"I can do that."
That Sunday, Yvette made French toast: extra cinnamon, powdered sugar in a little bowl on the side. Lily ate three slices. It was the most she'd eaten in months.
Something was shifting. Lily started coming downstairs every morning. She still didn't say much, but she was present, breathing, sitting in the light instead of hiding in the dark.
Then Victoria Ashford arrived.
She came on a Tuesday: black Mercedes, red-soled heels clicking across the marble foyer, perfume that filled the hallway before she did.
Harrison introduced her at dinner: "This is Victoria. She's going to be spending more time here."
Lily sat across the table, quiet. Victoria smiled at her—the kind of smile that never reached the eyes.
"You must be Lily. Your father talks about you constantly." She tilted her head. "You're so quiet."
Lily looked down at her plate.
Victoria noticed Yvette standing by the kitchen door; her smile vanished. "And who is this?"
"That's Yvette," Harrison said. "She's been wonderful with Lily."
Victoria looked Yvette up and down slowly, like she was measuring something she intended to throw away. "I see." She turned back to Harrison. "Darling, I really think Lily needs proper care, not just household help."
Yvette said nothing, but she noticed the way Victoria's fingers tightened around her wine glass when Lily reached for the bread—the smallest gesture of normalcy, and Victoria's jaw clenched.
Within a week, Victoria had moved in. Within two weeks, she had rearranged the kitchen, dismissed the evening cook, and started preparing Lily's nightly tea herself.
"Herbal blend," she told Harrison. "My mother's recipe. Chamomile, lavender, valerian root. It'll help her sleep."
Harrison kissed her forehead. "You're amazing with her."
But Lily wasn't sleeping better; she was disappearing.
The shaking came first: Lily's hands trembled so badly she couldn't hold a pen. Then the memory gaps: she'd walk into the kitchen and forget why she came; she'd start a sentence and lose it halfway through, her eyes going blank like someone had unplugged her mid-thought.
"Something's wrong with me, Miss Yvette."
"What do you mean, sweetheart?"
"I can't... I can't remember things. Yesterday feels like a dream. I don't know what's real anymore."
Yvette held Lily's hand. It was cold, thin—the hand of a girl who was fading.
She went to Harrison, told him Lily was getting worse, not better.
Harrison frowned. "The doctor said it's normal grief cycles. Victoria's been monitoring her closely."
"With all due respect, sir, she was getting better before."
"Yvette." His tone was polite but firm. "Victoria is going to be my wife. She loves Lily. Let's not create problems where there aren't any."
Yvette nodded, went back to the kitchen, and washed the dishes in silence.
But that night, she stayed late. Told Mr. Whitfield she wanted to finish the laundry, and waited until the house was quiet.
At 11:14, she heard footsteps in the kitchen. She pressed herself against the hallway wall and watched: Victoria opened a cabinet—not the tea cabinet, a different one, behind the cereal boxes. She pulled out a small brown bottle with no label, unscrewed the cap, tapped a white powder into Lily's teacup, stirred it with a silver spoon, put the bottle back, and closed the cabinet.
Then she walked upstairs, carrying the tea with both hands, humming softly.
Yvette stood in the dark hallway, her heart slamming against her ribs, her phone in her pocket. She had just watched a woman poison a cup of tea meant for an eighteen-year-old girl, and she was the only one who knew.
Yvette didn't sleep that night. She sat on the edge of her mattress, staring at the dark ceiling, replaying what she'd seen: the brown bottle, the white powder, the silver spoon. Victoria humming as she carried the tea upstairs like a mother bringing warm milk to a child—except it wasn't warm milk, and Victoria wasn't a mother.
Danny shifted in his sleep beside her, his small hand curled around the corner of the blanket. Six years old, trusting the world because his mother told him it was safe. Yvette thought about Lily, eighteen, alone in that room, drinking whatever Victoria handed her because she had no reason not to trust the woman her father loved.
By 3:00 in the morning, Yvette had made a decision: she would go back, she would get proof, and she would find a way to make someone listen.
The next evening, she arrived at the Cole estate thirty minutes early. Told Mr. Whitfield she wanted to reorganize the pantry; he waved her through without a second look. She waited.
At 10:40, the house went quiet: Harrison was in his study, Lily was in her room, Victoria was in the master bedroom—Yvette could hear the television through the door.
At 11:08, the bedroom door opened. Footsteps on the stairs, the click of heels on tile. Yvette pressed herself into the shadow behind the basement door. She held her phone in both hands; the camera was open. Her fingers were shaking so badly she had to press the phone against her chest to steady it.
Victoria entered the kitchen: same cabinet, same brown bottle, same routine.
This time, Yvette recorded.
The video was dark, grainy, shot through a crack in the door, but you could see it: Victoria's hand unscrewing the cap, the white powder falling into the teacup, the stir, the bottle going back behind the cereal boxes. Twenty-three seconds—that's all Yvette got before her phone storage ran out.
The screen flashed a warning. She fumbled to dismiss it, and the phone made a sound: a small electronic chirp.