On the back, someone had written a date.
The day my mother died.
I looked up.
Adrian’s eyes were filled with grief.
“The toxicology report was hidden in the vault,” he said. “The poison was administered in tea.”
My grandmother had been the only person in the hospital room when my mother drank it.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Vivian—”
“No.”
My grandmother had raised me.
Protected me.
Built the trust.
Preserved the evidence.
She had loved me more fiercely than anyone alive.
“She wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Adrian said. “But there is one person who might.”
He nodded toward the French doors.
A woman stood inside the house.
She was thin, elegant, and trembling.
Her dark hair had turned almost entirely silver, but I recognized her face from the photographs in the vault.
