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LILA

Confusion emanates from every square inch of the room.

Giles adjusts his cuff, clears his throat like he's preparing to explain the wine list, then looks at all of us with a sort of flat, weary disdain.

“She had a… particular inclination,” he says.

A pause. He gives it a beat longer, waiting, perhaps, for someone to interrupt or for the universe to strike him down. Neither happens.

“Autoerotic asphyxiation,” he continues, “isn’t terribly uncommon. Though I’d say it’s rarely practiced with such theatrical flourish. She developed the habit shortly after Henry’s death,” he goes on, tone so dry it could sand a table. “Perhaps it was an odd sort of grief. Perhaps guilt, were she capable. Or perhaps she simply discovered she enjoyed it.”

He pauses briefly, eyes flicking upward like he’s debating whether or not to finish the thought—then, “She did, at one point, refer to it, quite seriously, as her ‘choke me, Daddy’ phase.”

There’s a collective silence—long, horrified, and weirdly reverent.

I resist the urge to blink very slowly, as if doing so might reboot the moment and give Giles the chance to say something else. Something less unhinged. Something that doesn’t include the phrase “choke me, Daddy” delivered in the same tone he uses to scold us for doing things without his express permission.

I avoid eye contact with anyone, because if I happen to find Theo biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, I will lose it.

Instead, I keep my eyes on Giles, who looks startlingly unbothered.

Of course he is. He’s probably the one who actually found her first. Probably the one who walked toward her bedroom with his usual morning tray, took one look at the scene, and thought, Ah. Well. Tuesday.

I finally dare to glance around the room. Everyone looks varying degrees of nauseated and shell-shocked. Emily has visibly paled.

And yet, somewhere under all of it, there’s a sliver of grim clarity.

Because as disturbing as it is, it makes sense. The ligature marks. The inconsistencies.

Not a missing killer. Not an outside intruder.

Just Victoria, being Victoria.

And now I have to live with the fact that the missing link in this entire goddamn mystery might’ve been the dead woman’s solo sex kink.

Amazing. Just fucking amazing.

I stare at him, at his silver cufflinks catching the light, and wonder if I’ve finally detached completely from reality.

“She paid me,” he adds. “Handsomely. To, ah, supervise.”

My jaw drops a fraction.

“She called it ‘babysitting.’ As if I were keeping her from eating glue instead of from hanging herself. I was instructed to sit quietly, remain in the room, and intervene if she passed out or began to convulse. Which she did. Frequently.”

He adjusts his stance.

“She used the same lariat she used on Henry, something I realized only very recently. Sentimental, I suppose.”

The fact that no one has anything to say about this is absolutely beyond me.

Except the refrigerator, which chooses this moment to hum to life and spit out—low, mechanical, and weirdly sultry—“Choke me, Daddy.”

Everyone flinches in unison, with the exception of Giles.

“That,” he says, “would be a great example of how the refrigerator led me to suspect that she was also being poisoned." He turns to Emily, the single look speaking volumes. Understanding seems to pass between them and silent tears still fall down her face.

He continues without breaking stride.