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“Perhaps Victoria takes after her father,” I say. I remember Giselle’s bruises and how they came to be. My fingers tighten on the delicate handle of my teacup. If I grip it any harder, it will shatter into a million pieces.Breathe, Molly. Breathe.
“Mr. Black, he wasn’t good to you,” I say. “He was, in my estimation, a very bad egg.”
Giselle looks down at her lap. She smooths out the edges of her satin skirt. She is picture-perfect. It’s as if a cinema star from the golden age just crawled out of Gran’s TV and magically took a seat beside me on the sofa. That thought seems more probable than Giselle being real, a socialite who is actually friends with a lowly maid.
“Charles didn’t always treat me well, but he loved me, in his way. And I loved him in my way. I did.” Her big green eyes fill with tears.
I think of Wilbur, how he stole the Fabergé. Any fondness I felt forhim turned to bitterness in an instant. I would have cooked him in a vat of lye if I could have done so without repercussion. And yet, Giselle, who has just cause to hate Charles, holds on to her love for him. How curious, the way different people react to similar stimuli.
I take a sip of tea. “Your husband was a cheater. And he beat you,” I say.
“Wow. Are you sure you don’t want to tell it like it is?”
“I just did,” I say.
She nods. “When I met Charles, I thought my life was made. I thought I’d finally found someone who would look after me, who had it all and who adored me. He made me feel special, like I was the only woman in the world. Things were okay for a while. Until they weren’t. And yesterday, we had a huge fight right before you came in to clean the suite. I told him I was sick of our life, sick of going from city to city, hotel to hotel, all for his ‘business.’ I said, ‘Why can’t we just settle down somewhere, like at the villa in the Caymans, and just live and enjoy life like normal people?’
“People don’t know this, but when we got married, he made me sign a prenup so none of his properties or assets belong to me. It hurt, that he didn’t trust me, but like an idiot, I signed it. From that moment on, things were different between us. The second we were married, I wasn’t special anymore. And he was free to give me what he wanted and take it away at any time. That’s exactly what he’s done throughout our two years of marriage. If he liked the way I acted, gifts would be showered upon me—diamonds and designer shoes, exotic trips—but he was a jealous man. If I so much as laughed at a guy’s joke at a party, I’d be punished. And not just by him turning off the money tap.” One of her hands flits up to her collarbone. “I should have known. It’s not like I wasn’t warned.”
Giselle pauses, gets up, and retrieves her purse by the door. She rummages around and her hand emerges with two pills. She sets her purse down on the chair by the door, returns to the sofa, and pops the two pills in her mouth, washing them down with some tea.
“Yesterday, I asked Charles if he would consider canceling ourprenup or at least putting the Cayman villa in my name. We’ve been married for two years; he should trust me by now, right? All I wanted was a place to escape to when the pressure gets too much for me. I told him, ‘You can keep growing your business, if that’s what you want—your Black empire. But at least give me the deed to the villa. With my name on it. A place to call my own. A home.’ ”
I think back to the itinerary I saw in her purse. If the trip was for her and Mr. Black, why were the flights one-way?
“He lost it on me when I said the word ‘home.’ He said everyone always lies to him, tries to steal his money, takes advantage of him. He was drunk, storming around the room, saying I was just like his ex-wife. He called me a lot of things—a money-grabber, a gold digger…a dime-store whore. He got so mad that he pulled off his wedding ring and threw it across the room. He said, ‘Fine, have it your way!’ Then he opened the safe, rooted around in there, stuffed some paper in his suit pocket, then pushed past me and stormed out of the room.”
I knew what that paper was. I’d seen it in his pocket—the deed to the villa in the Caymans.
“Molly, that’s when you came in the suite, remember?”
I did remember—the way Mr. Black pushed past me, just another aggravating human obstacle in his path.
“Sorry I was acting so weird. But now you know why.”
“That’s quite all right,” I say. “Mr. Black was far ruder than you were. And to be honest, I thought you were sad, not mad.”
She smiles. “You know what, Molly? You understand more than anyone gives you credit for.”
“Yes,” I say.
“I don’t care what anyone else thinks. You’re the best.”
I can feel my face flush at the compliment. Before I have a chance to ask what other people think about me, a strange transformation washes over Giselle. Whatever is in the pills she just took, the change happens quickly. It’s like she’s turning from solid to liquid before my eyes. Her shoulders relax and her face softens. I remember Gran when she was sick, how the medications relieved the pain just like this, for a while atleast, how her face would turn from a tight, stony grimace to a look of peaceful bliss so clear that even I could read it instantly. Those pills worked magic on Gran. Until they didn’t. Until they weren’t enough. Until nothing was enough.
Giselle turns to face me and sits cross-legged on the couch. She wraps Gran’s blanket around her legs. “You found him, right? Charles? It was you who first found him?”
“It was me. Yes.”
“And they took you to the station? That’s what I heard.”
“Correct.”
“So what did you tell them?” She brings one hand to her lips and nibbles at the skin by her index finger. I want to tell her that nail-biting is a filthy habit and not to ruin her lovely manicure, but I refrain.
“I told the detective what I saw. How I entered the suite to return it to a state of perfection, how I felt perhaps it was occupied, how I entered the bedroom to find Mr. Black lying on the bed. And when I investigated further, I realized he was dead.”
“And was there anything weird about the suite?”
