Chương 3
“Not here.”
I laughed once, but there was nothing funny in it.
“My daughter just told you a man who works in this house tried to give her candy after touching poisoned frosting, and you want me to calmly follow instructions?”
“I want you alive enough to keep arguing with me tomorrow.”
The words landed harder than his anger would have.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“Claire, take Lily upstairs with me.”
“No.”
“Then with Dominic.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“I am not handing her to anybody.”
Dominic’s gaze dropped to Lily’s white sneakers, one of them streaked with chocolate from the shattered cake.
“You don’t have to.”
He looked back at me.
“But we’re moving.”
He turned toward the service corridor without waiting to see whether I followed.
For two seconds I considered refusing.
Then Gabriel quietly said, “The person in that video knows Lily saw him.”
That was enough.
I carried her after Dominic.
The main staircase would have exposed us to the salon and the front hall, so he took the narrow back stairs the staff used between floors.
I had climbed those stairs thousands of times with laundry manifests, fresh linens, flowers, lost cuff links, and once a furious Persian cat belonging to Dominic’s sister.
I had never climbed them with an armed man ahead of me and another behind me.
Lily’s tears slowed as we reached the second floor.
She began hiccupping.
“I want my bunny.”
“I know.”
“Pink bunny.”
“I know which bunny.”
“It’s in my room.”
“We’re going there.”
Dominic stopped.
“No.”
I nearly walked into him.
“What?”
“You’re not going to the staff wing.”
“That’s where our things are.”
“And whoever did this knows that.”
“This house is full of your people.”
“That is currently the problem.”
He opened the door to a guest suite I had prepared that morning for relatives who had canceled at the last minute.
The room was larger than the apartment Lily and I had lived in before Dominic offered me a staff cottage on the property.
Cream walls, blue armchairs, a fireplace nobody used in summer, and French doors overlooking the darkening lawn made it feel absurdly peaceful.
Dominic checked the bathroom himself.
Gabriel checked the closet.
I stood in the middle of the carpet holding a tired toddler while two dangerous men searched behind curtains.
Lily sniffed.
“I need Bunny.”
“I’ll get it,” Gabriel said.
“No.”
His brows lifted.
“I’ll send a woman from staff.”
“No.”
“You’d rather go yourself?”
“No.”
“Good, because that wasn’t an option.”
I stared at him.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Dominic closed the curtains.
“Gabriel, get Rosa.”
Gabriel nodded and left.
The door locked behind him.
I set Lily down on the bed.
She immediately pulled off one sneaker and threw it toward the footboard.
“Why did you do that?”
“It’s sticky.”
“That doesn’t mean we throw it.”
“It’s cake.”
“I know what it is.”
“I saved Ethan.”
My throat closed.
“Yes.”
She looked at me seriously.
“So I can throw it.”
Dominic turned his face away.
I realized, with a strange little jolt, that he was trying not to laugh.
“Do not encourage her.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You nearly did.”
Lily kicked off the second shoe.
“Throw that one too?”
“No.”
She sighed as though motherhood had become unreasonable.
Dominic’s phone vibrated.
He glanced at the screen and walked toward the windows.
“Talk.”
I could hear only fragments from the other side.
“No.”
A pause.
“Keep them separated.”
Another pause.
“I don’t care who his father is.”
His voice hardened.
“Then explain it to him twice.”
He ended the call.
“Who was that?”
“Security.”
“Have they found the man?”
Dominic did not answer.
“Is he still in the house?”
His silence gave me the answer.
I stood.
Lily watched me from the bed.
“Claire.”
“Is he still here?”
“We don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“We know he hasn’t exited through a monitored gate.”
“That means he is here.”
“It means several things.”
“Such as?”
“A maintenance vehicle left before lockdown.”
“Was he in it?”
“We’re checking.”
“You have cameras.”
“Somebody disabled one.”
“And your explanation for that is what?”
He looked at me.
“I don’t have one yet.”
I hated the calmness of his voice.
It made every possibility feel worse.
“Let me see the video.”
“No.”
“You showed it to yourself.”
“I’m not three years old.”
“That is my child’s witness statement.”
“That is also an image of a man who may try to kill you if he believes she can identify him.”
My anger stopped.
Lily was picking frosting from the edge of her sock.
She noticed us looking at her.
“Can I have crackers?”
Neither of us spoke.
“Mommy.”
“Yes.”
“Crackers.”
“Soon.”
“You said water soon.”
“I gave you water.”
“So crackers now.”
Dominic opened a cabinet beneath the television.
There was a minibar inside.
He crouched and examined everything as if the crackers might also have enemies.
I watched him check the factory seals on three packages before handing me one.
“You do this with everything?”
“Tonight, yes.”
“No, I mean with Ethan.”
He looked toward the door.
“More than I used to.”
There was something in the answer I did not understand.
Lily climbed down and took the crackers.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You got juice?”
“No.”
“Bad house.”
Dominic actually smiled then.
It was brief and startling.
“This is my house.”
Lily considered that.
“You need juice.”
I sat on the edge of the bed because my knees had begun shaking.
Dominic noticed.
He pulled one of the blue chairs closer without comment.
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“That doesn’t make it less annoying.”
“You’ve always been difficult when frightened.”
I looked up.
“You’ve seen me frightened before?”
“Six years is a long time.”
“For you to notice the housekeeper?”
“For anyone to notice anybody.”
Before I could answer, someone knocked three times, paused, then twice.
May you like
Dominic opened the door only after checking the hallway through a small digital monitor mounted beside the frame.
Rosa entered carrying Lily’s pink rabbit and a canvas tote bag.
