Chapter 3 - THE SIX-MONTH RECORD
Victor crossed the room before anyone else moved.
He pulled the curtains shut and switched off the overhead lights.
Dominic immediately spoke into his radio.
“Perimeter sweep.”
“North lawn, west garden, service road, and rooftops.”
“Find every lens pointed at this house.”
Guards answered one after another.
Lily remained beside the table.
Her phone was still glowing.
The photograph showed her standing next to Victor.
The angle was slightly elevated.
It had been taken from beyond the eastern garden wall.
No ordinary camera phone could have captured it with that clarity.
“Give me the number,” Dominic said.
Lily handed him the device.
“It’s masked.”
He connected the phone to his computer.
“I’ll trace the relay.”
Victor looked toward Adrian.
“You arrived alone?”
“My driver is outside.”
“Who knew you were coming?”
“My office.”
“Names.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“You cannot interrogate everyone in my life.”
“I can.”
“You are not thinking clearly.”
Victor stepped closer.
“My son has been drugged.”
“My fiancée was found hurting him.”
“My dead wife’s property was discovered in her safe.”
“And a vault was opened in the nanny’s name without her knowledge.”
“So no, Adrian.”
“I am not interested in your opinion of my thinking.”
Adrian held his gaze.
For the first time, the charm disappeared completely.
The brothers looked more alike without it.
Same dark eyes.
Same controlled anger.
Same habit of becoming still when they wanted to strike.
“I did not touch Ethan,” Adrian said.
Victor believed that part.
He did not yet believe anything else.
“Then help me prove it.”
Adrian looked toward Lily.
“What exactly did you see?”
Lily answered carefully.
“Today?”
“Everything.”
Victor pulled a chair out for her.
“Start with the first day you believed something was wrong.”
Lily sat down slowly.
The pain medication had dulled the sharpest ache in her abdomen, but every movement still hurt.
She looked toward the nursery door.
Ethan was sleeping under medical supervision.
A guard stood on each side of the entrance.
Only then did she begin.
“The first time was three weeks after Serena moved into the mansion.”
Victor frowned.
“She did not officially move in until April.”
“She was sleeping here before that.”
Serena had told him she stayed only when wedding planning ran late.
Victor said nothing.
Lily continued.
“Ethan was normally happy in the mornings.”
“He liked standing in his crib and shaking the railing until I came inside.”
“One morning, he was lying flat.”
“His eyes were open, but he didn’t respond when I called his name.”
“What did Serena say?” Victor asked.
“She said he had been restless and she gave him herbal drops.”
“What kind?”
“She wouldn’t show me the bottle.”
Dr. Halpern looked up from the toxicology report.
“Herbal products would not produce the compound we found.”
Lily nodded.
“After that, it happened every few days.”
“He would be unusually sleepy.”
“Sometimes his food came back untouched.”
“Sometimes the bottle smelled different.”
Victor’s expression tightened.
“Why did Serena prepare his bottles?”
“She said she wanted to bond with him.”
Adrian leaned against the counter.
“And you allowed it?”
Lily looked at him.
“She was going to marry his father.”
Adrian glanced toward Victor.
The answer silenced him.
Lily continued.
“Then the bruises started.”
“The first was near his shoulder.”
“The second was behind his knee.”
“Serena always had an explanation.”
“He slipped.”
“He struck a table.”
“He caught himself in the crib.”
“Did you ever see an injury happen?” Victor asked.
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Not that I know of.”
Lily opened her photo folder again.
She showed Dr. Halpern the images.
He studied the dates.
“These marks are consistent with pressure from fingers.”
Victor looked at the doctor.
“You mean someone grabbed him.”
“Yes.”
Lily swallowed.
“There was another thing.”
She pulled up a video from two months earlier.
Ethan was sitting on a rug in the nursery.
Serena entered the edge of the frame.
The moment her shoes appeared, Ethan stopped playing.
His body became rigid.
Then he crawled backward until he struck the crib.
The video ended.
Victor watched it again.
“He was afraid of her.”
Lily nodded.
“I thought so.”
“Why record instead of intervening?”
“I did intervene.”
“I picked him up.”
“She accused me of turning him against her.”
Adrian folded his arms.
“Babies react strangely to people.”
Dr. Halpern looked at him.
“Not repeatedly without cause.”
Dominic’s computer chimed.
He had partially traced the threatening message.
“It bounced through three overseas servers.”
“The final relay came from a prepaid device near the old rail yard.”
“Can you locate it?”
“The device shut down.”
Victor turned to one of the guards.
“Send a team.”
Adrian pushed away from the counter.
“You are chasing a phone while Serena is locked upstairs.”
“Perhaps start with the obvious suspect.”
Victor looked at him.
“You seem eager to keep my attention on her.”
“She was standing over the child.”
“Yes.”
“And someone else disabled the cameras.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Lily noticed the exchange.
She also remembered something from six weeks earlier.
“Mr. Blackwood.”
Victor looked at her.
“Adrian visited the nursery once.”
Adrian laughed.
“I have visited my nephew more than once.”
“You came after midnight.”
The room went silent.
Adrian’s smile faded.
“When?”
“June seventeenth.”
“I was not here.”
“You were.”
Lily opened her notes.
“At twelve twenty-three in the morning, the nursery monitor went dark.”
“I went upstairs.”
“You were leaving through the east corridor.”
Adrian’s voice cooled.
“You are mistaken.”
“You were wearing a gray suit.”
“You told me Ethan had been crying and Serena asked you to check the monitor.”
“I remember because you called him Edward.”
Victor turned toward his brother.
Adrian had always disliked the name Ethan.
Their father had wanted Victor’s first son named Edward after their grandfather.
Amelia refused.
The disagreement had become a family joke.
Or so Victor had believed.
“I may have stopped by after a meeting,” Adrian said.
“Why lie about it?”
“I did not remember.”
Lily continued.
“The next morning, Ethan slept until noon.”
Dr. Halpern looked at the toxicology report.
“Repeated exposure could have occurred overnight.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“You are accusing me based on the memory of a frightened employee.”
“I’m stating what I saw.”
“You are a nanny.”
“And you called the baby by the wrong name.”
Victor stepped between them.
“That is enough.”
Adrian looked at his brother.
“You believe her.”
“I believe details.”
Victor pointed toward Lily’s laptop.
“She has six months of them.”
Adrian glanced at the computer.
“Details can be manufactured.”
“So can security codes.”
The accusation remained between them.
Dominic changed the subject.
“We need to examine the vault.”
Victor nodded.
“The bank will be closed.”
“I can have it opened.”
Adrian gave a humorless smile.
“Of course you can.”
Victor ignored him.
“Lily comes with us.”
“She is listed on the account.”
Dr. Halpern shook his head.
“She should remain under observation.”
“I can walk,” Lily said.
“That is not the same as being medically fit.”
Victor considered it.
“Then the vault waits until morning.”
Adrian looked surprised.
“You are leaving Amelia’s evidence overnight?”
“I am not taking Lily into the city injured.”
The decision was practical.
Yet Lily saw something else in it.
Victor had finally begun thinking about the people around Ethan as human beings rather than pieces that could be moved.
It was a small change.
But in the Blackwood mansion, small changes could alter entire lives.
Dominic’s radio crackled.
A team had reached the rail yard.
They found the prepaid phone.
It had been left inside an abandoned freight car.
There were no fingerprints.
No camera footage.
But the device contained one unsent draft message.
Dominic read it aloud.
THE VAULT OPENS TOMORROW.
MAKE SURE THE NANNY DOES NOT.
Victor looked at Lily.
“You will not return to the staff wing.”
“You will stay in the secure guest suite beside Ethan’s room.”
Lily hesitated.
“I don’t need special treatment.”
“This is not treatment.”
“It is protection.”
Adrian shook his head.
“You are placing a possible suspect beside your son.”
Victor turned.
“She is the only person in this house he has reached for.”
Adrian looked toward the nursery door.
“And what happens when her story falls apart?”
Victor’s eyes were cold.
“Then I deal with her.”
Lily believed him.
Strangely, the answer did not frighten her.
It meant Victor was no longer accepting anyone’s innocence without proof.
That included Serena.
That included Adrian.
That included Lily herself.
The rules were finally equal.
Later that night, the mansion became unnaturally quiet.
Serena remained confined in the east suite.
Adrian was ordered to stay in a ground-floor guest room.
Dominic controlled the security office.
Victor sat beside Ethan’s crib.
Lily occupied a chair near the window.
The baby had awakened twice.
Each time, he searched for Lily.
Victor noticed.
“You know how to calm him.”
“I know what he likes.”
“What?”
“Your voice.”
Victor looked surprised.
Lily adjusted Ethan’s blanket.
“When you are away, I play recordings from your interviews.”
“He recognizes you.”
Victor stared at his son.
“I thought he barely knew me.”
“He knows you.”
“He waits near the window when your car comes through the gates.”
Victor looked down.
Regret settled over him with quiet weight.
“I left him alone in a house full of people.”
“You were grieving.”
“So was he.”
Lily did not answer.
Victor looked at her.
“Did Serena ever hurt him in front of you before today?”
“No.”
“She was careful.”
“She would send me downstairs.”
“Then I began pretending to leave.”
“Sometimes I stayed near the service corridor.”
“What did you hear?”
“Crying.”
“Her telling him to stop.”
“Once I heard something strike the crib.”
Victor’s hands tightened.
“Why did you not break down the door?”
“I tried.”
“She opened it before I could.”
“Ethan was in the crib.”
“She said he had thrown a toy.”
“Did you believe her?”
“No.”
“Then why wait?”
Lily’s eyes filled with frustration.
“Because every person in this house answered to her.”
“The house manager.”
“The kitchen staff.”
“Your assistant.”
“Even some of the guards.”
“I had no proof.”
“And she told me that if I accused her, she would have me arrested for stealing.”
Victor remembered the expensive bracelet Serena claimed had gone missing in May.
It was later found in a drawer.
At the time, he considered it carelessness.
Now he wondered whether the bracelet had been intended for Lily’s room.
“She was preparing to discredit you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I kept seeing things.”
Ethan shifted in his sleep.
Both of them became quiet.
Several minutes passed.
Then Victor asked a question Lily did not expect.
“Did Amelia know you?”
“Not personally.”
“The vault says otherwise.”
“I applied for this job through an agency.”
“Who interviewed you?”
“Mrs. Caldwell.”
Victor looked up.
Miriam Caldwell had been Amelia’s personal assistant.
She disappeared from Chicago two weeks after the funeral.
Serena claimed Miriam had stolen money and fled.
Victor had never investigated.
He had been too consumed by grief and retaliation against a rival organization he believed responsible for Amelia’s death.
“Did Caldwell say why she chose you?”
“She said Mrs. Blackwood had once reviewed applications for Ethan’s future caregivers.”
“She said my name was on a preferred list.”
Victor felt the past rearranging itself.
Amelia had chosen Lily before she died.
She had opened a vault in Lily’s name.
She had hidden the key inside a necklace later found in Serena’s possession.
Perhaps Amelia had known exactly what was coming.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
Dominic entered.
He carried a sealed evidence box recovered from Serena’s suite.
“We found prescription bottles.”
Dr. Halpern joined them from the adjoining room.
He examined the labels.
None contained the sedative found in Ethan’s blood.
Then Dominic removed a small cosmetics bottle with no label.
The doctor opened it carefully.
A faint medicinal odor rose from inside.
He used a test strip.
The color changed.
“This is likely the compound.”
Victor looked at Dominic.
“Where?”
“Hidden inside a false bottom beneath her makeup case.”
Lily exhaled.
Victor’s face became unreadable.
Dominic reached deeper into the evidence box.
“There was something else.”
He removed a folder.
Inside were printed photographs of Lily walking with Ethan.
Victor entering her room during a fever emergency.
Lily standing beside Victor in the garden.
The images had been cropped to look intimate.
On the back of each photograph were notes written in Serena’s handwriting.
OBSESSION.
ACCESS.
MOTIVE.
Victor understood immediately.
“She was building a case.”
Dominic nodded.
“To make Lily look dangerous.”
“Or unstable.”
Victor looked toward the sleeping child.
“Why?”
Lily answered.
“To blame me when something happened to Ethan.”
No one spoke.
The possibility was too terrible to dismiss.
Dominic’s radio sounded again.
The guard outside Adrian’s room was reporting movement.
Victor stood.
“What happened?”
“The room is empty.”
Victor looked toward the corridor.
The windows were sealed.
The guards had watched the door.
Yet Adrian was gone.
Dominic ran for the security office.
Victor followed.
Lily remained with Ethan.
Seconds later, the mansion lights flickered.
Every monitor in the nursery went dark.
A mechanical click sounded from inside the wall.
Lily turned toward Ethan’s crib.
The baby was still there.
Then she heard breathing behind her.
A gloved hand covered her mouth.
May you like
A voice whispered against her ear.
“You should have died with Amelia.”
