"What do you need to tell me, Hyacinth?" I asked, pulling another vinyl chair closer to the opposite side of the bed.
"I don't have the energy to be clever, Harper, so I'm going to just say it. Someone hit me. In the powder room. I didn't fall, I didn't faint, nobody's precious little theory about stress and dehydration is worth the paper it's written on. Somebody came up behind me while I had the water running and hit me on the back of the head hard enough that I don't remember hitting the floor."
I sat with that for a second, feeling the shape of the whole case shift under me like a porch board about to give. “That’s…awful. The door wasn’t closed?”
“It was but I didn’t lock it. I never lock doors because I’m claustrophobic.”
“That is true,” Robert confirmed.
She gave him a soft smile. “Robert thinks I fainted because I’m pregnant but that’s not what happened.”
“You’re pregnant?” I glanced at the bandage on her head and winced. “Good grief, congratulations but how scary.”
“We’re very excited,” Robert confirmed.
Interesting. Most likely not relevant but good for Hyacinth and Robert. Hopefully their second time around would last.
“Which is why I’m going to find out who did this to me and I’m going to string them up by their balls,” Hyacinth said. “They could have killed me and our baby.”
I appreciated her vehemence.
"You're sure," I said, because I had to ask.
"I have a concussion and four stitches, Harper. I'm sure." She closed her eyes briefly, like even talking cost her something. "I heard the door open. Right before it happened. I've been right to be terrified ever since the gala and nobody believed me."
"I didn't say I didn't believe you," Robert said, gently. "But you always kept the truth from me."
She let out a breath that was almost a laugh, except there wasn't anything funny in it. “I know, but I was scared.”
“I’ll always protect you.”
“You divorced me. I was just trying to protect myself this time around with a little nest egg.”
I would have clapped if we weren’t in a hospital. Good for Hyacinth.
“What about the bracelet?" I asked.
"I know how it looked. Sneaking around a hedge at midnight, burying jewelry like some madwoman in a gothic novel. Believe me, I've had plenty of time lying here to appreciate how insane it looked." Her eyes were wet now, but her voice held. "The wire transfers were real, Harper. Fifteen thousand, then two thousand more three days before the gala. That much is true."
"But it wasn't blackmail," I said slowly, watching her face.
"The way everyone assumed I was blackmailing her." Something bitter crossed her expression. "That's what you all decided? How insulting. Hyacinth's got some dirt on Evelyn, Hyacinth's squeezing her for cash, Hyacinth's the villain in her own little subplot." She shook her head, and even that small motion made her wince again. "Evelyn was paying me freely and of her own will."
"Why?"
"So I’d keep my mouth shut. Evelyn Carrington was dying, Harper. Pancreatic cancer. Stage four. She'd known for months. And out of everyone in that entire city who worships the ground she walked on, she told exactly one person, because I’ve been like a granddaughter to her. We both regretted our falling out."
I felt something cold settle low in my stomach. "She was dying?”
"Evelyn found a private oncologist in Houston so no one here would catch on. She needed a second set of hands she could trust to help manage things quietly. She trusted me."
"The money was payment."
"It was a gift,” she corrected. “She knew she could trust me and she wanted to help me out. It was for my time, for my discretion." A tear finally slid free, and she didn't bother wiping it. "She didn't want pity. She didn't want the gala postponed, or her legacy rewritten into a cancer memoir before she'd even decided how the story ended. She wanted to control it. Every single thing about that woman, right up until the end, was about controlling the narrative."
Truth coming to light.
"The straws," I said carefully. "The night of the gala. Your hand, on the footage. What was that?"
