Chapter 2 - The Night Claire Died
Grant ordered the mansion sealed before midnight.
No employee was allowed to leave.
No computer, phone, tablet, or security device could be removed from the property.
Detective Ruiz requested a search warrant for the entire estate, while Officer Daniels remained in the main hallway with the household staff.
Harris stood inside Grant’s study, surrounded by the people who no longer trusted him.
Grant remained behind his desk.
He had changed in the last hour.
The shock had hardened into something colder.
“You told me the cameras failed.”
“They did.”
“Lily says you hid the footage.”
Harris looked toward the closed study doors.
“I did not hide footage of Claire’s death.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I preserved a corrupted backup.”
Grant gripped the edge of the desk.
“Where is it?”
“I do not know anymore.”
Detective Ruiz folded her arms.
“You expect us to believe that?”
Harris looked exhausted.
“I copied the damaged security archive before the system was replaced. The data was encrypted and mostly unreadable. I stored it on a private drive.”
“And then?”
“Someone stole it.”
“Who knew you had it?”
Harris hesitated.
Grant slammed his hand against the desk.
“Who?”
“Your father.”
The room went still.
Edmund Hale was not merely Grant’s father.
He was the founder of Hale International, a corporation with interests in real estate, technology, pharmaceuticals, and private security.
He lived in Europe for most of the year.
Even Grant rarely challenged him.
Ruiz took one step forward.
“Why would Edmund Hale care about a damaged security archive?”
“He believed the footage could damage the family.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“My wife was dead.”
“Your father’s first concern was always the company.”
I had seen Edmund only twice.
Both times, he had looked through me as though I were glass.
Grant’s voice dropped.
“What did the footage show?”
“I never saw it clearly.”
“But you saw something.”
Harris lowered his head.
“A figure on the east atrium bridge.”
“Claire?”
“One figure was Claire.”
“And the other?”
“The image broke apart before the face became visible.”
Lily sat beside me on the leather couch.
A blanket was wrapped around her shoulders.
Her burned hair had been carefully trimmed by a paramedic, and the skin beneath it had been treated.
She had not spoken again since accusing Harris.
She watched him with wide, unblinking eyes.
I placed a sketch pad on her lap.
Lily had often communicated through drawings during her silent years.
“Can you show us what you remember?”
Grant started to object.
Ruiz raised a hand.
“We will not pressure her.”
Lily picked up a black pencil.
Her first lines were light and uncertain.
Then her hand began moving faster.
She drew the high glass ceiling of the atrium.
The narrow bridge connecting the upper hallways.
A woman in a long dress.
Claire.
Beside her, Lily drew another woman.
The second figure had long dark hair.
Renata.
Grant stared at the page.
“She was in Boston.”
Lily added a third figure.
A tall man.
She shaded his face until it became a dark oval.
Then she drew something beside his leg.
A cane.
Harris inhaled sharply.
Grant looked at him.
“You recognize that.”
Harris remained silent.
I did too.
Grant’s older half-brother, Adrian Hale, had used a silver-handled cane since a skiing accident fifteen years earlier.
Adrian served as chief financial officer of Hale International.
He had also been the person who introduced Renata to Grant.
Grant stepped away from the desk.
“No.”
Lily drew a line from Renata’s hands to Claire’s arm.
Then she drew Claire falling.
The pencil snapped between her fingers.
Grant rushed toward her.
Lily recoiled.
He stopped immediately.
“It’s okay.”
He lowered himself several feet away.
“You’re safe.”
Lily picked up a red pencil.
She colored something around Renata’s neck.
A scarf.
I remembered the photographs from the Boston charity dinner.
Renata had worn a red silk scarf over a black evening gown.
She had made certain every camera captured it.
Lily drew the same scarf on the woman standing beside Claire.
Detective Ruiz photographed the page.
“Mr. Harris, where was Adrian Hale that night?”
“At the mansion.”
Grant turned violently.
“What?”
“Adrian told the original investigators he left shortly before nine.”
“You never told me he was here.”
“You never asked.”
“I asked whether anyone had been with Claire.”
“He said he did not see her.”
Grant crossed the room and seized Harris by the front of his jacket.
“You knew my brother was in this house.”
Ruiz pulled him back.
“Grant.”
“He let me bury my wife believing she died alone.”
Harris straightened his clothing.
“I reported Adrian’s presence to the detective assigned to the case.”
“Who was that?”
“Detective Paul Mercer.”
Ruiz’s face darkened.
Mercer had retired eighteen months earlier after an internal investigation involving missing evidence and unexplained bank deposits.
She took out her phone.
“I want the entire original case file.”
Grant pressed both hands against the desk.
He looked as though he could no longer stand beneath the weight of what he was learning.
I remembered the night Claire died.
The storm.
The screaming alarm.
The sudden darkness.
I had been in the nursery preparing Lily’s bath when the lights flickered.
Five minutes later, I found Lily crouched behind the curtains, covered in tiny drops of rainwater.
She had not cried.
She had not spoken.
She had simply pointed toward the atrium.
By the time I reached Claire, the household staff had already gathered around her body.
Renata had arrived shortly afterward.
Or so she claimed.
She had entered the mansion wearing the same black dress and red scarf from the Boston gala.
She said she had driven through the storm after receiving Adrian’s call.
At the time, no one questioned how quickly she had arrived.
No one except Claire’s personal assistant, Naomi Price.
Naomi resigned the next morning.
I had never seen her again.
I stood abruptly.
“I know someone who may have seen Renata leave Boston.”
Ruiz looked at me.
“Who?”
“Naomi Price.”
Grant frowned.
“Claire’s assistant?”
“She told me something after Claire died.”
“What?”
I had almost forgotten the conversation.
Naomi had been packing files into a cardboard box.
Her hands shook so badly she could barely close it.
She had looked over her shoulder and whispered, “The red scarf is a lie.”
Before I could ask what she meant, Adrian entered the room.
Naomi left without another word.
“She knew Renata’s alibi was false,” I said.
Ruiz opened her notebook.
“Do you know where Naomi is now?”
“No.”
Harris spoke from behind us.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
“She called me six months ago.”
“Why?”
“She said someone had found her.”
“Who?”
Harris’s voice became quiet.
“She never told me.”
“Where is she?”
“She was living under another name in Vermont.”
Grant reached for his phone.
Harris stopped him.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“Three days after Naomi called me, her car was found abandoned beside a frozen lake.”
Lily’s pencil fell from her hand.
May you like
Harris looked at Grant.
“Naomi Price has been missing ever since.”
