “I was a foolish girl, of course. He was married to Annette Hawthorne. I was pretty in my youth, but Annette…” she whistled. “She was the kind of girl men leave their wives for. The problem was that she was his wife, and all I was was the silly girl who would do things for him that she wouldn’t.” She smiled bitterly. “And I was happy to. My body belonged to him because the things he made me feel, oh…”

She looked at me, still wearing that bitter, contemptuous smile. “Vivian Chase was like that for you. The pinnacle of lust. A body so perfect that your entire will becomes slave to it.”

I know she shouldn’t be talking about Vivian like this. I also know I should say something about it, but I can’t think of anything to say. For some reason, all of my thoughts are slow and muddled.

“Anyway, that’s enough of that. Vivian, it turns out, is a good person. When she realized she was stealing you from yourself, she let you go. Oliver Kensington wasn’t a good person. When he realized he was stealing me from myself, he just kept stealing until there was nothing left of me. When I became pregnant with Julian, I thought that maybe he would see, maybe he would understand how much he meant to me, and maybe I could mean the same to him.” She shook her head. “Foolish girl.”

I frown. “Wait. You’re… you’re Julian Kensington’s mom?”

“I am. I gave birth to him in a shitty room in a shitty hospital ran by shitty doctors. Alone. I held him to my breast and sang to him, and for one hour, I thought if I could at least have him, then I could find a way to be happy. Then Oliver showed up and took him from my arms, and when I protested, he told me that if I made any trouble for him, he would have me killed.”

My eyes start to close, and my head starts to sink, but when I see Edith watching me like a hawk watching a field mouse, I force myself to sit straight. “Yer… what’d you do?”

“I drugged you. I can’t leave any loose ends.”

My eyes widen. At least, I think they do. I’m so foggy right now, I can’t really tell. “What? You… drugged…”

“Yes. I drugged you.” She sips her coffee again and sighs. “I waited for years for my chance to get revenge on Oliver. I watched him in his home, followed him to his work, stalked him when he vacationed. I carried a gun for thirty years, waiting for the chance to use it, but I never found it. He died peacefully in his sleep, in the arms of his loving fucking family, while my son held the hands of a woman who wasn't his mother."

Her lips press into a thin line. “I hated Julian for that.”

---