My heart seemed to stop.
“How?”
“I showed her your messages before I left.”
“What did she say?”
Chloe looked at me with an expression I had never seen on her face.
“She told me to stop making a spectacle.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Then she said you would probably exaggerate the situation until everyone forgot whose birthday it was.”
David lowered his eyes.
Chloe continued through fresh tears.
“She made me go downstairs and smile for photographs after I told her Leo might die.”
A cold understanding settled over me.
My mother wasn’t simply ignorant of the danger.
She had been given the truth and deliberately chosen appearances.
Chloe pulled a folded birthday program from her handbag.
“I brought this because I thought you should see something.”
The thick paper was decorated with silver lettering and embossed flowers.
Beneath the schedule of speeches was a section titled THE VANCE FAMILY FOUNDATION.
