Chapter 2 - THE MAN MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME TO HATEI woke up in Greenwich Hospital.
The first thing I saw was a police officer.
The second was my sister, Caroline.
“Don't move.”
My throat hurt.
“What happened?”
“You passed out.”
“David?”
“He called 911 from the gatehouse.”
Relief moved through me so quickly it almost made me cry.
“Did he leave?”
Caroline hesitated.
“Yes.”
“To New Haven?”
“I don't know.”
A trauma physician came in before she could say more.
Nothing life-threatening.
Two cracked ribs.
A concussion.
Extensive bruising.
A badly sprained left wrist.
Dehydration.
No internal bleeding.
I listened as though he were describing somebody else's body.
The detective waited until the doctor cleared me.
Her name was Lena Ortiz.
“Mrs. Kensington, I need to ask you about your husband.”
“Victoria.”
“All right. Victoria.”
I told her.
Not beautifully.
Not chronologically.
I started with the document.
Then Maya.
Then the first slap.
Then Julian taking my phone.
Then being locked inside the house.
Then David being ordered to pour ice water over me whenever I stopped answering questions.
“Three hours?”
“Approximately.”
“Was David physically assaulting you other than the water?”
“No.”
“Did he restrain you?”
“Once. At the beginning.”
“Why did he stop?”
“I think he realized Julian wasn't trying to scare me.”
“What was he trying to do?”
“Break me.”
The detective wrote that down.
Julian was already being questioned.
Maya had left the house before officers entered but had been located at her apartment.
David remained at the scene long enough to give a statement.
Then he left.
“With the pendant?”
The detective looked up.
“What pendant?”
I closed my eyes.
Good.
He hadn't turned it over.
Not because I wanted to hide evidence.
Because the pendant wasn't evidence of Julian's assault.
It was a message to someone else.
Caroline waited until Detective Ortiz left.
Then she said, “Dad is coming.”
The word still irritated something childish inside me.
“Don't call him that.”
She sighed.
“You're thirty-four.”
“And he's been gone since I was five.”
“He didn't disappear.”
“He left.”
“You don't know that.”
I stared at her.
Caroline was three years older than me.
Old enough to remember more.
She rarely discussed our father.
Our mother, Margaret, had made that subject nearly impossible.
Daniel Vance had supposedly stolen money from Vance Heritage Holdings, cheated on our mother, then accepted a settlement and vanished to Connecticut's quieter intellectual corners while Margaret rebuilt the company and raised us alone.
That was the family version.
At seventeen, Caroline had secretly met him once.
My mother found out.
The fight lasted two days.
Caroline never went back.
I had refused even that much.
Daniel sent birthday cards.
College graduation flowers.
A handwritten note when Margaret died eight years ago.
I returned it unopened.
“Why is Julian afraid of him?” I asked.
Caroline looked toward the hospital door.
“I don't know.”
“You know something.”
“Not enough.”
I could feel irritation rising.
“Then tell me the amount you do know.”
She sat beside my bed.
“Mom lied about why Dad left.”
My body went still.
“What?”
“I found court papers when she died.”
“Court papers saying what?”
“That he didn't abandon custody.”
I laughed once.
It hurt my ribs.
“That's ridiculous.”
“He fought for us.”
“Then where was he?”
Caroline looked miserable.
“Mom accused him of stealing from the company.”
“He did steal.”
“Did he?”
The question sat between us.
I hated it immediately.
Before I could answer, Caroline's phone rang.
Unknown number.
She handed it to me.
I answered.
“Victoria?”
I hadn't heard his voice since I was five.
And somehow I knew it.
Older.
Rougher.
Still him.
My father.
“I have the jade,” Daniel said.
I couldn't speak.
Then:
“David told me what happened.”
A pause.
“I won't come if you don't want me to.”
Part of me wanted to hang up.
Another part remembered Julian's face when he heard New Haven.
“Why is my husband afraid of you?”
Daniel was silent for several seconds.
May you like
Then he said:
“Because three months ago, he came to see me.”
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