CHAPTER 5
Detective Alvarez obtained a search warrant the next morning.
Daniel’s attorneys fought it before the police even reached the mansion.
They lost.
I wasn’t allowed to go with the search team.
That was probably good.
I didn’t want to walk back into Daniel’s house.
But I sat in Eleanor’s kitchen staring at my phone while every minute dragged past.
Lucas barely ate breakfast.
Emma slept in a portable bassinet beside me.
Every few seconds, I checked that she was breathing.
Eleanor noticed.
“You do that constantly.”
“What?”
“Look at her chest.”
I gave a weak smile.
“I know.”
“You saved her.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“But you did.”
I looked down.
I could still feel that buckle refusing to open underwater.
I could still see Emma’s eyes.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop seeing it.”
Eleanor reached across the table.
“You shouldn’t have to carry it alone.”
Before I could answer, Alvarez called.
“They found the hidden room.”
I stood.
“And?”
“It’s been cleared out.”
My hope collapsed.
“Everything?”
“Almost.”
“What does almost mean?”
“There were shelves.”
“For the monitors?”
“Empty.”
“Then Daniel moved them.”
“Probably.”
“When?”
“We’re checking cameras.”
I laughed bitterly.
“He owns the security cameras.”
“Not every camera in the neighborhood.”
That was why I liked Alvarez.
She never sounded defeated.
An hour later, she called again.
This time her voice was different.
“We found something.”
“What?”
“Not in the hidden room.”
“Where?”
“Fireplace.”
I frowned.
“Daniel burned it?”
“He tried.”
Police had recovered partially burned documents from the office fireplace.
The ashes contained pieces of Arthur’s trust amendment.
Insurance records.
Bank statements.
And one handwritten note.
Alvarez wouldn’t show me the original.
She read one line.
POOL - G.M. PRESENT.
My initials.
My knees weakened.
“He planned it.”
“It appears that way.”
“How long ago was that written?”
“Forensics will tell us more.”
“Is it enough to arrest him?”
“Not yet.”
I almost screamed.
“He wrote my initials next to the pool!”
“We need to prove he wrote it.”
“He told Vanessa to blame me.”
“We’re building it, Grace.”
“Meanwhile he’s free.”
“I know.”
That afternoon, Daniel appeared on television again.
He was leaving a courthouse after a hearing involving the trust.
Reporters shouted questions.
“Did you try to kill your daughter?”
“Why did your father remove you from control of the company?”
“Where is Peter Sloan?”
Daniel stopped at that one.
Only for half a second.
But I saw it.
So did Alvarez.
Then Daniel smiled.
“I love my children.”
I felt sick.
“I would never harm either of them.”
A reporter shouted, “Then explain your voice on the recording.”
“My legal team has already explained that portions of private conversations were taken out of context.”
Lucas walked into the room.
He heard the television.
“Turn it off.”
I grabbed the remote.
But he didn’t look away.
Daniel continued.
“My son is confused and being manipulated by adults who should know better.”
Lucas’s face went white.
I shut off the screen.
“He’s talking about me.”
“No.”
“Yes, he is.”
“He’s trying to protect himself.”
Lucas stared at the floor.
“What if I remembered wrong?”
I crouched in front of him.
“You didn’t.”
“What if the video made it look different?”
“You saw your mother push Emma.”
His eyes filled.
“I don’t want Mom to go to jail.”
I understood that.
More than I wished I did.
“You’re allowed to love her.”
“But she did something bad.”
“Yes.”
“If I love her, does that mean I’m bad?”
“No.”
I said it immediately.
“You can love someone and still know they hurt you.”
He looked at me.
“You still love your family?”
My chest tightened.
My parents had died years earlier.
I rarely talked about them.
“Yes.”
“They ever do bad things?”
“Everyone does bad things.”
“Like Mom?”
“No.”
I wasn’t going to lie to him.
“What she did was very serious.”
Lucas wiped his nose.
“Dad told her she had to.”
“You heard that?”
He nodded.
“What exactly did he say?”
Lucas looked toward the hallway.
Eleanor had gone upstairs with Emma.
“He said Mom would lose me.”
I sat very still.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s okay.”
He started crying.
I stopped asking questions.
I pulled him against me instead.
A few minutes later, he whispered into my shoulder.
“He said he knew what happened to Mom’s first husband.”
My body went rigid.
“What?”
Lucas pulled away.
“My real dad.”
I knew Vanessa had been married before Daniel.
Her first husband had died when Lucas was two.
I had always been told it was an accident.
“What happened to him?”
“Car crash.”
“Yes.”
“Dad said it wasn’t an accident.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What did he say?”
“He said if Mom didn’t help him, he would tell the police what really happened.”
I stared at Lucas.
“Did your mother respond?”
“She started crying.”
“What did she say?”
Lucas squeezed his eyes shut.
“She said, ‘You promised never to use that against me.’”
I called Alvarez.
She arrived within thirty minutes.
She took Lucas’s statement with a child interviewer.
I waited outside.
Eleanor paced beside me.
When Alvarez emerged, she looked troubled.
“Vanessa’s first husband was named Michael Trent.”
“What happened?”
“Single-car crash.”
“Was Vanessa suspected?”
“No.”
“Was Daniel in her life?”
“Officially, they met nine months later.”
“Officially?”
Alvarez looked at me.
“Daniel’s phone records from that period might tell us something different.”
Eleanor sat down slowly.
“I remember him traveling a lot that year.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Her face changed.
“Daniel told me he was seeing someone.”
I felt cold.
“Vanessa?”
“He never said her name.”
Alvarez left to reopen the file on Michael Trent’s death.
That evening, I stayed in the main house.
I didn’t want to be alone in the guesthouse.
Around two in the morning, I woke to the sound of breaking glass.
I sat up.
Another noise came from downstairs.
Then Emma began crying through the monitor.
I grabbed my phone.
The screen showed static.
My heart stopped.
The security feed had gone dead.
I ran into the hallway.
Eleanor opened her bedroom door.
“What happened?”
“Take Lucas.”
“Grace—”
“Lock yourselves in your room.”
I heard footsteps downstairs.
Not one person.
At least two.
I hurried toward the nursery.
Emma was screaming.
The door stood open.
I reached the doorway just as a man dressed in black leaned over her crib.
“Get away from her!”
He turned.
For one second, I saw his face.
Mason Reed.
Daniel’s head of security.
May you like
Then he reached for Emma.
And I threw myself at him.
