Chapter 3
By breakfast, the photograph of Nathan’s father’s office had appeared online.
So had my face.
The headline called me a former maid who claimed a millionaire’s child was hers. It said police were investigating a possible abduction. None of that had come from me.
I kept the screen away from Lily.
She sat at the hotel table drawing three people beneath one enormous sun.
“Who’s that?” Nathan asked when he arrived.
“Mommy. Me.” She pointed at the tall figure on the edge. “Maybe you.”
Nathan pulled out the chair across from her. “May I sit here?”
She nodded.
He had brought a small box of crayons. He set it beside her and made no attempt to touch the drawing.
Daniel came a few minutes later. Police had confirmed that the safe was opened using a valid code. Nathan had changed the house alarm codes, but the safe had its own lock.
“Who knew it?” Nathan asked.
“You. Your father. Perhaps Victoria.”
“I never gave it to her.”
Daniel laid down a photograph from the house camera. Victoria had entered the office just after five that morning. She wore a coat over her white dress. Her face was turned away, but the camera caught her clearly enough.
“Can police arrest her?” I asked.
“They have the footage,” Daniel said. “First they have to find her.”
He had worse news. The company board had scheduled an emergency meeting. Victoria’s father had demanded that Nathan step aside while the allegations were investigated.
Nathan gave a bitter laugh. “The allegation against Grace.”
“They’re saying the press attention threatens the Vale financing.”
I recognized the trap. If Nathan stood with us, he risked the company. If he abandoned us, Charles Vale might make the report disappear.
Nathan looked at the drawing in front of Lily.
“I’m going to that meeting,” he said. “I want Grace with me if she chooses.”
I did not want to face a room full of people who believed the headline. But I wanted them to see that Lily was a child, not a problem to be negotiated away.
“I’ll come,” I said. “Lily stays here with Daniel’s sister.”
Lily gripped her crayon. “Where are you going?”
“To tell some people the truth.”
“Will you come back?”
“Always.”
Nathan bent toward her. “I will too.”
She looked at him for a long time before returning to her drawing.
At the company office, people fell silent when I walked beside Nathan through the lobby. I had once cleaned rooms in a building like this. I knew how to become invisible there.
Today I made myself keep walking.
Charles Vale sat at the end of the boardroom table. He was broad, gray-haired, and perfectly calm.
“You’ve put everyone in a difficult position, Nathan.”
“Victoria hit Grace with a hockey stick,” Nathan said.
Charles’s smile faded. “My daughter says Grace attacked her.”
“The hospital documented the injury. The police have my call.”
“And the child?”
“My daughter.”
A board member shifted in his seat. Charles leaned forward.
“You don’t have proof of that yet.”
“I’ve requested a test.”
I hated that Lily’s life could be reduced to a result in a room like this. Still, I understood why Nathan had asked. I had agreed that morning.
Charles turned to me.
“You worked in a private home. You knew how to gain access. Then you appeared with a child and an accusation. Surely you understand the questions.”
“I understand you had five years to ask them,” I said. “You chose to watch us instead.”
I set a copy of Nathan’s father’s letter on the table.
Charles’s hand moved toward it, then stopped.
Nathan noticed.
“You’ve read this before,” he said.
Charles stood. “Your father was a sick man when he wrote that.”
“It was dated before his diagnosis.”
For the first time, Charles looked uncertain.
The meeting ended without a vote. Nathan had given Daniel copies of the letter to preserve, and several directors wanted time to review it. Charles left by the side door.
I thought we had bought a little room to breathe.
Outside, Detective Ramirez called.
She had found Ellen Brooks, the supposed relative named in the police report. Ellen was a real woman, but she had never met Lily. She was frightened. Someone had paid her to sign forms she believed were for a care agency.
“Can she identify them?” I asked.
“She’s willing to try.”
Ramirez also confirmed the travel booking was real. Someone had used my name, but the contact number belonged to Northbridge Services.
The firm in Nathan’s father’s letter.
Nathan listened on speakerphone, his jaw tight.
On our way back to the hotel, I saw a dark car behind us for three turns. I told the driver. He changed route, and the car followed.
Nathan called Ramirez. She directed us to a police station.
The car turned away one block before we reached it.
I was shaking when we went inside.
Nathan stayed beside me until I could speak clearly. Then he stepped back and let me tell Ramirez what I had seen.
That evening, I opened the hotel room door to find Lily holding her drawing.
She had colored in the third figure’s face.
“Did you come back?” she asked Nathan.
“I did.”
She handed him the paper.
At the bottom, beneath the three figures, she had written one word in uneven letters.
HOME.
Nathan’s eyes filled. Before he could say anything, Daniel called.
May you like
He had found the payment record for Ellen Brooks.
The money had come from an account authorized by Charles Vale.
