The Flawless Beast

Julian’s face twisted with rage. He drove one trembling hand against the desktop and tried to force himself out of the leather chair. “You’re insane,” he rasped at Victoria. “You bitch.”

He got only halfway upright. His fingers stretched toward the bulky black office phone beside the keyboard, grasping at the one thing that might still save him.

Then his body failed. His knees folded beneath him as though someone had cut the wires holding him up.

He crashed sideways into the desk. The crystal tumbler came down with him, breaking in a bright, vicious burst across the gleaming floorboards. Whiskey spread beneath his cheek while he lay rigid on the rug, fighting for each wet, ragged breath.

I pressed both hands over my mouth, trapping the scream before it escaped.

Victoria rounded the desk at an unhurried pace. She stood over her husband without a flicker of pity, watching him writhe helplessly at her feet.

She slipped her hand into his trouser pocket and removed his weighty ring of keys. Then she took the small dark control that operated the gates.

“Elena.” Her voice cracked through my shock like a whip. “Go to your room and take only what you can carry. Get Lily from upstairs afterward. Bring her to the garage.”

She glanced at Julian’s wrist. “His biometric watch will notify the security company once his heart gives out. We have perhaps ten minutes.”

I could only stare at her. My thoughts spun so fast I could not hold onto one of them.

The monster was finally falling. Julian Vance—the man I believed had hurt his daughter, poisoned his first wife, and terrorized everyone beneath his roof—lay unable to move, choking on the floor.

Victoria had beaten him. She had somehow defeated a wealthy, brilliant predator and rescued Lily from him.

“Yes,” I whispered, relief crashing through me so fiercely my legs weakened. “I’ll bring her. We can get away from here.”

“Move.” Victoria crossed to the door and passed Julian’s master fob over the electronic panel. The lock released with a soft mechanical breath. “I’ll get the SUV running and open the gates. Find me in the garage.”

I did not turn back for Julian. I ran from the office, my bare feet striking the hardwood in frantic, echoing blows.

I flew down the basement steps, skipping stairs in my panic. Inside my cramped bedroom, I yanked my little duffel from beneath the narrow bed.

Clothes did not matter. I threw in my wallet, passport, and phone without even checking whether I had everything else.

But the proof mattered. If law enforcement found us later, Victoria would need something tangible to show why she had done this. She would need evidence that Julian had been poisoning them.

I took my apron from its hook, feeling the pill bottle concealed in its deep pocket. From beneath my pillow, I pulled Maria’s black Moleskine notebook.

Once both items were in the duffel, I rushed back into the hall and headed for the stairs.

The fluorescent light in the laundry room still blazed overhead. As I passed its doorway, it caught the corner of a cardboard box resting on the high utility shelf.

Maria’s Items.

Those two words, written in thick black marker on the folded flaps, stopped me cold.

My breath snagged painfully. I entered the laundry room one cautious step at a time, unable to look away from the box.

I took Maria’s notebook from my bag and opened it to the final message—the desperate entry supposedly left by the housekeeper who had vanished during the night.

November 4th: I can’t abandon them. I hid it behind the kitchen baseboard. Don’t eat anything.

Holding the journal beside the box, I compared the writing.

The notebook’s letters were cramped and uneven, the handwriting of a terrified woman scribbling out a warning. At least, that was what I had told myself it was.

My eyes fixed on the capital M in Maria’s name. Then I looked at the M on the cardboard.

Both letters carried the same graceful looping curve, too particular to be coincidence. They came from the same hand.

I studied the final s in Items. Its tail cut sharply downward, an odd slash that seemed almost angry. On the journal page, every lowercase s ended in precisely the same stroke.

Maria had not written that notebook.

Victoria had.

My hands shook so badly that the journal slipped free and smacked onto the cold tile.

I reached into my apron, seized the empty pill container, and twisted off its white lid. Inside was the tiny square of lined paper I had found hidden there.

He’s making her ill again. Don’t eat the food.

The pencil marks were dark and forceful, their jagged pressure suddenly familiar. If Victoria had created Maria’s journal, then Victoria had written this warning too.

The morning replayed inside my head with terrible precision. Victoria had not accidentally missed Lily with the coffee mug, and she had not thrown it merely to draw Julian’s attention. She had aimed at the baseboard, creating the spill above the concealed bottle, then made Lily clean that exact place because she knew I would watch, step into the pantry, take over, and uncover what she had planted. Victoria had staged the kitchen scene to lead me straight to the evidence.