Chapter 2 - THE VIDEO THAT KEPT PLAYING
Sophia's little hand stayed raised.
“I took it.”
Nathaniel Reed looked at my three-year-old daughter.
Then at me.
Then back at Sophia.
“You took what?”
“The dancing lady.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
“Sophia, sweetheart, why don't you take Eli to the rug?”
“No.”
“Sophia.”
She wrapped both arms around Eli with the stubborn loyalty only toddlers could produce after knowing someone for six weeks.
“He dance too.”
Eli smiled proudly.
“I dance.”
Nathaniel's face crumpled for half a second.
Not enough for the children to notice.
Enough for me.
Evelyn Reed had died fourteen months after giving birth to Eli.
Nathaniel had lost his wife.
Eli had lost the only mother he would never remember.
And now my daughter had somehow taught him a dance his dead mother had performed in the room Nathaniel had kept locked since her funeral.
I stepped toward the old console.
“My name is Clara Delgado,” I said quietly, although Nathaniel obviously knew my name. “And I swear I didn't know there was anything on this besides her rehearsing.”
Nathaniel's gaze sharpened.
“You watched it?”
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes.”
The recording had been nearly an hour long.
I had found the old media player four months earlier while sorting a storage closet. I checked the first few minutes because Margaret, the estate manager, had specifically told me not to throw away anything containing family footage.
Evelyn appeared.
I stopped.
Everyone on the staff knew Nathaniel kept photographs of his wife out of Eli's nursery because he wasn't ready to explain death to a child who could barely say breakfast.
I had taken the player upstairs intending to show Margaret.
Then Sophia found it.
She loved music.
After that, I'd sometimes catch her sitting cross-legged in my small staff apartment, watching Evelyn rehearse.
I should have taken it away.
Instead, I let her have one innocent thing.
Nathaniel pressed PLAY.
Music filled the ballroom.
Evelyn moved across the screen.
Nathaniel didn't breathe.
Sophia immediately lifted her arms.
“See?”
I touched her shoulder.
“Not now.”
The video showed Evelyn practicing alone.
She would dance.
Stop.
Laugh at herself.
Reset the music.
Once she walked directly toward the camera and said, “Nathaniel is going to tell me I'm counting again.”
A strange sound escaped him.
Evelyn smiled at the camera.
“I know, I know. Stop counting. Feel it.”
Nathaniel turned away.
I realized those words belonged to him.
After seventeen minutes, Evelyn ended the music.
That was where I had always stopped.
But Sophia shook her head.
“More.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Lady talks.”
Nathaniel turned.
“What does she say?”
Sophia shrugged.
“Grown-up stuff.”
I stared at my daughter.
“You watched past here?”
She nodded.
Nathaniel pressed PLAY again.
The picture remained empty.
Twenty seconds.
Thirty.
A minute.
Then Evelyn returned.
But she had changed.
No smile.
No music.
She closed the ballroom doors behind her.
Locked them.
Then walked directly toward the camera.
Nathaniel stepped closer to the screen.
Evelyn sat on the piano bench.
For several seconds, she did nothing.
Then she whispered:
“Nate, if you're seeing this, something happened.”
The room went silent.
Nathaniel gripped the edge of the piano.
Evelyn looked frightened.
Not dramatically frightened.
That would have been easier.
She looked like someone working very hard not to be.
“I don't know who I can trust anymore.”
Nathaniel whispered, “Evelyn.”
“I found the transfers.”
His expression changed.
“What transfers?”
The woman on the screen continued.
“The Emerson accounts. The foundation distributions. Eli's custodial trust. Someone has been moving money through all three and using your electronic authorization.”
Nathaniel looked at me.
I had no idea what she meant.
Judging by his face, neither had he.
Evelyn lowered her voice.
“I confronted Graham.”
Nathaniel froze.
I knew the name.
Everyone did.
Graham Reed.
Nathaniel's older half brother.
Vice chairman of Reed International.
The man who appeared in financial magazines smiling beside Nathaniel at charity galas.
“He told me I was confused,” Evelyn continued. “Then he knew things I had never told him.”
Nathaniel's jaw hardened.
“He knew about the lawyer.”
A floorboard creaked in the recording.
Evelyn looked toward the ballroom doors.
Then back at the camera.
“If anything happens to me, do not let Graham become Eli's trustee.”
Nathaniel stumbled backward.
I caught the piano before he did.
On-screen, Evelyn stood.
“There is proof. I couldn't keep it in the safe. Graham knows the codes.”
She glanced toward the center of the ballroom.
“So I put it somewhere he would never look.”
She smiled suddenly.
Sad.
Clever.
Almost playful.
“You always said I hid everything in choreography.”
Nathaniel's eyes moved toward the dance floor.
Evelyn lifted one hand.
“Remember our wedding dance.”
The recording ended.
Black screen.
Nobody spoke.
Then Sophia frowned.
“No.”
Nathaniel looked down.
“No what?”
“Not done.”
“What do you mean?”
Sophia toddled toward the middle of the ballroom.
Eli followed.
“Sophia?”
She ignored me.
Three steps.
Turn.
Two tiny steps backward.
Then she crouched and tapped a floorboard.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nathaniel stared.
“How does she know that?”
My throat went dry.
“Sophia?”
“The lady does it.”
Nathaniel grabbed the remote.
We rewound the dance.
Near minute thirteen, Evelyn performed a sequence I hadn't noticed.
Three steps.
Turn.
Two backward.
Then a low sweeping motion.
It looked like choreography.
Unless you knew what you were looking for.
Nathaniel walked onto the parquet floor.
Sophia pointed.
“There.”
He knelt.
The floor was made of hundreds of narrow oak panels.
One was fractionally darker.
Nathaniel pushed it.
Nothing.
He pressed near the edge.
Click.
The board lifted.
My heart began pounding.
Inside was a shallow compartment.
Nathaniel reached in.
He removed a small black memory card.
And a brass key.
Underneath them sat a folded piece of paper.
He opened it.
Two words.
FOR NATE.
Nathaniel stopped breathing.
I stepped closer.
“What is it?”
He turned the note over.
More handwriting.
IF GRAHAM KNOWS YOU FOUND THIS, TAKE ELI AND LEAVE THE HOUSE.
A loud electronic beep came from the hallway.
Then another.
The ballroom lights flickered.
Nathaniel straightened.
“What was that?”
I heard footsteps running outside.
Margaret appeared in the doorway.
She was sixty-three, silver-haired, composed under nearly every circumstance.
She wasn't composed now.
“Mr. Reed.”
Nathaniel crossed the room.
“What happened?”
“The security system just went offline.”
“Call Daniel.”
“I did.”
“He isn't answering.”
Daniel Pike was Nathaniel's head of security.
Margaret's face had gone pale.
“Someone accessed the east gate remotely.”
Nathaniel looked toward the rain-darkened windows.
“Is anyone on the property?”
“We don't know.”
He turned to me.
“Take Sophia.”
“What about Eli?”
Nathaniel scooped his son up himself.
“Both children stay with me.”
The lights died.
Sophia screamed.
I grabbed her.
Eli began crying.
Emergency lighting came on, painting the ballroom red.
Nathaniel shoved the memory card into his pocket.
A crash echoed somewhere downstairs.
Glass.
Margaret whispered, “Someone's inside.”
Nathaniel's entire body changed.
The grieving husband disappeared.
The billionaire who had built companies people feared crossing took his place.
He looked at me.
“Clara, can you carry both children?”
“If I have to.”
“You may have to.”
He handed me Eli.
I took him against my other hip.
Two toddlers.
One on each side.
Nathaniel opened a narrow servants' door beside the ballroom.
“I didn't know that was there,” I whispered.
“Neither does Graham.”
We entered a dark passage.
Nathaniel locked the panel behind us.
Sophia buried her face in my neck.
Eli whimpered.
“Daddy.”
Nathaniel touched his son's hair.
“I’m right here.”
Then footsteps entered the ballroom we had just left.
We all heard them.
A man's voice.
“Check the floor.”
Nathaniel went still.
The footsteps stopped exactly where Evelyn had hidden the card.
Someone already knew what they were looking for.
Nathaniel's eyes met mine in the darkness.
And for the first time since I had worked for him, I saw fear.
Not for his money.
Not for his house.
For his son.
May you like
He whispered four words.
“My wife was murdered.”
