Chapter 5 - The Red Key
Emma told me the key was hidden inside an old music box that had belonged to my mother.
Claire had asked about it twice.
“Did you give it to her?” I asked.
“No.”
“Where is it now?”
Emma hesitated.
“I moved it.”
“Where?”
“With Miss Nora.”
Nora Bell had been Emma’s nanny until six months earlier.
Claire fired her while I was traveling.
She claimed Nora had stolen a bracelet.
Lena found Nora’s number.
She answered on the second ring.
“Mr. Sterling?”
“Nora, I need to ask you about a red key.”
Silence.
Then she said, “Claire finally went too far, didn’t she?”
I closed my eyes.
“Where are you?”
“Not at home.”
“Are you safe?”
“I don’t know.”
Nora had kept the key because Emma begged her to.
Three weeks earlier, Emma found Claire in my office copying files.
When Claire saw the child, she smiled and said she was “planning a surprise for Daddy.”
Emma didn’t believe her.
Nora told Claire to leave the office.
Two days later, Claire accused her of theft.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Three times.”
My throat tightened.
“I never got a message.”
“I left one with Owen. One with your assistant. One with Claire.”
Lena looked at me.
Nora agreed to meet us at a twenty-four-hour diner near the hospital.
She arrived wearing a baseball cap and carrying a small envelope.
Inside was the red key.
Also inside was a memory card.
“What’s this?”
Nora looked around the diner.
“Your daughter recorded Claire.”
I stared at her.
“With what?”
“An old tablet. Emma thought she was playing detective.”
The recording was only forty-three seconds.
Claire’s voice came from my office.
Richard Vale answered.
Claire said, “The board votes Monday. The gala gives us the trigger.”
Richard asked, “And the girl?”
Claire replied, “She only has to fall far enough for Michael to lose control.”
My blood went cold.
May you like
Then Richard laughed softly.
“Just make sure he hits somebody.”
