Page 15 of The Manor of Dreams

She understood immediately what it was: security camera footage.

She had told Ma to do that, too, living all alone here by herself. Lucille deciphered the file labels; the dates led all the way up until July 20. She hovered the cursor over it.

Her phone rang in with a call from an unknown number.

Lucille paused and then picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Lucille Wang?”

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“This is Scott Felim from the medical examiner’s office. We have preliminary results of your mother’s autopsy. Do you have a moment?”

six

AUGUST 2024

DAY 2 IN THE HOUSE

MADELINEliked wandering the house. As she made her way down the carved, creaky staircase, the wood gave just slightly beneath her feet. At the bottom was the foyer, complete with a chandelier, this magnificent circular structure with layered, tapering rows of delicate glass like sheets of rain. To the right was the closed library study and to the left, the dining room. She walked past them both into the hallway and emerged into a grand living room. She sunk into the cracked leather couch, eyeing the grandfather clock across from her on the marble mantel. It felt strange to be this deep in the house. She had never made it farther than the foyer when Wài Pó had been alive.

Quick footsteps sounded behind her. Ma was at the entrance, back to the hallway. “Go to the library. I need to get your aunt.”

Madeline stood. Her mother looked alarmed. There were two scratches down the side of her cheek. “Everything okay? What happened to your face?”

But her mother turned without a word.

Madeline made her way into the library just as Nora was emerging from the branch of the hallway to Madeline’s right. They almost ran into each other. Nora averted her gaze and pushed past Madeline as if she didn’t exist, toward the kitchen. Madeline stared at her retreating figure. Moments later she heard the hushed voices of Ma and Yí Ma as they descended the stairs. They all gathered in the library. Ma waved them over to the desk.

“The preliminary autopsy came in.” Ma pulled something up on her phone and showed them. “Toxicology is inconclusive. Which means that there must have been something in her system.”

Madeline sucked in a breath through her teeth and stared at the small words on the glaring screen. An eerie tension hummed throughout the room.

“My God,” Aunt Rennie whispered. “What toxic substances?”

“It doesn’t say. It will be weeks before we have the full report. Months, maybe.” Ma set her phone down. “But now we know it wasn’t a heart attack. It wasn’t a natural death at all.”

Aunt Rennie looked faint. “So you’re saying…”

“She could have been poisoned,” Madeline heard herself say.

“Shewas.” Ma started to pace. “Now weknowElaine’s behind all this. She changed the will and killed our mother.”

“Hold on,” Aunt Rennie said. “Someone else can change Ma’s will? What did the lawyer say?”

“Not exactly,” her mother said. “Ma did change the will herself.”

Madeline spoke up. “Well, that doesn’t add up, then. You’re implying Elaine forced Wài Pó to change her will, and then she poisoned her?”

Her mother fixed her with a calculating stare. “That isexactlythe scenario I’m thinking of.”

Madeline shifted uncertainly. “It just… seems a little extreme.”

“And what’s extreme about it?”

“That Wài Pó would just… go along with it?” Already Madeline felt herself withering in the face of her mother’s resolve. She looked away. Her gaze trailed past the bookshelves and to the windows.

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