Chapter 7 - The Apartment Without Curtains
Security moved Claire and Lily to a protected apartment in Stamford.
The windows had no curtains when they arrived.
Claire felt exposed.
Nathan’s team installed blinds, alarms, and a camera covering the entrance.
Claire insisted she control the passwords.
Mr. Harris agreed immediately.
Nathan did not visit.
He understood that protection could become another form of intrusion if he entered whenever he wanted.
He sent Lily’s repaired blanket through an attorney.
A seam now crossed the center.
The embroidered flowers remained slightly uneven.
Lily wrapped it around her shoulders.
“The flowers remember.”
Claire sat beside her.
“Yes.”
“Are they sad?”
“Maybe.”
“But they still work.”
That night, Claire found a note sewn into the repaired edge.
Not from Nathan.
From Caroline’s mother.
Caroline made this for a child she hoped would grow up surrounded by kindness.
Nathan believed Lily helped him remember that hope.
Please do not feel she received something stolen from another child.
She received something carried forward.
Claire cried quietly after Lily fell asleep.
The following morning, police discovered that Thomas Bell had rented an apartment across from Lily’s preschool.
Photographs covered one wall.
Some showed Nathan visiting the kitchen.
Others showed Claire leaving work.
Thomas had documented every interaction Vanessa considered threatening.
A notebook listed possible ways to remove Claire.
The first was theft.
The second was immigration fraud, though Claire was an American citizen.
The third was child-neglect allegations.
The final option contained one word.
ACCIDENT.
Claire moved Lily again.
She did not tell Nathan the location.
Only police and her attorney knew.
Nathan respected the boundary.
At Whitfield Holdings, the board placed him under temporary review.
Several directors argued he had become emotionally compromised.
One claimed his attachment to an employee’s child damaged professional judgment.
Nathan presented the recovered fraud documents.
“The person who damaged this company was the executive stealing sixty-two million dollars.”
“Not the child who received a birthday cake.”
The board suspended Thomas.
They retained Nathan by one vote.
The deciding director was Margaret Ellis, Caroline’s former mentor.
After the meeting, she gave Nathan a sealed envelope Caroline had left with her years earlier.
It contained a handwritten list of suspicious foundation payments.
The final name was not Richard Hale.
May you like
It was Nathan’s own brother.
William Whitfield.
