Chapter 4 - CHADWORTH CAME OUT OF HIDING
He could have watched longer.
He didn’t.
There was a difference between gathering facts and asking children to endure more because an adult wanted certainty.
Chadworth finally understood it.
At 12:47 p.m., he left the monitoring room.
Marcus followed.
They crossed the west hallway.
Chadworth stopped outside the breakfast room.
Rosamund looked up first.
Her face emptied.
Gemma gasped.
“Dad?”
Lorelai jumped from her chair.
“You’re home!”
Both girls ran to him.
He crouched.
Caught them.
They hit him hard enough to rock him backward.
Their arms wrapped around his neck.
Chadworth closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Gemma pulled back.
“You didn’t go Canada?”
“No.”
Her face changed.
“You lied?”
There was no good version.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked toward Rosamund.
Then back to his daughter.
“Because I was trying to find out whether something I’d been told was true.”
Gemma’s expression tightened.
“About Rosie.”
Not a question.
Chadworth felt ashamed.
“Yes.”
Lorelai clung tighter.
“She doesn’t steal.”
“I know.”
Gemma stared at him.
“Now.”
One word.
Accurate.
Painful.
Chadworth nodded.
“Now.”
He looked toward Rosamund.
She stood stiffly beside the table.
Her face gave him nothing.
“Mr. Prescott.”
Not Chadworth.
Never Chadworth.
He had always accepted that.
Today it sounded like distance he had earned.
“I owe you an apology.”
She looked at the girls.
“Not in front of them.”
Another correction.
Another one he deserved.
He nodded.
“Later.”
---
Then Sabina appeared in the doorway.
Everything stopped.
She stared at Chadworth.
“What are you doing here?”
His daughters stiffened against him.
That physical reaction settled something inside him.
He stood.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Her eyes flicked toward the table.
The box.
Notebook.
Recorder.
Then back.
She recovered quickly.
“What is this?”
Chadworth watched her.
No shouting.
No accusation.
“Where’s your bracelet?”
Sabina froze for less than a second.
“My bracelet?”
“The one you said Rosamund stole.”
“I said I suspected—”
“Where is it?”
Her jaw tightened.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus entered carrying the velvet box.
He placed it on the table.
Sabina went white.
“We found it.”
She looked at Rosamund.
“You planted that.”
Chadworth almost laughed.
The audacity.
“No.”
Sabina turned to him.
“Chad, you don’t seriously believe a maid over me.”
There it was.
Rank.
Status.
The entire argument reduced to hierarchy.
Chadworth looked at his daughters.
Then Rosamund.
Then Sabina.
“I believe evidence.”
Sabina’s face hardened.
“What evidence?”
He pointed toward the ceiling camera.
May you like
For the first time since he had known her, Sabina looked genuinely afraid.
---
