Chapter 2 - The Missing Camera
Arthur rode in the ambulance with one hand braced against the wall and the other holding Sarah’s trembling fingers.
“Is she losing the baby?” he asked.
The paramedic did not answer directly. “We’re monitoring both heart rates.”
Sarah heard the machine accelerate.
“Call Daniel.”
Arthur hesitated.
“Call my husband.”
Daniel Vance was in Boston closing a nine-figure acquisition for the family company. Arthur called twice. No answer.
On the third try, Daniel picked up.
“Arthur, I’m walking into—”
“Mr. Vance, your wife has been hurt.”
Silence.
“What happened?”
Arthur looked at Sarah.
“Your stepmother pushed her from the upper landing.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“What?”
“We are going to St. Matthew’s. Come now.”
At the mansion, Detective Lena Ortiz walked the upper landing with a crime-scene technician.
“There should be cameras here,” she said.
Nora nodded. “There are twelve on the main floor.”
The technician looked at the security monitor.
“Not anymore.”
Every camera covering the foyer had gone offline at 9:14 a.m.
The shove happened at 9:18.
Ortiz turned slowly toward Eleanor.
“That’s convenient.”
Eleanor sat in the drawing room with her attorney, Grant Mercer, a polished man who had represented the Vances for years.
“A power fluctuation,” Mercer said. “This is an old estate.”
Nora almost laughed. The estate’s electrical system had been rebuilt six months earlier.
Ortiz asked each staff member what they had seen.
One maid said Sarah slipped.
Another said she had been looking down.
A footman claimed he entered after the fall.
Fear moved through the house faster than truth.
Nora finally sat across from Ortiz.
“What did you see?” the detective asked.
Nora looked toward the hallway where Eleanor stood speaking to Mercer.
She remembered thirty years of employment, her pension, her widowed daughter, her grandson’s college tuition.
Then she remembered Sarah screaming.
“I saw Mrs. Vance raise both hands.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“And?”
Nora swallowed.
Before she could answer, Mercer appeared in the doorway.
“Nora,” he said pleasantly, “Mrs. Vance would like to remind the staff that discussing private family matters violates the confidentiality agreements everyone signed.”
Ortiz’s face hardened. “Counselor, if you threaten a witness again, I’ll remove you from this house.”
Mercer smiled. “I’m protecting my client’s privacy.”
At the hospital, doctors rushed Sarah behind double doors.
Arthur stood alone in the corridor until Daniel arrived, still wearing his airport coat.
“Where is she?”
“In surgery prep.”
Daniel grabbed Arthur’s shoulders. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Arthur told him.
Daniel’s face changed from shock to disbelief, then to something colder.
“My father married Eleanor when I was fourteen,” he said. “She’s cruel. Controlling. But murder?”
Arthur met his eyes.
“She expected Mrs. Vance to hit the floor.”
A doctor stepped into the hall.
“Mr. Vance?”
Daniel turned.
“We have a placental abruption. Your wife is stable for the moment, but the baby is in distress.”
Daniel went white.
“We may have to deliver tonight.”
Then Arthur’s phone vibrated.
A text from Nora.
THE CAMERAS WERE ERASED.
May you like
A second message followed.
BUT I KNOW WHO HAS A BACKUP.
