Chapter 4: What Patricia Already Knew
They sat in a small anteroom off the main corridor — Evelyn, Lily, and Patricia Hale — while the ballroom behind them buzzed with the particular energy of people who had witnessed something they would be describing for years.
Lily had fallen asleep across two chairs pushed together, her head on Evelyn's folded coat, her breathing slow and even in the way only children can manage after a storm.
Evelyn watched her daughter sleep.
"She's remarkable," Patricia said.
"She's exhausted." Evelyn didn't look away from Lily.
"She held it together the whole time.
She didn't cry until we got to the hallway."
"Most adults wouldn't have managed that."
"She's six.
She shouldn't have had to manage anything."
Patricia set a paper cup of water on the table between them.
Evelyn picked it up.
Her hand was steadier than she expected.
"You said you'd been watching the family," Evelyn said.
"What does that mean, exactly?"
Patricia opened the leather folder on her lap.
"It means that you are not the first person to come to me with a story about Julian Ashworth."
Evelyn went still.
"There was a woman before you," Patricia said.
"Her name was Diane.
She was married to Julian for three years.
She came to me eight months into the marriage.
By the time she left, she had signed away the house, the savings account, and custody of her dog because she was so desperate to get out that she agreed to everything just to make it stop." Patricia paused.
"She's the one who asked me to come tonight.
She heard through a mutual friend that Julian had remarried.
She wanted someone in that room."
"She sent you."
"She asked me to go.
There's a difference." Patricia's voice was careful.
"I came because I wanted to.
Because I've seen what this family does to people, and I was tired of hearing about it secondhand."
Evelyn set the cup down.
"How many women?"
"That I know of personally?
Two, including you.
But Diane found a third — a woman named Rosalind who was engaged to Julian briefly, about seven years ago.
The engagement ended when she tried to leave and he had her locked out of the apartment they shared.
She lost everything in the apartment.
She never filed a report."
The corridor outside was quiet now.
Somewhere distant, a door closed.
"He's done this before," Evelyn said.
Not a question.
"Yes."
"And Eleanor."
"Eleanor has been present for all of it." Patricia's voice didn't change.
"She is not a bystander who didn't know.
She is an active participant in how the aftermath gets managed.
She is the one who speaks to the lawyers.
She is the one who makes the calls.
Julian is the face of it.
Eleanor is the architecture."
Evelyn thought about the grip on her arm.
*You will have nothing left.*
"She said that to Diane too," Patricia said, as if she had followed the thought.
"Word for word.
Diane told me."
Evelyn looked at her daughter sleeping across the chairs.
"What do I do?" she said.
Not helplessly.
Practically.
The way a person asks when they have already decided to do something and need to know the first step.
"Tonight, you let me file the police report.
You give a statement while everything is fresh.
The recording on my phone goes with it." Patricia closed the folder.
"Tomorrow, you call me at my office.
Not from your home phone.
Not from any phone connected to the household account.
From your personal cell."
"He pays the bill on my personal cell."
Patricia reached into her bag and set a prepaid phone on the table.
Still in the packaging.
"I brought two," she said simply.
Evelyn stared at it.
"You really did come prepared."
"Diane asked me to." A small pause.
"She also wanted me to tell you something, if tonight went the way she thought it might."
"What?"
"She said — " Patricia looked at her steadily — " 'Tell her it gets quieter.
Tell her the noise in her head, the part that keeps asking if she's wrong about him — it gets quieter.
And then one day it stops.' "
Evelyn's throat tightened.
Lily stirred in her sleep, made a small sound, then settled.
"Okay," Evelyn said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Okay.
Let's start with the police report."
Patricia was already reaching for her pen.
Outside in the corridor, footsteps.
Two sets, moving fast.
Julian's voice, low and sharp, carrying through the gap under the door: "Find out who she is.
Find out everything."
May you like
Eleanor's answer, quieter: "I already know who she is.
That's the problem."
