Chapter 14 - Lily’s Secret
Lily found Victor alone in the nursery.
Ethan was asleep.
Victor stood beside the crib.
“I need to tell you something.”
He looked at her.
She seemed terrified.
“What?”
“I knew Serena had met Adrian before.”
Victor turned completely toward her.
“How?”
Lily took a slow breath.
“Before I became a nanny, I worked events at the Blackwood Grand Hotel.”
“Three years ago, I served a private dinner.”
“Adrian was there.”
“So was Serena.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“You recognized her when you started here?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
Victor struggled to control his anger.
Lily continued.
“Then strange things started happening with Ethan.”
“The cameras.”
“The marks.”
“Serena sending me away.”
“That’s when I bought the recorder.”
Victor stared at her.
“You planted it.”
Lily nodded.
“The night you came home early, I knew something was wrong.”
“So I turned it on and slid it beneath the table.”
The chain-of-custody problem suddenly made sense.
“Why lie to the investigators?”
“Because I was scared they would say I secretly recorded everyone to blackmail you.”
Victor looked disappointed.
“That lie could destroy the strongest evidence we have.”
“I know.”
Lily began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Victor turned toward the crib.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he looked back.
“You protected Ethan when I wasn’t here.”
“Yes.”
“That matters.”
“But from now on, there are no more secrets.”
Lily nodded.
“There’s one more thing.”
Victor almost laughed bitterly.
“Of course there is.”
Lily reached into her bag.
She produced an old hotel receipt.
“I kept this because something about that dinner bothered me.”
Several handwritten initials appeared beside room numbers.
A.B.
S.V.
M.S.
Victor recognized Adrian Blackwood.
Serena Vale.
Margaret Sterling.
Then there was another set of initials.
C.B.
Charles Blackwood.
Victor’s father had attended the same secret dinner.
Grace’s note had warned that Adrian was not acting alone.
Victor had assumed she meant Margaret.
May you like
Now he was no longer certain.
The conspiracy might have begun inside his own family long before Serena ever entered the mansion.
