Chapter 3 - Victoria’s Explanation
Victoria picked up the remote before Richard could.
“This?” she said. “I use it for the bedroom shades.”
Richard held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
Her eyes hardened for half a second.
Then the softness returned.
“Of course.”
He turned the remote over. The back had a Sterling Security asset sticker.
Not a window-control label.
“Where did you get this?”
Victoria’s face changed again, this time into wounded disbelief. “Do you hear yourself? I’m your wife.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I found it in the upstairs office weeks ago. I thought it controlled the lights.”
Richard pressed a button.
The nursery camera indicator went dark.
Silence filled the room.
Maya whimpered.
Victoria stared at the remote, then at Richard. “I didn’t know.”
“You just told me you used it for the shades.”
“I was confused. You’re interrogating me while a hundred people are downstairs.”
Richard felt something shift inside him. Not certainty. Not yet.
But trust had developed a crack.
He called security chief Daniel Mercer.
“Lock the control permissions on the upstairs system,” Richard said. “Nobody disables a camera without my approval.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“This isn’t about you.”
“It’s becoming very clear that it is.”
She turned toward the door.
Maya flinched again.
Richard saw it.
This time, he did not explain it away.
“Victoria.”
She stopped.
“Where is Mrs. Gable?”
“I told you. Home sick.”
Richard called the nanny.
Straight to voicemail.
He called again.
Nothing.
Then he noticed an unread text from the estate manager, sent twenty minutes earlier.
MR. STERLING - MRS. GABLE LEFT THE PROPERTY AT 5:12 P.M. SHE SEEMED UPSET. SHE SAID SHE NEEDED TO SPEAK WITH YOU DIRECTLY.
Richard read the message twice.
Victoria was still facing the door.
“What did she want to tell me?” he asked.
May you like
Victoria turned slowly.
For the first time that night, she did not have an answer.
