Chapter 5: The Missing Nurse
Julia Reed lived alone in Queens.
Her apartment door was unlocked.
Her purse was on the kitchen counter.
Her car remained parked behind the building.
There was no sign of a struggle.
There was also no sign of Julia.
Detective Ortiz found two airline tickets in her bedroom.
One to Montreal.
One to Lisbon.
Both had been purchased with cash.
“It looks like she ran,” Adrian’s attorney told the press.
But Claire discovered that Julia’s bank account had received two hundred thousand dollars from a consulting company connected to Cross Capital.
The transfer had arrived three days before Lily died.
By evening, every news network carried Julia’s photograph.
Adrian released another statement.
He claimed he had never met her.
That was his first mistake.
Rosa, our housekeeper, remembered Julia.
“She came to the mansion twice,” Rosa told Detective Ortiz. “Mr. Cross introduced her as a private nurse.”
“When?” I asked.
“Last winter. You were working.”
“Why was she there?”
Rosa’s eyes filled with tears.
“He said Miss Lily needed new tests. He told me not to disturb them.”
My stomach twisted.
“What did they do?”
“They took blood. They asked questions about her asthma. Miss Lily cried afterward.”
Rosa covered her mouth.
“I should have called you.”
“This is not your fault.”
But she looked the way I felt.
Like guilt had become another organ inside her body.
Ortiz searched Julia’s employment history.
She had worked for St. Matthew’s for nine months.
Before that, she had been employed by a private clinic owned by Dr. Samuel Hale.
Everything led back to Vanessa’s brother.
Dr. Hale regained consciousness but claimed he remembered nothing.
He said he had been attacked.
He denied writing the confession.
Handwriting experts later agreed the signature had been traced.
Someone had tried to silence him and frame him at the same time.
Adrian continued insisting he was innocent.
Then my father’s investigators found Julia’s abandoned phone beneath a bridge in New Jersey.
Most of the data had been erased.
But one audio file remained in a hidden folder.
The recording began with Julia crying.
“I didn’t know they were going to hurt the little girl.”
A man’s voice answered.
Adrian’s voice.
“You knew exactly what you were paid to do.”
“You said the medication would only make her sleepy.”
“You followed instructions.”
“She stopped breathing.”
“She already couldn’t breathe.”
“What if they find the drug?”
“They’ll find Emma’s signature.”
Julia began sobbing.
“I want out.”
“You don’t get out.”
The recording ended with a crash.
Ortiz played it three times.
It was the first direct evidence connecting Adrian to the drug.
But the recording did not explain where Julia had gone.
The police issued a warrant for Adrian’s arrest.
By the time they reached his apartment, he had disappeared.
His passport was gone.
So was fifteen million dollars from an offshore account Claire had failed to freeze.
Vanessa was still missing.
That night, while my father’s security team guarded the townhouse, I went into the bedroom prepared for me.
Lily’s rabbit was still in my arms.
I turned on the lamp.
A white envelope lay on the pillow.
My name was written across it.
Inside was a note.
Mrs. Cross, your husband came back to Lily’s room after you fell asleep beside her.
He knows the cameras did not see him.
But Lily did.
Beneath the message was a memory card.
May you like
And on the back of the note were three words.
I am Julia.
