Chapter 7 - The Late Wife’s Diary
The narrow servant passage was cold, damp, and smelled of de
caying wood.
Clara moved cautiously down the stone steps, carrying Toby, who had fallen into a unnatural, heavy sleep.
She used the brass key to unlock a heavy oak door at the end of the corridor.
The door creaked open, revealing the dust-covered interior of Julianne’s private study in the abandoned east wing.
The room had been preserved exactly as it was on the day of her death two years ago.
A thick layer of grey dust coated the velvet armchairs, the grand piano, and the ornate writing desk.
Clara placed Toby gently onto a dusty sofa and rushed over to the mahogany desk.
She unlocked the center drawer using the second notch on Mrs. Gable’s brass key.
Inside lay a leather-bound journal stamped with Julianne Morrison's gold initials.
Clara flipped to the final entries written in frantic, shaky handwriting.
"He is changing the doses again," the entry from two years ago read.
"It isn't an illness—he is introducing arsenic into my evening tea drop by drop."
"If I try to leave with the boys, he said he will make sure I am remembered as an unfit, insane mother."
"If you are reading this, check the basement beneath the fountain."
Clara gasped as she realized Julianne hadn't died of a sudden illness as the news reported.
May you like
She had been deliberately murdered.
Before Clara could turn the page, a shadow stretched across the dusty floor from the doorway behind her.
