Chapter 3 - What Ethan Tried to Delete
I locked the door before Claire could open it.
She stood outside staring through the glass.
Ethan swore.
"Don't let her in."
I turned toward him.
"Interesting."
"Sarah—"
"Five minutes ago you wouldn't let me leave. Now you're afraid of her?"
Claire knocked again.
Amanda whispered, "She wasn't supposed to come here."
I looked at her.
"You know her."
Amanda didn't answer.
Claire raised her phone.
A message appeared on mine.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
If you want to know why that camera was really in the bathroom, come outside without Ethan.
I showed Grace.
She looked toward Ethan.
"Don't."
I agreed.
I wasn't walking outside alone.
So I opened the door while Grace stood beside me and my sister remained on speakerphone.
Claire looked exhausted.
Up close, she wasn't frightening.
She was frightened.
"Sarah?"
"Who are you?"
"Claire Mercer."
"What do you want?"
"To stop your husband from blaming me for something his mother planned."
Amanda appeared behind me.
"You lying little—"
"Enough," I said.
Claire held up a flash drive.
"Ethan deleted the original files."
My pulse jumped.
"What files?"
"The ones proving why Amanda was recording Lily."
Ethan stepped forward.
"Claire, leave."
She looked at him.
"You promised me nobody would be put at risk."
Amanda snapped, "Nobody was."
Grace's expression hardened.
"The baby was left unattended."
Claire stared at Amanda.
"You actually did it?"
Amanda said nothing.
Claire looked horrified.
That reaction mattered.
Whatever Claire was involved in, she hadn't expected what happened upstairs.
"Give me the drive," I said.
Ethan moved.
I stepped backward.
"Don't."
He stopped.
Claire handed it to Grace instead.
"Make copies."
Grace closed her fingers around it.
"What is on this?"
Claire looked at me.
"Your husband has been trying to prove you're an unfit mother."
The world went silent.
I laughed once because the alternative was falling apart.
"Excuse me?"
"The videos weren't supposed to show Amanda."
Claire looked toward Ethan.
"They were supposed to show you."
I stared at him.
He couldn't meet my eyes.
Claire continued.
"Messy house. Missed appointments. You sleeping while the baby cried. Anything they could frame without context."
I remembered Ethan encouraging me to rest.
His mother offering to watch Lily.
Phones appearing on counters.
Little comments.
Sarah is exhausted.
Sarah is overwhelmed.
Sarah needs help.
Concern had been camouflage.
"Why?"
Claire glanced toward the folder.
"The trust."
Of course.
My father's trust.
Claire explained that Amanda had discovered a provision allowing a court-appointed guardian of Lily to exercise certain administrative rights over Lily's beneficiary interest until adulthood.
Not ownership.
Not free access.
But influence.
Enough influence to matter in a family business Ethan desperately wanted to control.
"You helped them?"
"I prepared documents," Claire admitted. "I'm a paralegal. Ethan told me you wanted them."
"And you believed him?"
"At first."
"Why were you in my bedroom?"
Claire lowered her eyes.
"Because I stopped believing him."
Ethan spoke.
"She's lying."
Claire looked at him.
"Then tell Sarah about the deleted folder."
Grace inserted the flash drive into my laptop.
Folders appeared.
Dates.
Videos.
Screenshots.
Draft affidavits.
Notes.
My name appeared again and again.
UNSTABLE.
POSTPARTUM FATIGUE.
DEPENDENCE ON CAREGIVER.
POOR SUPERVISION.
Every ordinary moment of a tired new mother's life had been catalogued.
I looked at Ethan.
"You built a case against me."
"No."
"Your name is on the files."
"My mother started this."
Amanda recoiled.
"Ethan!"
He turned toward her.
"You did."
"You agreed!"
There it was.
The first crack.
Claire looked at me.
"They both did."
I opened another folder.
Inside were videos.
Some were mundane.
Me sleeping on the couch.
Grace feeding Lily.
Amanda folding laundry.
Then one clip made me stop.
I was standing in the kitchen crying.
I remembered that day.
Lily had barely slept.
Neither had I.
Ethan had held me and told me everything would be okay.
The camera had been recording from a bookshelf.
The clip ended before the part where Ethan comforted me.
Only my tears remained.
Context removed.
Evidence manufactured.
I closed the laptop.
"I want you out."
Ethan stared at me.
"This is my house too."
"Then I'll leave."
Amanda stepped forward.
"You're not taking Lily."
Every person in the room turned toward her.
She realized too late what she had said.
I walked closer.
"Why not?"
Amanda's lips parted.
No answer.
"Why can't I take my own daughter?"
"Because you're upset."
"Try again."
"Because—"
Ethan interrupted.
"Mom, shut up."
Amanda looked at her son as though he'd slapped her.
Claire whispered, "There is something else."
I turned.
"What?"
"The bathroom recording."
Grace held Amanda's phone.
"What about it?"
"It wasn't intended to prove Sarah was unfit."
My blood chilled.
"Then what was it intended to prove?"
Claire stared at Amanda.
Amanda shook her head.
"Don't."
Claire continued.
"Amanda wanted footage of Grace."
Grace frowned.
"Me?"
"She needed the nanny gone."
"Why?"
Claire's eyes shifted toward Ethan.
"Because Grace kept interrupting their recordings."
I remembered Ethan complaining that Grace appeared everywhere.
She checked on Lily too often.
She walked into rooms without knocking.
She noticed cameras.
She asked questions.
Grace hadn't been intrusive.
She had been inconvenient.
"But why leave Lily unattended?" I asked.
Claire shook her head.
"That wasn't the plan I knew about."
Amanda suddenly spoke.
"She was never in danger."
Grace stepped forward.
"You walked away."
"For seconds!"
"Why?"
Amanda's voice cracked.
"Because Grace was supposed to come in!"
The room froze.
There it was.
The truth.
Not all of it.
But enough.
Amanda had known Grace was approaching.
She wanted Grace captured interfering.
Perhaps yelling.
Perhaps grabbing Lily.
Perhaps something that could be framed as reckless.
Instead, the recording showed exactly what Amanda had done.
"You staged it," I whispered.
Amanda shook her head.
"No."
"You staged a situation involving my daughter."
"I was beside the door."
"You used my baby as a prop in your argument with her."
"I knew Grace would come."
"How?"
Amanda stopped.
Claire looked at Grace.
Grace looked at me.
Then Grace's face changed.
"My phone."
"What?"
Grace reached into her pocket.
She checked something.
Her eyes widened.
"Someone texted me."
She showed us.
A message received minutes before she entered the bathroom:
CAN YOU BRING THE BABY LOTION UPSTAIRS?
It appeared to come from me.
I had never sent it.
"Who sent that?" I asked.
Grace opened the contact details.
The number wasn't mine.
The name had simply been entered as Sarah.
Amanda backed away.
Claire whispered, "Oh my God."
Ethan grabbed his jacket.
I stepped in front of him.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm done with this."
"No."
He looked at me.
"You don't get to hold me here."
"No. But before you go, you're giving me every device you've used to record me."
He laughed.
"You've lost your mind."
"Maybe that's what you were hoping everyone would believe."
His smile disappeared.
Claire pointed toward the laptop.
"There should be a folder called Archive."
Grace searched.
Nothing.
"It's gone."
Claire frowned.
"It was there yesterday."
Ethan headed toward the garage.
Grace called after him.
"You deleted it."
He didn't stop.
I opened the laptop's trash.
Empty.
Claire took the computer.
"There may be backups."
She searched through synchronization settings.
Then stopped.
"Wait."
A cloud storage account was still connected.
A recently deleted folder appeared.
ARCHIVE.
Restore available for twenty-nine days.
I clicked it.
Hundreds of files returned.
Grace covered her mouth.
There were videos going back months.
Before Lily's birth.
Before my pregnancy.
Before my father's death.
One filename stopped me.
ROBERT_HALE_FINAL_NIGHT.
Robert Hale.
My father.
My hand froze over the trackpad.
"What does my father have to do with this?"
Nobody answered.
I opened the file.
The video showed my father's study.
The date was the night before he died.
My father sat behind his desk.
Amanda stood across from him.
And Ethan was beside her.
My father looked directly toward the hidden camera.
Then he said seven words that made Amanda stumble backward.
"I know what you two are planning."
The video continued.
My father reached into his desk.
He removed an envelope.
On the front, in his handwriting, was my name.
SARAH — IF THEY TRY AGAIN.
He slid it beneath a book.
Then the study door opened behind him.
Someone entered.
May you like
My father looked up.
And the recording cut to black.
