Chapter 4 – The Woman Who Cleaned Everything
The call came just before sunrise.
Evelyn had barely unlocked the front door of Carter’s Table when her cell phone vibrated.
“I need to see you,” a trembling female voice said. “Please… before they find out.”
An hour later, a silver sedan pulled into the alley behind the diner.
A woman in her sixties stepped out, clutching a worn canvas bag. Her name was Linda Brooks. She had worked for the Holloway family for nearly twenty years as their housekeeper.
“I resigned yesterday,” she said quietly. “Margaret called me a traitor because I handed Hannah a bag of frozen peas for her bruises.”
Hannah’s eyes filled with tears.
“You were the only person who was ever kind to me.”
Linda reached into her bag and placed several USB drives on the table.
“I couldn’t stop what they did,” she whispered. “But I made copies.”
James Whitaker carefully examined the drives.
“What’s on them?”
“Security footage. Margaret ordered the system to delete recordings every Friday. Before they disappeared, I copied the important ones.”
The room fell silent as James connected one of the drives to his laptop.
The first video appeared.
Margaret slapped Hannah across the face because a napkin had been folded incorrectly.
Another showed Grant standing with folded arms while his mother screamed inches from Hannah’s face.
Then came the worst recording.
Margaret wrapped both hands around Hannah’s hair and dragged her across the living room floor.
Grant never looked up from his phone.
James slowly closed the laptop.
“These videos don’t just prove abuse,” he said.
May you like
“They prove conspiracy.”
For the first time, Evelyn realized the Holloways’ greatest enemy had been living inside their own house.
