Page 102 of The Manor of Dreams

Elaine drew her phone out from her pocket and tapped a button on the screen.

“You killed Mr. Lowell.” Elaine’s voice warbled through the speakers. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Lucille and Rennie locked eyes at the sound of their mother’s voice.

“I knew you did. I knew it all along.”

“He abused me. He was going to kill me.”

Lucille staggered; she reached out for the railing. Everything was going in and out now: the sound. Her vision contracted. Her body went numb.

“—How?”

“With the—” Here, Lucille couldn’t catch the phrase Ma had justsaid in Chinese. “The flowers I grew in the garden. They use them in traditional medicine. I knew the roots would kill, so I put it in his sleeping pills.”

“So you poisoned him, and my sister found out?”

“She grew it with me.”

“I don’t believe you. Sophie would never hurt anyone.”

“She didn’t know it was poison. She found me planting it. I couldn’t tell her why I was doing it, so I just said I wanted to grow something next to the roses and she offered to help me. She took care of the plants.”

“So she helped you. Or you forced her to?”

“I didn’t force anything. I’d known about her… and Ada. So I let her confide in me. Trust me. She had no one else to go to. And I thought I could trust her with this in return.”

Elaine tapped the phone and the recording stopped. She looked directly at Lucille. “You want to know why I was here July 20? Your mother wanted to confess.”

Lucille looked down the dizzying height through the railing balusters to the foyer. All the pieces were coming together in her mind.

How had it come to—murder? Why couldn’t they just divorce? Lucille had been reeling all her life from that summer. Trying to reach her mother, trying desperately to put her family back together. And now, here was the answer to the puzzle—and in the end she had offered it to Elaine.

Lucille looked to Rennie, but it was obvious she hadn’t known, either.

“You had asister?” Nora interjected.

“Sophie,” Elaine said through gritted teeth. “She died in that car with Ada.”

“And you never told me?”

Elaine didn’t look at Nora. “I think she was being poisoned too. And then she got in that car with Ada…” Lucille watched her take a deep breath. “Now you know the truth about your mother. She could have left your father, but she chose to kill him instead.” She swept her gaze around. “And look at what she did to all of us.”

The grandfather clock clashed into the hour.

“So,” Elaine said. “You’re going to leave this house tomorrow. Andif you bring a case against me, I will make sure the whole world knows what she did.”

MADELINEwatched her mother let out a bloodcurdling shriek and leap up the stairs, hurling herself at Elaine as if in slow motion.

Together they fell into the railing, cracking the posts under their weight. The phone spun out of Elaine’s hands and tipped over the edge, crashing onto the foyer floor below.

Madeline ran to the edge of the stairs. Nora rushed up, pushing Ma off Elaine. Ma reared and struck Nora across the face. Nora yelped. Madeline grabbed Ma’s arm, and Ma tried to wrench it away, but then Aunt Rennie was pulling her too. “Lucille!” Madeline heard her aunt scream. “Stop it.”

Together Madeline and Aunt Rennie hauled her mother off Elaine and away from the railing, onto the second floor.

Elaine pushed herself up, Nora supporting her. Her chest heaved. She looked over the railing at the smashed phone. “You don’t think I’d have this saved everywhere I could? I thought you were the smart one,” Elaine scoffed. “You’re insane. All of you.”

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