Chapter 3 - The Threat
I read the sentence three times.
Then I looked at Vanessa.
She did not look guilty.
She looked annoyed.
“Explain this.”
She folded her arms. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“That sentence is written in your hand.”
“I was trying to motivate her.”
“By telling a six-year-old her baby brother would be taken away?”
Vanessa glanced at Emma. “She misunderstands things.”
Emma flinched.
I moved the paper behind my back.
“No. You don’t get to put this on her.”
Vanessa lowered her voice. “Adrian, she has been acting out for months.”
My daughter’s head snapped up.
“She lies. She steals snacks. She wanders at night.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
I said, “Go upstairs and tell me something.”
Vanessa stared.
“Go.”
She gave me a cold look and walked out.
I waited until her footsteps disappeared.
Then I knelt beside Emma.
“Did Vanessa make you clean tonight?”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
“Yes.”
“How long has this been happening?”
She counted silently on her fingers.
“Since Noah came home.”
Three months.
I felt something inside me crack.
“What else does she make you do?”
“Laundry.”
“What else?”
“Bottles.”
My voice caught. “What else?”
“She says babies listen better to kids.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
“Does she leave you alone with him?”
Emma nodded.
“How often?”
“Sometimes when you go to work. Sometimes when she goes shopping.”
I remembered Vanessa’s long afternoons. Spa appointments. Charity committees. Lunches.
I had assumed Maria was with Noah.
“Where is Maria during those times?”
Emma looked confused. “Miss Maria was here.”
“Then why were you doing it?”
“Because Miss Maria said no.”
A strange answer.
“What did Maria say no to?”
Emma whispered, “She said I wasn’t a babysitter.”
My heart started pounding.
“Then what happened?”
“Vanessa got mad.”
“How mad?”
Emma pressed her lips together.
“Sweetheart, you can tell me.”
“She took Miss Maria’s phone.”
My eyes shifted to the hallway.
“Tonight?”
Emma nodded.
“And then Miss Maria left?”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“What do you mean, no?”
“She didn’t leave.”
“Where is she?”
Emma pointed toward the east wing again.
“The room with the blue door.”
I stood slowly.
That room was an old wine storage room below the stairs.
It locked from the outside.
May you like
And I suddenly remembered something I had ignored for years.
Vanessa had asked me for the key that afternoon.
