The Perfect Little Lie

by Madyson Grey

  “Are you family?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m her daughter,” Victoria said. “Is she here?”

  “Yes, she’s here, but she is in the psychiatric ward under guard,” the woman said.

  ‘I know that,” Victoria said, matter-of-factly. “It’s just that in all the chaos yesterday, I forgot to ask where she was being taken. What’s her room number?”

  “She’s in room five two nine,” the receptionist told her. “But you’ll have to check with the nurses’ station up there to find out if you can see her.”

  “OK, thanks.”

  “Take that elevator over there to the fifth floor,” the woman instructed.

  “OK, thank you,” Victoria said.

  She went over to the elevator and pushed the call button. The thirty seconds or so that she waited seemed much longer. She had mixed feelings about seeing her mother. On one hand, Marian was her mother and it was her duty to see her. And she was a bit morbidly curious as to what state of mind her mother was in today. On the other hand, as guilty as she felt about it, she was glad that Marian was someplace where she couldn’t hurt anybody anymore. It was a great relief to have her out of the house and off her back about Rafael.

  The elevator door finally opened, and spilled out its contents into the hall where she was standing. When it was empty, she entered and, after checking to see that no one else wanted on, she pushed the number five button and watched the doors glide shut. The elevator began to move. She recalled how, as a little girl, she always loved to ride the elevator in her daddy’s office building. When she got a little older, around eight to ten years old, she was allowed to ride it all the way to the top and back down again, just to amuse herself.

  The elevator in the Thornton Tower building was of the old-fashioned kind that had an elevator operator. He had been there when David Thornton had purchased the building, and David had just kept him on. In the twenty-first century, it was a novelty to have an elevator operator. People commented on it to him sometimes, and he figured it was a way to stand out from the crowd.

  The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and opened its doors for her to exit. She stood for a couple of seconds looking to see where the nurses’ station was. There it was, over to her left. She turned and headed that way. A middle-aged heavy-set nurse sat at a computer doing something, but she stopped and acknowledged Victoria when she walked up to the desk.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “I want to see Marian Thornton, please. I’m her daughter,” Victoria said.

  The nurse didn’t even look for any information. She knew who Marian Thornton was and what room she was in. Ruby Cline, RN, was an avid reader of the society columns in the papers and magazines. She had known who Marian Thornton was long before she was admitted to the fifth floor of the hospital. Even the rich fall eventually, she had thought to herself when Marian was brought in the day prior.

  “She’s in room five two nine,” Ruby told her. “But you’ll have to check with the officer outside her room to see if he’ll let you in. It’s down that hall there.”

  “All right, thanks,” Victoria said.

  She went down the indicated hallway. She could see a policeman sitting in a chair outside the door to room 529. When she approached him, he stood up and moved so he was in front of the door.

  “I wish to see Marian Thornton,” Victoria said. “She’s my mother.”

  “May I see your ID, please?” the officer asked.

  Victoria pulled her wallet out of her purse, opened it, and took out her Washington driver’s license. She handed it to the officer who studied it for a moment, then handed it back.

  “Just for a few minutes, Miss Thornton,” he conceded. “That’s all.”

  “That’s all I need, sir,” she said.

  He opened the door, looked in at Marian first, then stood back so that Victoria could enter. Marian was lying in a hospital bed that had the side rails pulled all the way up. She could see one arm handcuffed to the side rail. If she hadn’t known for sure that this was her mother, she wouldn’t have recognized her.

  Her perfectly coiffed hair was flat and messy. No make-up adorned her face. Her jewelry was off. Her skin was pale and blotchy. Her eyes were closed, but there was no peace on her face. Victoria stepped up to the bedside and stood looking at the woman lying there for a long moment before she said anything.

  Finally, “Mother? Mother?” she said softly.

  No response.

  Again, “Mother? Can you hear me?”

  Marian’s eyes fluttered open, then shut, then open again. Her eyes were vacant and not focusing on Victoria’s face.

  “Mother?”

  “Vic … tor … ia?” Marian said weakly.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Home.”

  It was barely a whisper, but Victoria understood anyway.

  “You’re all right, Mother. You’re safe here,” she said.

  Marian’s eyelids fluttered again, but she couldn’t make them stay open. Victoria knew she must be heavily sedated. She stayed for just a couple more minutes, holding her mother’s hand. She felt nothing except pity for this woman who had had everything life could offer, and yet threw it all away. What a sad commentary on a life with such potential.

  Victoria gently laid her mother’s hand down on the blanket, and tiptoed out of the room. She nodded at the officer and kept walking, walking, until she was out of the hospital and out into the fresh air again. She got into her car, put her head on the steering wheel and cried.

  Chapter Five

  The whole accumulation of events over the past week just suddenly overwhelmed Victoria. Her beloved daddy was dead, probably at the hands of her mother. His company was gone. Lena was hurt and in the hospital. Her mother was now a criminal. It was just unreal. How thankful she was for Rafael.

  Oh! Rafael! What time is it? She looked at her watch. She had just enough time to cover the few miles over to the restaurant where she was supposed to meet him. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and checked her face in the mirror. Eewww. Her face showed the signs of her tears. Maybe the blotchiness would fade by the time she got to the restaurant. She patted on some face powder in an attempt to repair the damage. Oh, well. This would be a test. If he could accept her “as is,” he’d be a good man.

  She put the key in the ignition and started the car. She put it in reverse and backed the car carefully out of the parking space, and headed for the street. She drove the familiar city streets with ease, and almost without thought. Victoria had been born and raised in Los Angeles and thought no more of driving around through its busy streets than anything. Soon she was pulling off the street and into the parking lot of the restaurant. She spotted Rafael’s Ferrari in the lot and parked as close to it as she could.

  After she parked, she checked her reflection in the mirror again. It would have to do. She got out and went inside. Rafael waved at her from a booth not too far from the door. She walked over and sat down opposite him.

  “How’s your morning gone?” he asked, studying her face. “Has it been that bad?”

  “Does it show?”

  “Yeah. You’ve been crying recently,” he said softly.

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Just then a waitress appeared and asked for their order.

  “Oh, can you come back in a couple of minutes?” Victoria asked. “I just got here and don’t know what I want yet.”

  “Sure, take your time. I’ll check back in a few,” the waitress said.

  Rafael and Victoria turned their attention to the menu until they had made their selections. Rafael caught the eye of the waitress, and motioned her over to take their order. After she walked away, Victoria began to fill Rafael in on all the events of the day so far. She started with finding the yellow legal pad in her dad’s desk drawer and matching up the so-called suicide note to the page that it had been torn from.

 
She told him about the detective taking a few personal things from the house to run DNA tests on, and that she had given a sample, too. She told him about visiting Lena, and that the doctor had said she could probably go home by Thursday. She told him that Marian was in the same hospital in the psych ward, and that she had gone in to see her, but she was too well sedated to talk.

  She was in the process of telling him about her afternoon appointment with her dad’s lawyer when the waitress brought their food. She paused in the recounting of her morning long enough to take a couple of bites of her sandwich. She was saving the worst of the story until the last, and didn’t want to tell it between bites. So instead, she asked Rafael how everyone at his office was doing today after yesterday’s scare.

  “Everyone was a bit on edge, as you can understand,” he said. “But they’re all there this morning, even Karen. That woman is a trooper, I’ll tell you. She’s a little jumpy today, but that’s to be expected.”

  “Yeah, no doubt,” Victoria agreed.

  The conversation stayed on safe topics until they were finished eating. On the way out, Victoria asked Rafael to come sit in her car with her for a little bit.

  “I have something else to tell you, but I didn’t want to talk about it in the restaurant,” she said.

  Rafael looked at her curiously, and said, “OK, what is it?”

  After they were in her car, Victoria continued.

  “Well, you know that yellow legal pad I told you I found in Daddy’s desk drawer?”

  Rafael nodded.

  “Well, the top page had a bunch of numbers doodled all over it. Maybe dollar amounts. I haven’t spent much time trying to figure that one out. But the second one I did figure out. Well, with Lena’s help.”

  “Lena’s help?” Rafael said with raised eyebrows.

  “Yes. The second page had my mother’s name printed at the top in large capital letters. Then, scattered all over the page in a random pattern were the names of ten or fifteen men. A couple of them I recognized, but not most of them. Lena told me yesterday morning that my mother has had numerous affairs over the years with many men. So I called her in the hospital this morning and read her all the names on the sheet of paper and asked her if they were the men with whom my mother had cheated on my dad with.”

  She paused, trying to read the expression on Rafael’s face. But his expression was inscrutable. Oh, God, please, don’t let him be one of them, she prayed.

  “She said yes, Rafael. She said that my mother had an affair with all of those men.”

  “Really! Your mother cheated on your dad with all those men? Wow! That’s incredible. And your dad must have known, or else he couldn’t have written down all their names.”

  “There was one more name on that sheet of paper, Rafael,” Victoria said.

  Her eyes bored holes through him. Even though Lena had denied that Rafael was really one of the men that Marian had slept with, she wanted to hear it from him. He looked back at her steadily, not flinching in the slightest. He had a hunch he knew whose name it was, but if she said it, he was ready with his defense.

  “Whose name was it, Victoria,” he asked calmly.

  “Yours, Rafael. Yours. The only thing different is that your name had a question mark behind it. None of the others did. It was as if Daddy wasn’t sure if you had slept with his wife or not. Did you, Rafael? Did you sleep with my mother?”

  There. It was out in the open. She had asked. Now she had to deal with the answer. She looked down at her lap, afraid to see the answer in his eyes. Rafael sat there for a long moment, wondering how to answer her. She’d had so much hurt in the past few days. But, he had to say something, or she would think he was guilty. He put his hand under her chin and raised her head to look at him.

  “Victoria,” he said tenderly. “Look at me, honey. I never slept with your mother ever.”

  Victoria raised her eyes to meet his. She could see truth in them.

  “So why was your name on Daddy’s paper?”

  “Well, the only thing I can think of is maybe she told him she had slept with me just to rile him. But he didn’t believe her because he knew me too well. You see, what happened was, one day your dad had asked me to come over after work to go over some stuff with him in his home office. I went, of course. But your mother met me at the door and came on to me big time. She asked me to come back during the day when your dad would be at work downtown. I blew her off and it angered her.

  “The next time we ran into each other, she tried again to come on to me, but I turned her down again. That really made her mad. I have wondered if that was part of the reason she was so angry that your dad sold me his business. Trust me, Vic, I never, ever slept with your mother. I admit, I’ve been around and had my share of women. But I’ve never been into women who are older than me for one thing, and for another, I wouldn’t have hurt your dad for the world. He treated me better than any man ever has. He became like a second father to me. I would never have betrayed his trust.”

  “I believe you, Rafael. I really do, “Victoria said. “Actually, Lena told me this morning that you had never had an affair with Mother, but I wanted to hear it from you. I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t just protecting me from getting hurt. I’m sorry, Rafael, I had to hear it straight from you.”

  “It’s OK, Vic, I totally understand. You’ve had a terrible week. Just one thing after another. Then this? It would be too much for me, I guarantee.”

  He leaned across the center console and kissed Victoria. He hoped that she could feel his sincerity, his honesty, and his growing love for her in that kiss. She must have, because she responded with fervor. It was a good thing they were in a public parking area in broad daylight, or their resolve might have been weakened.

  “I’ve gotta get back to the office, honey,” he said when they finally broke the kiss. “But I’ll see you after work, OK?”

  “Yeah, OK. Oh, just one more thing. That so-called suicide note that was torn from the page with all those men’s names on it, if it is read in another context, sounds more like he wanted out of their marriage, rather than wanting out of life. So the police are going to begin a new investigation based on the possibility of murder, rather than suicide.”

  “I can’t remember just how the note read, but it does make sense,” Rafael said. “I’ll check it out more this evening. OK? I’ve got to go now.”

  He opened the car door to get out. He leaned back into the car to say see you later. Then he got into his car. She followed him out of the parking lot, then they went their separate ways. Victoria had a couple of hours to kill before going to see her dad’s lawyer. His office was in her dad’s building—well, Rafael’s building—so she definitely knew where it was located.

  She decided to go to the Wells Fargo Museum, which was only a few blocks away, to while away the time. She hadn’t been there since she was a kid. Art, history, and museums were Victoria’s major interests. She liked a lot of things, but those three were at the top of the list. She got it from her dad, she knew. He loved those things, and took her to all the historical places, museums, and art galleries in the greater Los Angeles area, and everywhere else they traveled, every chance he got.

  That was another thing that widened the gulf between Victoria and Marian. Marian had absolutely no interest in any of those things, unless it benefited her to like them. If one of her clubs sponsored an art show, then she was the gung-ho art connoisseur. Their shared interests just bound Victoria and her daddy all the closer together. Victoria wondered, as she was pondering these thoughts while enjoying the museum exhibits, if that was one of the reasons that Marian sought other men.

  Was it because she had little in common with her husband? Surely it wasn’t because she felt unloved. Victoria always knew that her father loved her mother. He showed it in a thousand different ways—flowers, gifts, trips, intimate dinners out, words, gestures, providing for her every whim. He couldn’t possibly have done more to prove his love to Marian than what he h
ad done.

  And all she had ever done to thank him was cheat on him. Victoria hoped beyond all hope that her dad had only recently made the discovery about his cheating wife. To have lived with that knowledge for five, ten, fifteen years—however long it had been going on—would have been torture.

  Oh, Daddy, I’m so sorry. I wish you were here. I miss you so much, she thought. Tears threatened to fall, so she forced her mind to change the subject. She focused her attention on an exhibit case that showed the process of pouring molten gold into molds to form gold bars. She continued to wander through the museum, ever mindful of the passing of time, until it was two-thirty. Time to head to the lawyer’s office.

  She drove the four blocks to the Thornton Building, parked in the rear parking lot, and went inside. She took the elevator to the third floor where the office suite of Hall, Nelson, and Pendergast was located. She opened the door and presented herself at the reception desk.

  “Victoria Thornton to see Mr. Hall, please,” she said.

  “Yes, Miss Thornton,” the receptionist said. “Please have a seat. Mr. Hall will be available shortly.”

  “Thank you.”

  Victoria sat down in an expensive leather chair. The appointments in the waiting room spoke of understated elegance, as was befitting of the office of one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious attorney groups. She thumbed through the file folder, making sure that all the papers were there and in order. She put the will on top this time, as it was the main thing she was here for.

  In just a few minutes, she heard a faint buzz sound at the receptionist’s desk. The woman picked up the phone, said something, then put it down again. Then she told Victoria that Mr. Hall would see her now. Victoria got up and walked toward the large polished door that had a nameplate on it that said Dennis A. Hall, Attorney at Law. Just before she got there, the door opened and Mr. Hall greeted her warmly.

  “It’s good to see you Victoria,” Mr. Hall said, giving her a one-armed hug. “I just wish it were under happier circumstances.”

  Dennis Hall had been the Thornton attorney for thirty-five years. David Thornton’s great-grandfather had built the Thornton Building back in the Twenties, and it had passed down through three generations until it came to David. Dennis Hall’s grandfather had been the first attorney to take an office in the building, and had served as David’s father and grandfather’s attorney. Then the mantle passed to Dennis’s father, and then to Dennis, who had served David’s father, and then David.