Page 54 of Behind These Four Walls
“I’m so sorry you had to see this, Claudia dear,” Brooke continued. “Myles, why don’t you walk her to the car?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Myles said firmly. “I’m not leaving my dad.”
Isla wanted to do the same. She needed to make sure Victor was okay, because it was her fault he had been hurt. But what she wanted didn’t matter because someone else made the decision for her.
Chapter Forty-One
A pair of strong hands grasped Isla by her arms and pulled her back to the door and out of the room. It was Mae, holding on firmly as she guided Isla away from the scene.
She’d poisoned Victor Corrigan. It was all over for her. Not only would she be kicked out, but she’d also be sent to prison.
“Mr. Russell,” Mae greeted Jackson as they passed him right outside the room, as he had yet to enter. While he didn’t reply, she could see how tense he was. How he radiated anger as he stared into the room like he was trying to restrain himself, his mouth in a tight line. Whoever he was looking at like that, Isla was just glad it wasn’t directed at her.
The staff in the house were silent as Mae led Isla downstairs and outside to an awaiting golf cart. There was no salacious gossip or dirty looks. If there had been, Isla must have missed them. That was how out of it she was. It was when they finally made it to the staff building that the shock wore off and was replaced by anger and guilt.
Mae sat her down on the sofa, the others milling around. The word had gotten out. Isla was a hot commodity today, and all she wanted was for it to end so she could regroup. She wished she could run to the Red Roof and really be alone, but she was stuck here. They had gotten her today. They had made her look bad and put Victor’s life in danger. Not they. She.
With Mae, Lisa, and Doris around her, Isla recalled what had happened from the point she and Brooke had left the kitchen for the parlor. As she was finishing, the back sliding door opened, and Lawrence came in after removing his dirt-crusted boots at the door.
“I’ve never been so terrified in all my life,” Isla admitted, her hands still shaking. She felt outside herself. As if this wasn’t real life, her life, but a movie. “I gave someone something that could have killed him. I nearly put a man in the hospital. How I’m not outside the gate and walking down the mountain, I don’t know.”
Doris said, “Well, they say Brooke interceded on your behalf. She said it was an honest mistake.”
Lawrence and Mae shared a long, solemn look worth a thousand words. It was too long for the three of them not to notice.
“What is it, Mae?” Lisa asked. “You’ve been here the longest. With Mr. Corrigan the longest. You know all the skeletons.”
Mae shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t know about all the skeletons because the Corrigans are a different kind of people. Ones you don’t cross even if you come from them.”
“But what was the look you two shared? What is it?”
Mae seemed to debate with herself. She was the house manager. She was supposed to be above the fray and gossip. She was the liaison between the Corrigans and the staff. But she was also the one who needed to look out for the staff, especially when she knew how this family could be.
Lawrence said in his low, gravelly voice, “Mae, you aren’t betraying anything by telling her what just happened. It’s happening again, and Isla seems to be walking a similar path as Edie. She needs to know what she might be dealing with.”
Isla looked from Lawrence, and the way he squeezed his hat between his hands, to Mae, who sat prim and proper, like the grand auntie she was to them all. Hard and soft all at once.
“What does he mean it happened before?” Isla asked.
Mae looked around. “What I say here stays between us. Lisa, Doris, don’t go around saying anything to anyone unless you want to stir upa hornet’s nest and be cast on your rears.” They shook their heads, appropriately scared into silence.
“There was no way you would have known about the almond allergy. Mr. Corrigan doesn’t let anyone know about that. Holland shares the same allergy as he does.”
That was right, Isla thought, remembering when Hasaan, the Uber driver, had thrown the bag of almonds to Holland. She’d mentioned being allergic. She hadn’t said her father shared the same allergy.
Mae continued, “What happened tonight, the ‘suggestion’ that you make him an apology drink and the almond liqueur suddenly being available for use, is too much of a coincidence. I can assure you there was no bottle of almond anything at that bar—or in the house, period. She put it there and manipulated you into using it.”
Isla dropped into the cushions, totally blown away. Replaying the whole thing in her mind. How Brooke had stood at the stand. How she had touched the decanters and bottles, moved them around. Like one of those con people who said to watch the ball as they shuffled boxes around only to reveal there wasn’t a ball under any of the boxes. She had done a bait and switch. And Isla, normally shrewd and not so believing, had walked right on into it because she’d felt bad about the room situation.
“No one can be that evil,” Lisa whispered. “Can they? That could have killed her husband.”
Mae shook her head. “It wouldn’t, because she knew Dixon would be right there with the EpiPen. And if he wasn’t, Victor has another in his desk. And if we checked her, I’d bet you she had a pen on her too, just in case A and B were unavailable.”
Isla scoffed. It was the only thing she could trust herself to do.
“You asked why Eden left in the middle of the school year and so quickly.”
The note! Isla remembered the item she’d taken from Eden’s room and pulled it out, telling them where she’d gotten it. The other four leaned in to read it. Mae sat back in her chair, her face grim and angry.