Chapter 15 - THE WHISPER IN ROOM 302
The secure psychiatric and medical ward of the county hospital smelled of bleach and industrial floor wax. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead with a low, monotonous hum that frayed the nerves of anyone trapped within its windowless corridors.
Daniel marched down the hall of the third floor, his heavy boots squeaking against the linoleum. Two armed guards flanked the reinforced door of Room 302. Emma walked beside him, her shoulders back, her jaw set like granite. After seeing the text message outside the bank, she had refused to stay behind at the safehouse.
"Ten minutes, Mr. Vance," the deputy on duty warned, sliding the heavy keycard through the electronic lock. "She’s restrained to the bed for her own safety after the stomach pumping. No physical contact."
The door swung open with a heavy click.
Victoria Vance was propped up against a thin hospital mattress, thin white sheets pulled up to her waist. Her wrists were secured to the steel bedrails by padded leather restraints. The lavish emerald-green dress she had worn while tearing Emma’s bridal gown was gone, replaced by a drab institutional gown. Her once-immaculate silver hair was unwashed and disheveled, but her eyes—ice-cold, sharp, and brimming with unrepentant malice—fixed onto Daniel and Emma the second they crossed the threshold.
"Look at you two," Victoria croaked, a grotesque sneer curling her chapped lips. "The happy newlyweds. Have you consummated your little incestuous tragedy yet, or did the papers in the box spoil your appetite?"
"Shut your mouth, Victoria," Emma said, stepping right up to the foot of the bed, refusing to flinch under the woman's poisonous glare. "We know the truth. Daniel is not Charles’s biological son. I am Charles’s daughter. You didn't just hate my mother because she was working-class. You hated her because she gave Charles the legitimate child you never could."
Victoria’s chest heaved, a dry, mocking chuckle rattling in her throat. "Legitimate? You think you’re legitimate, you little gutter rat? Charles didn't love your mother! June was a thief! She caught Charles embezzling pension funds from the mill workers, and she blackmailed him for every dime he had!"
"That's a lie," Emma said through gritted teeth.
"Is it?" Victoria hissed, straining against the leather restraints, the metal links clinking against the bed frame. "Who do you think bought June that lovely cottage on the ridge? Who paid for your private pediatrician? Who paid for the blue silk on your original christening gown? It was Charles’s guilt money! And when Charles refused to transfer the entire factory deed into her name, your sweet, angelic mother threatened to go to the federal grand jury!"
Daniel stepped up beside Emma, his face like carved marble. "So you burned the mill down to stop her."
Victoria turned her burning gaze upon her son. "I didn't burn anything, Daniel! I was having dinner at the Governor's Club in Philadelphia that night! I had twelve alibi witnesses!"
"Then who set the fire, Victoria?" Daniel demanded, leaning over the foot of the bed, his voice trembling with years of suppressed rage. "Who padlocked the fire exits from the outside while June and twelve other women were doing inventory inside?"
Victoria’s sneer deepened into something terrifyingly triumphant. She looked at Emma, her eyes glittering with dark delight.
"Ask your precious photographer friend," Victoria whispered, the words slipping out like poison into an open wound. "Ask little Ava why her father, the heroic fire chief Thomas, took an early retirement three weeks after the funeral and bought that lovely farm on the outskirts of town in cash."
Emma felt the floor drop out beneath her feet. "Thomas? Thomas loved my mother! He gave me her diary! He stood at the dedication yesterday!"
"Thomas was drowning in gambling debt to the local mob, darling," Victoria whispered softly, leaning forward as far as her restraints allowed. "He didn't just look the other way when the alarms were cut. He provided the accelerant. And your mother wasn't trapped inside the mill by accident."
Victoria paused, her gaze locking onto Emma’s dilated pupils with chilling precision.
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"June wasn't inside the mill when it started to burn, Emma. June was the one who locked the doors from the outside. She thought Charles was in the office. She wanted him dead. But Charles had already left... and her own friends were the ones who couldn't get out."
***
