Chapter 7 - Emily's SecretEmily had worked for Robert.
Not as a caregiver.
As an assistant at one of his charitable foundations.
Three years earlier.
“Why didn't you tell me?” Richard asked.
“Because your father asked me not to.”
“Why?”
“He hired me to watch Eleanor.”
Richard stared.
“Watch her?”
“Protect her.”
“From Victoria?”
Emily hesitated.
“From everyone.”
Richard frowned.
Emily explained.
Robert believed someone in the household was tampering with medication and manipulating Eleanor.
He didn't know who.
He quietly arranged for Emily to train as a caregiver.
After his death, Emily joined Eleanor's household staff.
“You've been investigating my family?”
“I've been protecting your mother.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Robert didn't trust you.”
That hurt.
“Why?”
Emily looked ashamed.
“He said you were too easy to manipulate when someone you loved was threatened.”
Richard thought of the slap.
His father had been right.
Emily continued:
“He believed whoever was doing this would eventually use Eleanor against you.”
Victoria.
Or perhaps someone else.
Richard asked:
“Did Dad tell you who switched the pills?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you ever touch his medication?”
“Yes.”
Richard stared.
“When?”
“The morning he died.”
“Why?”
“Robert asked me to remove it.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Then what bottle did Victoria give him?”
Emily's face changed.
“I don't know.”
Richard suddenly realized something.
If Emily removed Robert's medication that morning, the bottle Robert later held could not have been his original prescription.
Someone placed it there deliberately.
“Where did you put the real medication?”
Emily answered:
“In the study safe.”
Richard checked.
Still there.
Unopened.
The bottle Robert had held was evidence.
Not medicine.
He had been showing Eleanor proof.
So how did sedative enter his bloodstream?
Not through the pills.
Richard asked the medical examiner.
Possible liquid.
Food.
Drink.
Injection.
Richard remembered his father's nightly tea.
Prepared every evening.
By household staff.
Who prepared it the night he died?
Emily checked old kitchen schedules.
One name.
Margaret Wells.
The family's housekeeper of twenty-six years.
Richard trusted Margaret almost as much as his mother.
She had retired the morning after Robert died.
He called.
Disconnected.
Richard drove to her last address.
Empty.
Neighbor said Margaret had moved six months earlier.
Richard asked where.
The neighbor shrugged.
“A woman came for her.”
“What woman?”
“Blonde. Expensive car.”
Richard showed a photograph of Victoria.
The neighbor nodded.
“That's her.”
Richard stared.
May you like
Victoria had found Margaret.
And never told him.
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