Chapter 6 - Someone Was Watching
Arthur closed the laptop.
“Behind me.”
Clara obeyed.
The footsteps came closer.
Then stopped outside the room.
Arthur picked up a heavy brass candleholder.
The door opened.
A flashlight beam swept across the floor.
“Arthur?”
Both exhaled.
It was Margaret Shaw, the estate’s longtime housekeeper.
Arthur lowered the candleholder.
“What are you doing here?”
Margaret looked frightened.
“I saw Mr. Whitmore’s security app.”
Arthur froze.
“The east-wing camera triggered an alert.”
Clara’s face went pale.
“Does Daddy know?”
“If his phone received the notification, yes.”
Arthur checked the time.
Daniel had left less than an hour earlier.
Margaret crossed the room quickly.
“You need to leave.”
Arthur removed the memory card.
Clara returned the envelope to compartment 317.
Margaret whispered, “There’s something else.”
She pulled out her phone.
A message had arrived from Daniel.
CHECK EAST WING.
Vanessa had sent another.
DON’T LET CLARA OUT OF YOUR SIGHT.
Clara looked at Arthur.
“They know.”
Margaret shook her head.
“They know someone entered.”
Arthur pocketed the memory card.
“Where are they?”
“According to the driver, their car turned around twenty minutes ago.”
They had almost reached the servants’ corridor when Clara stopped.
“My mother’s letter.”
She ran back.
Arthur called after her.
But she was already inside the room.
Clara grabbed the envelope.
Then noticed something beneath the desk.
A black leather glove.
She picked it up.
An embossed V was visible near the wrist.
Vanessa.
A memory exploded into Clara’s mind.
The rainy road.
Her mother’s car stopped beside the guardrail.
Vanessa opening the passenger door.
The same black gloves.
Clara remembered hiding on the floor behind the front seat.
She remembered Daniel shouting.
She remembered her mother holding a small recording device.
Then Vanessa saying, “Give it to me.”
Clara stumbled.
Another fragment returned.
Daniel grabbing Evelyn’s arm.
Her mother screaming Clara’s name.
Then headlights approaching from the opposite direction.
Clara dropped the glove.
Arthur rushed into the room.
“What happened?”
“I was there.”
“Where?”
“The cliff.”
Arthur stared at her.
“I was in Mommy’s car.”
A car engine roared outside the mansion.
Margaret ran to the window.
Daniel’s vehicle was entering the driveway.
But Daniel was not alone.
Two private security officers were with him.
Arthur took Clara’s hand.
“We need to hide that memory card.”
Clara looked toward her mother’s old portrait on the wall.
Then she remembered something Evelyn used to tell her.
A bird protects its nest by making predators look in the wrong place.
Clara slipped the card into the hollow back of the silver picture frame.
Thirty seconds later, Daniel entered the east wing.
He looked at Clara.
Then Arthur.
Then the open desk.
May you like
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
“What exactly have you two been looking for?”
