The mansion gates came into view eight minutes later.
The iron doors began opening automatically when my car approached, but they moved too slowly. I drove through before they finished, scraping the passenger side with a scream of metal.
I didn’t care.
I left the car angled across the fountain drive, engine running, door open.
The house looked peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Sunlight touched the glass walls. The front hedges were trimmed into perfect symmetry. White roses climbed the stone pillars exactly the way Penelope had insisted they should.
A museum of wealth.
A crime scene dressed as a home.
I ran inside.
The foyer smelled like lilies.
Her lilies.
For one second, that scent nearly made me vomit.
Then Julian screamed from upstairs.
I took the stairs two at a time.
Halfway up, I heard my mother’s voice.
“You will take these, and then you will sleep. When Nicholas comes home, I’ll explain that you had another episode.”
Sophie’s voice cracked. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The second refusal was weak, but it was there.
And I loved her so fiercely in that moment I almost broke.
I reached the nursery door.
Penelope stood with her back to me, one hand gripping Sophie’s jaw, the other holding two white capsules near her mouth.
Sophie sat trapped in the rocking chair with Julian pressed between them, tears streaking her face. Her lip was split. One side of her scalp was red where hair had been pulled hard enough to tear skin.
For a fraction of a second, nobody moved.
