Chapter 5 - The Nanny's Warning
Four years earlier, Graham had refused to delete Claire's account from the household system. He'd kept her photograph in the downstairs study, her garden exactly as she'd planted it, and her login active because changing it felt like another funeral.
Now someone had used that account to open his wife's bedroom.
“Who knows the password?” Mara asked.
“I did,” Graham said. “And Elliot helped me set up the system after Claire died.”
Victoria looked away.
Back at the hospital, Lena's phone buzzed with an unfamiliar number.
YOU FOUND HER. DON'T GO HOME ALONE.
A second message arrived with a photograph of a handwritten note: Ellie keeps talking about being locked in. Please listen before someone gets hurt.
Lena recognized the writing immediately. It belonged to Margaret Bell, Ellie's former nanny, dismissed three months earlier for supposedly stealing jewelry.
Lena called the number. Margaret answered on the second ring.
“Are you with Ellie?” the older woman asked.
“She's safe now. Why didn't you tell me?”
“I tried. Victoria intercepted my letter. The day they fired me, Ellie showed me bruises on her arm. I called child protective services. That night, someone put a diamond bracelet in my purse.”
“Where are you?”
“Not where they think.”
A car engine started in the background.
“Lena, there are two things you need to know. Victoria frightens that child, but Elliot frightens Victoria.”
Lena walked into an empty supply alcove. “What's the second thing?”
“Claire called me the night she died. She was crying. She said she'd found where the shelter money went.”
Lena's throat tightened. “Did she say where?”
“No. But she gave me a name.”
A sharp crash exploded through the phone. Margaret screamed once. The line went dead.
May you like
Then Lena received a final text from Margaret's number.
STOP LOOKING.
