The Flawless Beast

I found Maria’s last page. The date at the top was November 4, nearly four weeks before I had entered the Vance house for the first time.

November 4: I cannot abandon them. I have the empty thallium bottle, and tomorrow, during my day off, I will bring it to the police. I left something for whoever comes after me in case he prevents me. It is hidden behind the kitchen baseboard. If you find this, do not eat anything. He hides the metal taste in broth.

Maria had never walked into a police station.

Julian must have intercepted her. His hidden cameras would have shown him exactly what she planned.

A harsh scrape of metal suddenly rang out over my head.

I flinched so violently that the notebook almost slipped from my hands. Beneath the duvet, I froze and listened.

My room sat beneath the kitchen. Above me came the unmistakable groan of a barstool being dragged across marble.

Someone else was awake.

The screen of my phone read 2:45 a.m.

If Julian stood in that kitchen, then I was sealed into the basement like an animal in a cage. Should he come downstairs, I had nowhere to disappear.

I slid from the bed, tucked Maria’s notebook under my pillow, and crossed to the door. I put my ear against its flimsy wooden surface.

Steps crossed the floor overhead. They were slow and uneven, little soft sounds without shoes.

They were not Julian’s deliberate stride, not the crisp impact of his leather loafers.

I unlocked the door and eased into the corridor. The sleeping house felt airless, so silent that every creak seemed to announce me. I climbed the narrow wooden stairs leading straight into the pantry beside the kitchen.

The pantry door stood barely open. Refrigerator light leaked through the gap, painting a weak yellow stripe across the tiles.

I stopped breathing and looked through the opening.

Lily stood before the open refrigerator, washed white by its cold glare. Her huge gray sweatshirt swallowed her narrow body, and her bare ankles looked frighteningly thin, mottled with bruises.

She was not sneaking a snack. She had wrestled the enormous steel pot of leftover soup from the lower shelf. Her arms trembled as she struggled beneath its weight.

After a shaking effort, she got it onto the low counter. Then she reached into her sweatpants pocket and removed a little blue glass bottle.

My heart crashed against my ribs. Had Julian forced his daughter to dose the food herself?

Then I saw the label. I recognized it from pharmacy deliveries I had put away the week before: liquid activated charcoal, used to bind toxins in an emergency.

Lily unscrewed the dropper with practiced speed. She emptied three full measures of thick black liquid into the soup.

She seized a wooden spoon and stirred desperately. The charcoal vanished into the dark brown broth until there was no visible trace of it.

She was counteracting poison. An eight-year-old child had been secretly medicating herself and her stepmother in the dead of night, trying to keep both of them alive.

“Lily,” I whispered, opening the pantry door enough to enter.

She did not cry out or let the spoon fall. Her face jerked toward me, pale blue eyes blown wide with a raw, animal terror.

At once, she placed herself in front of the pot. She gripped the spoon like a weapon, ready to protect that soup from me with her tiny body.

“I won’t tell him,” I said urgently. I dropped to my knees, making myself lower than she was, and lifted both empty hands. “I know about the charcoal. I know what he has been doing to you.”

Her chest rose and fell hard. Her fingers had gone white around the spoon as she studied me, deciding whether I was another trap set by Julian.

“Maria wanted to help,” Lily said. Her whisper was scraped raw. “Daddy made her disappear.”

“I know.” Tears burned behind my eyes. “I found her notebook. I’m getting you and Victoria out tonight.”

Lily shook her head so hard that her tangled blond hair lashed across her cheeks. “You can’t. He changed the gate code. Daddy is the only one who knows it. The doors lock from inside.”

“Then I’ll smash a window,” I told her. Something inside me hardened beyond fear. “I don’t care if everyone hears it. We’ll run.”

“Any noise will trigger the alarm and wake him,” said a hollow voice from the dark dining-room archway.

I spun toward it, my foot slipping slightly on the polished floor.

Victoria emerged from the shadows in a long white silk nightgown. She looked almost unreal, all sharp cheekbones and exhausted hollows beneath her eyes. Julian’s heavy chef’s knife rested against her hip in her right hand.

“Mrs. Vance,” I breathed, scrambling upright and moving between her and Lily. “Victoria, listen. I know Julian is poisoning you. I can help.”

Victoria’s expression did not change. “Julian isn’t poisoning me,” she said. “I’m poisoning Julian.”