Chapter 2 - AccidentsI didn’t answer Dr. Bell immediately.
Because once I started remembering, I couldn’t stop.
The bathroom fall had happened eleven months earlier.
Graham and I had attended his company’s holiday party at the Whitmore Grand Hotel, one of six luxury properties belonging to his family. I remembered drinking champagne during the opening toast. After that, my memories blurred.
Graham told me later that I’d kept drinking.
He said I embarrassed him.
I believed him.
Why wouldn’t I?
I had awakened the following morning with a bruised shoulder, swollen wrist, and a headache so bad I could barely open my eyes.
“You fell getting out of the shower,” Graham had said.
I remembered staring at him.
“I showered?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
He laughed softly.
“That’s exactly why you need to stop drinking when you’re nervous.”
Except I wasn’t a heavy drinker.
I had spent the next week apologizing.
The pool incident had happened six months before that.
Margaret had invited us to dinner. She and I argued because Graham’s father, Charles, wanted me involved in the family foundation.
Margaret hated that idea.
“You married into this family,” she told me. “That doesn’t make you one of us.”
Later that evening, I woke on a lounge chair near the pool with Graham kneeling beside me.
My dress was wet.
My knee was bleeding.
He told me I had stumbled and fallen into the shallow end.
Again, I barely remembered it.
There had been other things too.
Headaches.
Lost hours.
Moments when conversations seemed to disappear from my memory.
I had blamed stress.
Then grief.
Then myself.
Dr. Bell watched my face.
“There were incidents,” I finally said.
“What kind?”
I told him.
Not everything.
Just enough.
He listened without interrupting.
“Did your husband witness those falls?”
“He found me afterward.”
“Did he discourage medical treatment?”
My stomach tightened.
“Yes.”
A knock came at the door.
“Emily?” Graham called. “Everything okay?”
Dr. Bell didn’t answer.
“What exactly are you suggesting?” I whispered.
“I’m not making an accusation,” he said. “Old fractures alone don’t prove abuse. But combined with what happened tonight and your description of unexplained memory loss, I’m concerned.”
“Memory loss?”
“Were you ever tested after those episodes?”
“No.”
“Any medications?”
“Nothing except occasional migraine medication.”
“Who prepared your drinks?”
The question landed hard.
At the hotel party?
Graham.
At Margaret’s house?
Graham.
I sat motionless.
“No,” I whispered.
Dr. Bell’s expression remained neutral.
“No what?”
“He wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“He wouldn’t drug me.”
“I didn’t say that either.”
But the word was already inside the room.
Drug.
A social worker named Denise arrived fifteen minutes later.
Graham was furious.
I could hear him outside.
“My wife fell. This is insane.”
Denise sat beside me and explained my options.
I could make a police report.
I could request that Graham not be allowed back.
I could leave through another entrance.
I could speak with an advocate.
I could go home with someone I trusted.
Someone I trusted.
The phrase almost made me laugh.
My mother lived three states away.
My best friend Natalie had stopped talking to me eighteen months earlier.
At the time, Graham had convinced me Natalie was jealous of our marriage.
Now I remembered the last thing she said.
“One day you’re going to realize every person who worries about you somehow becomes your enemy after Graham gets involved.”
I had called her cruel.
Then blocked her number.
My eyes filled.
“Can I borrow a phone?”
Denise handed me hers.
I still knew Natalie’s number by heart.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
I couldn’t speak.
“Hello?”
“Natalie.”
Silence.
“Emily?”
My composure broke.
“I’m at St. Catherine.”
She didn’t ask why I hadn’t called in eighteen months.
She didn’t remind me what I had said.
She asked only one question.
“Are you safe right now?”
I cried harder.
“Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
She lived almost forty minutes away.
She arrived in twenty-eight.
By then, Graham had been allowed back into the room.
He stood near the window with both hands in his pockets.
“You called Natalie?”
“Yes.”
He looked disgusted.
“Of all people.”
“That’s enough.”
“Emily, she has spent years trying to turn you against me.”
“She hasn’t spoken to me in eighteen months.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at him.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“You said she’s spent years trying to turn me against you. But I haven’t spoken to her.”
His face changed.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But now I was watching.
Really watching.
“You’re medicated,” he said. “You’re confused.”
Dr. Bell had given me acetaminophen.
Nothing stronger.
“I’m going with Natalie tonight.”
“No.”
It came out too fast.
He corrected himself.
“I mean, sweetheart, you’re injured. You should come home.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Emily.”
“I said no.”
The door opened.
Natalie walked in wearing jeans, sneakers, and a gray sweatshirt beneath a raincoat. Her dark hair was tied messily behind her head.
She saw the bruising on my arm.
Then Graham.
Her face hardened.
“Get away from her.”
Graham laughed once.
“This isn’t your business.”
“It became my business the second she called me.”
“Natalie—”
“Move.”
To my surprise, he did.
I was discharged shortly after midnight.
Before leaving, I filed a statement regarding Margaret.
Not charges.
Not yet.
Just a statement.
Graham followed us into the parking garage.
“Emily!”
Natalie moved between us.
“Don’t.”
He ignored her.
“Emily, please don’t destroy this family because you’re upset.”
I stopped.
“I’m the one with a broken rib.”
“I know.”
“Your mother pushed me.”
“She panicked.”
“You lied to the paramedics.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was protecting everyone.”
“From what?”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Natalie helped me into her car.
As she drove away, I watched Graham shrinking in the mirror.
Twenty minutes passed before either of us spoke.
Finally, Natalie said, “There’s something I should have told you a long time ago.”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
She kept both hands on the wheel.
“The night of the Whitmore Christmas party—the night you supposedly got drunk and broke your wrist—I was there.”
My pulse quickened.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
She glanced at me.
“I saw Graham put something in your champagne.”
Every sound inside the car seemed to disappear.
“What?”
“I was across the ballroom. I saw him drop something into your glass while you were talking to his father.”
“You’re lying.”
The words escaped automatically.
Natalie flinched.
And I hated myself for saying them.
“I confronted him,” she continued. “He told me it was your migraine medication. He said you had asked him to put it in your drink because you hated swallowing pills.”
“I never do that.”
“I know that now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
My stomach dropped.
“Our last fight.”
She nodded.
“You wouldn’t listen. Graham walked in halfway through. He said I had been drinking and was imagining things. Three days later, you told me I was obsessed with sabotaging your marriage.”
I remembered.
Every word.
Except one detail.
Graham had been the person who told me Natalie was intoxicated that night.
I had never actually seen her drinking.
“What happened after he put something in the glass?” I asked.
Natalie’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
“You drank it.”
“And?”
“You became disoriented about twenty minutes later. Graham took you upstairs.”
“To our hotel room?”
“That’s what I assumed.”
She swallowed.
“But Emily…”
“What?”
“I followed you.”
My skin prickled.
“Why?”
“Because something felt wrong.”
She stopped at a red light.
When she looked at me, there was fear in her eyes.
“He didn’t take you toward the elevators.”
“Where did he take me?”
“Into his father’s private office.”
I frowned.
“Charles’s office?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Graham locked the door.”
The light turned green, but Natalie didn’t move until someone honked.
“And forty minutes later,” she said, “Margaret came out.”
I felt cold despite the heater.
“Margaret?”
“She was carrying a folder.”
“What folder?”
“I couldn’t see.”
Natalie looked straight ahead.
“But she saw me.”
That explained our friendship ending so quickly.
Perhaps Graham hadn’t merely wanted Natalie out of my life.
Perhaps Margaret had too.
I stared out at the highway lights.
“Why would they drug me to take me into an office?”
“I’ve asked myself that for eighteen months.”
Then my phone vibrated.
I had forgotten it was still in my purse.
Twenty-three missed calls from Graham.
Nine from Margaret.
And one text from an unknown number.
I opened it.
There were no words.
Only a photograph.
It showed me unconscious in a leather chair.
My head tilted sideways.
My eyes closed.
And in front of me, on Charles Whitmore’s desk, was a document.
At the bottom was a signature.
Mine.
May you like
Below the photograph was a second message.
YOU NEED TO FIND OUT WHAT THEY MADE YOU SIGN.
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