Page 55 of Behind These Four Walls
“That proves it,” Lawrence said. “In Edie’s own words.”
Doris asked, “You found it where?”
Isla told them.
Lawrence clapped his hands proudly. “That’s a smart girl. Smart girl.”
Mae said, “When Holland was young, Brooke suggested Edie make her a snack. They should have sister time because she was tired and needed rest. Mind you, there was a nanny, and Brooke isn’t the mommy-duty type of wife. But Edie was happy to do it. She was told where to find the snack. Cookies from the local bakery that were okay to eat, no almonds. It wasn’t until after Edie and Holland started eating them that Brooke came running down, frantic. The cookies had almond paste in them. Eden would have never known. But Brooke sprang into action. Holland started to react, but Brooke was there, ready with the EpiPen before it got bad. When Victor came home, she made up some story like she’d asked Edie to help her out with Holland and that Edie was upset because she wanted to do other things. Brooke made it seem as if Edie took her anger out on Holland, as crazy as that sounds. She put her own child in jeopardy to get rid of Edie.”
“Why, though? What did Edie do that made Brooke treat her that way?” Isla asked.
“Edie was the reminder of the wife that should have been, you see,” Mae said. “Mr. Corrigan loved Myles’s mother, his first wife, but she passed not long after Myles was born, leaving him independently wealthy. Edie’s mother Elise took care of Mrs. Corrigan while she was ill and stayed on to be Mr. Corrigan’s assistant and caretaker for Myles. The two of them fell in love. Real, deep love. With the first Mrs. Corrigan there was an equal partnership and respect. He loved her. But with Elise ... he was in love with Elise and she with him. I think she would have been the next wife if Brooke hadn’t slid in with her eyes on Mr. Corrigan. She made her daddy pressure him with a huge business merger. She acted sweet as pie to Myles to kiss up. In the end, Victor chose business and married Brooke, who immediately got pregnant. I’m sure Elise was hurt, but she still stayed. They were still together. Mr. Corrigan was going to make it work somehow. Then Elise alsogot pregnant about a year and a half after Brooke. There was no way Brooke was going to stand for having Elise and her child in the house. One of them had to go, and Elise decided to leave so Eden could be raised according to her birthright. She cut herself off entirely from Mr. Corrigan. She gave him up, knowing she would never have all of him.”
Lisa and Doris both had tears in their eyes. “This is like a drama I watched the other day. Oh my gosh. Why didn’t he leave Mrs. Corrigan and go with the nice lady?”
“Because Brooke came with an opportunity to grow his wealth and resources. Brooke was high class, her family Virginia nobility, and he could move within their circles without any thought. Everyone would see Elise as low class, a caregiver, gold digger—whatever you can think of, she would have been that. And now Brooke’s doing it again. Back to her old ways. She doesn’t change her colors. Anyone who’s a hint of a threat, she gets them out. Anyone who Victor Corrigan slightly likes, even if it’s wholesome, she removes one way or the other. Even though he only tolerates her for the kids, she can be the only woman in his life, and her kids can be the only apples of his eye. That’s why Myles went into the military for a while. And that’s why Eden left. She was driven out, and her dad let it happen.”
“Maybe he didn’t know?” Lisa asked.
Isla shook her head, angrier than ever before. “Willful ignorance doesn’t excuse his responsibility,” Isla muttered. “At the center of everything is Victor Corrigan, whether he knows it or not. He is the big catch that everyone is fighting over.”
Now it all made sense. Now Isla understood Eden’s animosity toward the Corrigans for how they had treated her mother and then her. Eden had come back to settle some scores, and the person who’d had most to lose was Brooke. She wasn’t above putting her own child and husband in harm’s way to clear her path. If Eden had returned to blow up the world Brooke had carefully crafted, she wouldn’t have been above taking care of Eden.
Permanently.
Chapter Forty-Two
Isla had barely closed her eyes before it was time for her to wake and the events of the night before rushed back. Somehow she’d made it back to her room, and security hadn’t come kicking down her door to drag her out. Or, worse, the police to arrest her for attempted murder.
She prepared herself mentally for the hammer to come down, but she wouldn’t sit here and wait for it. Even if she couldn’t be at the estate, Isla still needed to find out what had happened with Eden. The ordeal with Victor would have to wait. Though she wanted to see if he was okay, she was probably the last person he wanted to see, so she’d keep a low profile.
It was midday, so the town was busy enough to pay no attention to the woman on a mission. Libraries today weren’t old, with air smelling like aged paper and varnished wood. They were brightly lit, colorful, and engaging. The librarians greeted you with a smile, not a hush, encouraging respectable noise. There were groups of people meeting, another holding a cooking class, and clusters of small children converging for reading time on primary-colored foam mats that were put together like a huge puzzle.
In response to her quick question, a librarian busily restacking the latest rack of returned books informed Isla that if she wanted to look up any old newspaper articles from before 2019—she needed earlier,about 2012 by her calculations, because Eden had appeared at Isla’s McDonald’s counter early the following year—she would have to go elsewhere.
She was directed to Central Library, where older archives were held on microfilm, and she’d need a library card. She’d even need a card to use one of their public computers to do an internet search. She had known that. She could have asked Rey to get her a false card or into the library system, but that took more time, and time was running out. Rey continued digging up information about Bennett and his pals Danny, Roger, and even the pitiful James.
Isla didn’t know how Victor played into everything. She wasn’t sure how much he really knew about Matthew Leonard and if he was in cleanup mode or genuinely trying to root out the true villains. No matter how much it pained her to consider it, she didn’t know if he knew things and had covered them up or if he was totally in the dark. Not yet. She’d made herself scarce this morning after the fiasco in Eden’s room.
Isla had experienced firsthand the depths to which Brooke would go, and she understood how Eden had felt, being driven out of the house with no one to back her up. She now understood how that anger over being wrongly accused could have festered and forced Eden to return and confront the person behind everything, Brooke—or maybe the person who had to have known what was going on in his home and had opted to look the other way for peace and appearances, Victor. That betrayal, Isla surmised, could have been enough to make Eden go farther than LA, to go entirely off grid, even if it meant leaving Isla behind. After what Isla had gone through last night, she didn’t blame Eden.
She was back at Mabel’s, thinking over a cup of hot tea and the same breakfast she’d ordered the other day. She was deep in trying to decide if she was going to chance getting a library card, if she could with an LA driver’s license and no real address. Could staff quarters count for a home? Not really. Everyone who lived there had actual homes to goto, and hers was across the country. It took her a second to realize that she was no longer alone at the corner table where she sat. She looked up and into the eyes of Officer Bowen.
She stared at him as he looked back, ten years her senior, if that, but still as boyish as he’d been when she’d seen him back then. And there was no denying the expression on his face. He remembered her—not from a few days ago but from years ago, when he’d saved her from being hit by a car and then chased her when she ran from him and his partner.
He started with “I wasn’t sure it was really you at first. You disappeared off the face of the earth.”
She didn’t speak, taking time to think carefully. This was the law. He was someone who could identify her and totally blow her flimsy-enough cover. He could place her with Eden the night she went missing. But Isla was tired. Tired of running around. She wanted answers, and she wanted to be away from people who poisoned their kids and husbands to eliminate fake threats.
“From the other day? You’re Officer Big Breakfast or something,” she replied and sipped her tea. She wouldn’t break cover. She’d let him lay his cards out first. Then she had a thought. What if he was here to arrest her, not for back then, but for last night? What if the Corrigans had pressed charges for attempted murder!
He scoffed, shaking his head ruefully. “Why’d you run like that? Where’d you go?” Bowen said, his gray eyes searching hers. “I looked for you everywhere, and no one knew who you were. It was like you were a ghost.”
“I could be.”
He chuckled. “Funny.” Then he grew serious. “What are you doing back?”
“Is it against the law?”