Chapter 2 - The Locked Nursery
I turned so fast my shoulder struck the cabinet.
Donovan stood in the doorway.
“Easy.”
“You nearly killed me.”
“You're alive.”
“That's your apology?”
“It was going to be.”
Theo hid behind my leg.
Donovan noticed the spoon.
His expression hardened.
“Where did you get that?”
“Elias had it.”
He took it.
“Isabella's.”
Antoine arrived moments later.
When he saw the numbers, he went still.
“June sixteenth,” he said.
“What happened then?”
“My wife called me from this room.”
“About what?”
“She said she thought somebody was watching the children.”
That was not what I expected.
Antoine unlocked the cabinet using a key from Isabella's jewelry box.
Inside were children's blankets, medical documents and an old tablet.
The tablet had been wiped.
Almost.
Renee taught me something years earlier: people who wanted information gone often deleted what they could see rather than what computers remembered.
Donovan sent the tablet to a forensic specialist.
Meanwhile, I found a handwritten note tucked inside a blanket.
Three words.
CHECK THE CAMERAS.
Antoine read it twice.
“There were no cameras in the nursery.”
“There are now?”
“Security cameras outside.”
“That's not what she meant.”
We searched.
Nothing.
Then Camille pointed at a wooden rabbit mounted above the bookshelf.
Donovan removed it.
A lens stared back.
Antoine's face became terrifyingly calm.
“That isn't mine.”
Someone had watched Isabella.
Someone had watched the babies.
And perhaps someone was still watching us.
That evening, Antoine ordered a complete electronic sweep.
Seven unauthorized devices were found.
Two were inactive.
Five were transmitting.
One pointed directly at my bedroom.
I packed.
Antoine found me putting shirts into my suitcase.
“You're leaving.”
“Very observant.”
“The devices are being removed.”
“Somebody watched your dead wife and now they're watching me.”
“I'll protect you.”
“That sentence is exactly why normal women shouldn't move into houses belonging to men with bodyguards.”
His jaw tightened.
“The children need you.”
“Don't.”
He stopped.
“Don't use them to make me stay.”
He looked ashamed.
“You're right.”
That mattered again.
I zipped the suitcase.
Then Camille appeared.
She wasn't crying.
She simply walked to me carrying Isabella's photograph.
She placed it in my suitcase.
I sat on the bed.
“You fight dirty too?”
Camille climbed into my lap.
Ten minutes later, my suitcase was unpacked.
Not because Antoine asked.
Because I wanted to know why Isabella had been afraid.
The forensic report arrived at midnight.
The hidden cameras transmitted to an encrypted local receiver.
The receiver had been accessed six months earlier.
The final access occurred forty-seven minutes before Isabella's crash.
Then Donovan found something worse.
A camera had been installed inside Isabella's SUV.
Antoine's hand tightened around the report.
“That crash was investigated.”
“As an accident,” Donovan said.
Antoine looked at me.
I knew what he was thinking.
If Isabella knew someone was watching her, maybe she had not driven through that barrier accidentally.
The next morning, Renee came over.
We spread Isabella's papers across the library table.
Most were ordinary.
Medical bills.
Insurance.
Shipping statements.
Then Renee held up a bank record.
“This isn't right.”
“How?”
She showed me two transfers.
Both authorized electronically by Isabella.
Except Isabella had been hospitalized on those dates.
One transfer moved $480,000.
Another moved $1.2 million.
Destination: Pelican Meridian Holdings.
Antoine didn't recognize it.
Renee did.
“Shell company.”
“How do you know?”
“Because whoever created it was lazy.”
She pointed at the registered agent.
Victor Saye.
Antoine's uncle.
The room changed.
Victor had helped raise Antoine after his father died.
He sat on the board of Maro Shipping.
He had delivered the eulogy at Isabella's funeral.
Antoine immediately rejected the implication.
“Victor wouldn't hurt her.”
Renee shrugged.
“I didn't say he did. I said his name is attached to the company receiving your wife's money.”
I watched Antoine.
Powerful men rarely frightened me.
Men protecting the people they loved despite evidence frightened me much more.
That evening, Victor arrived unexpectedly.
He was silver-haired, charming and dressed like somebody who considered casual clothing a moral failure.
He kissed the children.
Then he noticed me.
“So this is Della.”
I hadn't been introduced.
“How do you know my name?”
A tiny pause.
“Antoine mentioned you.”
Antoine wasn't there.
Victor smiled.
“Those children seem fond of you.”
“They are.”
“Children attach quickly after trauma.”
His gaze dropped toward my body.
Then returned to my face.
“You must be enjoying the opportunity.”
I understood exactly what he meant.
A poor, overweight waitress had somehow entered a mansion.
Surely gratitude should make me obedient.
I smiled.
“I am.”
Victor relaxed.
People often mistook softness for stupidity.
I had spent my entire life benefiting from that mistake.
He left thirty minutes later.
I followed him to the foyer.
When he pulled on his coat, something dropped from his pocket.
A brass key.
I picked it up before he noticed.
Stamped into the metal were two characters.
P.M.
Pelican Meridian.
I slipped it beneath my apron.
That night, Renee searched corporate records.
Pelican Meridian owned a warehouse near the river.
Warehouse 16.
Six-sixteen.
June sixteenth.
Or warehouse sixteen.
Maybe both.
At 1:13 a.m., my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
It showed me standing in the nursery ten minutes earlier.
The hidden cameras had supposedly been removed.
Then another message arrived.
LEAVE THE MARO CHILDREN ALONE.
I stared toward my bedroom door.
May you like
The handle moved.
Someone was already inside the house.
