Chapter 9 - The Woman at the Gate
At 7:10 the next morning, a woman Nathan had not seen in two years appeared at the front gate.
Her name was Tessa Monroe.
She had been Lucy's nanny before Elena came to work for the family.
Claire had fired her for "boundary problems."
Tessa stood in the foyer with both hands wrapped around a coffee cup she had not touched.
"I saw the video online," she said.
Nathan frowned. "What video?"
"Someone at the brunch posted the slap. It's everywhere."
Elena felt sick.
Tessa looked at her swollen cheek. "I'm sorry."
Nathan asked, "Why are you here?"
Tessa reached into her tote bag and pulled out an envelope.
"Because I should've come sooner."
Inside were printed screenshots of text messages.
Claire: HE'S BEEN FORGETFUL AGAIN.
Caleb: GOOD. KEEP THE DOSE LOW.
Claire: I DON'T WANT TO HURT HIM.
Caleb: WE NEED A PATTERN, NOT A CORPSE.
Nathan read the line twice.
"What dose?"
Tessa stared at the floor.
"Two years ago, I saw Claire crush something into your night drink. You used to have bourbon after dinner."
Nathan remembered waking with headaches. Losing track of meetings. Once forgetting an entire phone conversation with Riley.
He had blamed stress.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried. Claire caught me going into your office. She said I was stealing. Then Caleb offered me a severance agreement if I left quietly."
Nathan's voice turned cold. "You signed it."
Tessa nodded, ashamed. "My dad was sick. I needed the money."
Elena understood that kind of shame. The shame of survival often looked ugly from the outside.
Tessa continued. "I kept the messages because Claire used my phone once when hers died. They synced to my old tablet. I didn't find them until later."
David Sloan arrived twenty minutes later and immediately told Nathan not to eat or drink anything from an opened container.
They searched the pantry.
Elena found a prescription bottle taped beneath the bottom shelf behind a row of expensive olive oils.
The label had been peeled off.
Inside were four small white tablets.
Nathan's face changed.
"Call the police."
Claire came downstairs before the call was finished.
Her lawyer was with her.
"What's going on?"
Nathan held up the bottle.
For the first time since the pool, Claire looked truly frightened.
"That isn't mine."
"I didn't say it was."
Her eyes moved to Tessa.
"You."
Tessa stood.
"Yeah. Me."
Claire's lawyer stepped forward. "My client will not answer questions."
Nathan's phone rang.
Mark, the security chief.
"Nathan, you need to come to the old hallway monitor. We recovered part of the deleted March fourteenth footage from your mother's internal camera."
Nathan looked at Claire.
She whispered, "Don't watch it."
He almost laughed.
May you like
She had said the same thing about the capsule.
Every time Claire told him not to look, the truth was waiting on the other side.
