Chapter 117: Recovered Memories

Cecilia

I woke to Arthur's voice, low and urgent.

"—just collapsed. No, she's breathing, but she's not responsive. How long until you get here?"

I tried to open my eyes, tried to tell him I was okay, but my body felt like it was made of lead, every muscle refusing to cooperate.

"Ceci." His hand cupped my face, warm and steady. "Baby, can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me."

I managed it, barely, my eyelids feeling like they weighed a thousand pounds. The world came into focus slowly—Arthur's face hovering above mine, tight with worry, the ornate ceiling of the foyer beyond him, Detective Clark's concerned expression in my peripheral vision.

"There you are," Arthur breathed, and I heard the relief crack through his voice. "You're okay. You're going to be okay."

"My mother—" The words came out as barely a whisper, my throat tight and raw.

"I know." His thumb stroked across my cheekbone, gentle and grounding. "I know, sweetheart. But right now I need you to focus on breathing, okay? Dr. Morrison is on his way."

"I remember," I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. "Arthur, I remember everything. The party, the wine, Matthias—" My voice cracked. "She did it. My mother. She helped him. She drugged me so he could—"

"Shh." Arthur pulled me against his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head. "Don't think about that right now. Just breathe."

But I couldn't stop. The memories kept coming, relentless and devastating. My mother's face as she'd tried to blame me, as she'd stood in that hallway and calculated how to spin the attempted assault of her own daughter into something that wouldn't reflect badly on her.

And now she was dead.

"Miss Locke." Detective Clark's voice was gentle but firm, pulling my attention away from the spiral of my thoughts. "I know this is incredibly difficult, but I need to ask you a few questions. Are you able to answer them, or would you prefer to wait until you've had a chance to recover?"

I looked up at Arthur, silently asking for guidance. His expression was torn—protective instinct warring with the knowledge that the sooner the police had information, the better.

"Five minutes," he said to Detective Clark, his voice brooking no argument. "You get five minutes, and then she's done for today."

Detective Clark nodded, pulling out her notepad. "Miss Locke, your mother left a note. In it, she claimed that everything that happened at the engagement party was orchestrated by someone else. That she was following instructions, and that person promised to pay her a substantial sum of money in exchange for her cooperation."

My stomach dropped. "Who? Who was giving her instructions?"

Detective Clark's expression was carefully neutral. "She claimed it was Irene Winston. Arthur's mother."

The words hung in the air, heavy and terrible, and I felt Arthur go completely still against me.

"That's—" I started, then stopped, because I didn't know what to say. Was it impossible? Was it unthinkable that Irene Winston, with her cold eyes and calculated smiles, would orchestrate something so horrific just to drive me and Arthur apart?

"There's no proof," Arthur said, his voice flat and hard. "My mother denied everything when we questioned her last night. She said Evelyn was lying, trying to shift blame."

"That's correct," Detective Clark confirmed. "And without concrete evidence—phone records, emails, financial transactions—we can't pursue charges against Mrs. Winston. The note your mother left is... well, it's the desperate confession of a woman who knew she was facing serious prison time. It's not enough."

"So she gets away with it," I said, and heard the bitterness in my own voice.

"We're still investigating," Detective Clark said, but I could hear the doubt in her voice, the knowledge that without hard evidence, this case was going nowhere. "If we find anything that connects Mrs. Winston to what happened, we'll pursue it. But right now—"

"Right now you have nothing," Arthur finished, his arms tightening around me. "Thank you, Detective. We appreciate you coming to tell us in person."

It was a dismissal, polite but firm, and Detective Clark recognized it for what it was. She tucked her notepad away and stood, her expression sympathetic.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Miss Locke," she said quietly. "And I'm sorry we can't give you the justice you deserve. But we'll keep looking. I promise you that."

After she left, Arthur and I stayed on the floor of the foyer for a long moment, neither of us quite ready to move, to face what came next.

"I should feel something," I said finally, my voice small and lost. "She was my mother. She gave birth to me. I should feel... grief, or sadness, or something. But all I feel is—"

"Relief?" Arthur supplied gently.

I nodded, tears streaming down my face. "Is that terrible? That I'm relieved my own mother is dead?"

"No." His voice was firm, certain. "She hurt you, Ceci. She abandoned you when you were a child, and then she came back and tried to—" He stopped, his jaw clenching. "You're allowed to feel however you feel. There's no right or wrong here."

"But she was still my mother," I whispered.

"She was," Arthur agreed. "And you can grieve that—grieve the mother you should have had, the mother you deserved. But you don't owe her your tears. Not after what she did."

Dr. Morrison arrived then, bustling through the front door with his medical bag, and Arthur finally let me go long enough for the doctor to examine me. He checked my vitals, shined a light in my eyes, asked me questions about what I remembered and how I was feeling.

"The memories came back all at once," I told him, and heard my voice shake. "Like a dam breaking. One minute I couldn't remember anything about the party, and the next—"

"That's not uncommon with traumatic memory suppression," Dr. Morrison said, his voice kind. "Your brain was protecting you, and then something triggered the memories to come flooding back. In this case, the news about your mother."

He prescribed rest, fluids, and something for anxiety if I needed it. Then he left, and it was just Arthur and me again, standing in the foyer of Black Peak Estate with the weight of everything that had happened pressing down on us.

The weeks after that night, I couldn't stay happy. I'd wake up, go through the motions of getting dressed, force down whatever breakfast Maria prepared, then retreat back to my room.

Arthur tried everything—suggesting walks on the beach, offering to take me into the city, even attempting to coax me into helping him with some project in his study. But I couldn't muster the energy for any of it.

One evening, he found me curled up on the window seat in the library, staring out at nothing in particular.

"Ceci." His voice was soft as he sat down beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him. "There's a charity gala tonight. The Vanderbilt Foundation's annual fundraiser. Come with me."

I shook my head without looking at him. "I'm not really up for it, Arthur."

"I know." His hand found mine, fingers threading through mine with gentle insistence. "But you've been cooped up in this house for weeks. You need to get out, even if it's just for a few hours."

Something in his tone made me finally turn to look at him. The worry etched into his features was so raw, so genuine, that it cracked something open inside my chest.