Chapter 3 - Unit 317The police advised Alexander not to go.
“Marcus, lock the exterior doors.”
Marcus touched the radio clipped to his jacket.
“Security team, seal the property. Nobody leaves.”
Vivienne grabbed Alexander’s arm.
“Don’t go upstairs.”
He turned.
Her fingers immediately fell away.
“Why?”
“I—I don’t know what’s happening.”
“That’s exactly why I’m going.”
Lily remained beside Sophie.
The little girl had gone silent.
Her face was white.
“Is Mommy going to jail?”
Lily crouched despite the pain in her shoulder.
“I don’t know.”
“But she lied.”
Lily couldn’t answer.
She would not poison a child against her mother, no matter what Vivienne had done.
Alexander disappeared upstairs with Marcus.
Thirty seconds later, another sound echoed through the mansion.
A door slamming.
Then Marcus shouted.
“Stop!”
Footsteps thundered above them.
A man burst onto the second-floor balcony.
Lily recognized him.
Derek Sloan.
Vivienne’s personal assistant.
He handled her appointments, travel, charity accounts, and nearly every private detail of her life.
He had always been charming around the staff.
Too charming, Lily sometimes thought.
Now his jacket was torn, and a black flash drive was clutched in his hand.
“Derek?” Vivienne whispered.
He looked down at her.
For one terrible moment, something passed between them.
Recognition.
Fear.
Betrayal.
Then Derek ran.
Marcus chased him toward the east staircase.
Alexander emerged from the study behind them.
“Stop him!”
Derek vaulted over a low decorative railing onto a carpeted landing, nearly crashing into a table.
Two guards entered from the hallway.
Cornered, he threw the flash drive over the balcony.
It landed on the marble below.
A few feet from Lily.
“Lily!” Alexander shouted. “Don’t touch it!”
Derek smiled.
Then reached inside his coat.
Every guard tensed.
Alexander stepped in front of the balcony.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Slowly, Derek removed—
A second phone.
He smashed it against the railing.
Marcus tackled him.
The phone slipped through the bars and shattered downstairs.
Sophie screamed.
Lily wrapped both arms around her.
Within moments Derek was pinned to the floor.
“Get off me!”
Marcus twisted his arms behind his back.
“What were you doing in Mr. Blackwood’s office?”
Derek said nothing.
Alexander walked downstairs.
His expression was no longer merely angry.
It was analytical.
The expression of a man who had built an empire by finding weaknesses other people missed.
He stopped beside the flash drive.
Then looked at Vivienne.
“Do you know what’s on that?”
“No.”
Too fast.
Alexander heard it too.
“You didn’t even ask what I found upstairs.”
Vivienne swallowed.
“What did you find?”
Alexander stared at her for several seconds.
“A hidden access panel behind the bookshelf.”
Marcus, still holding Derek upstairs, called down.
“Sir, we need law enforcement.”
“Already notified.”
Vivienne suddenly moved.
She reached for the flash drive.
Lily reacted before thinking.
“Mr. Blackwood!”
Alexander stepped on the drive before Vivienne could reach it.
Their eyes met.
“Why do you want this?”
“I don’t.”
“You just tried to take it.”
“I wanted to give it to you.”
“It’s beneath my shoe, Vivienne.”
Her mask finally cracked.
“Alexander, this is getting ridiculous. Derek is obviously behind whatever is happening.”
Derek laughed from upstairs.
It was a bitter, ugly sound.
“Oh, that’s how we’re playing it?”
Vivienne’s head snapped upward.
“Shut up.”
Alexander’s eyes narrowed.
Derek’s smile widened.
“You told me he never checked the internal cameras.”
“Be quiet!”
Sophie flinched.
Lily moved the child toward the hallway.
Alexander noticed.
“Lily, take Sophie into the library.”
Vivienne stepped forward.
“No.”
Alexander turned.
“What?”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And right now she doesn’t need to hear this.”
Vivienne’s eyes filled with sudden tears.
“Alexander, please.”
But Lily saw something beneath the tears.
Calculation.
Just as she had seen that tiny smile after being shoved.
Alexander saw it too.
“Go, Lily.”
Lily took Sophie’s hand.
They entered the library and closed the door.
Sophie immediately began crying.
Lily knelt.
The little girl wrapped both arms around her neck.
“Why does Mommy hate you?”
“She doesn’t.”
“Yes, she does.”
Lily pulled back gently.
“Sophie—”
“She said you were going to leave.”
Lily froze.
“What?”
“Last week.”
Sophie wiped her face.
“I heard Mommy talking to Derek.”
Lily’s pulse quickened.
“What did she say?”
“She said after tonight, you would never work here again.”
Cold spread through Lily’s chest.
“What else?”
Sophie thought.
“She said Daddy would finally stop looking.”
“Looking for what?”
“I don’t know.”
Before Sophie could answer, there was a knock.
Alexander entered.
Behind him stood two police officers.
His face looked older than it had ten minutes earlier.
“Lily, they need your statement about the assault and the watch.”
She nodded.
Alexander looked at Sophie.
“I need to speak with Lily alone for a minute.”
Sophie hesitated, then allowed an officer to escort her toward the kitchen.
When the door closed, Alexander faced Lily.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I brought you into this house.”
“You hired me to care for Sophie.”
“And you’ve done that better than anyone.”
Lily looked down.
“I don’t understand why your wife would do this.”
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
“Neither do I.”
Lily remembered Sophie’s words.
“She planned it.”
Alexander looked up.
“Sophie heard her talking to Derek last week. Vivienne said that after tonight, I’d never work here again.”
Something flickered in Alexander’s eyes.
“And?”
“She said you would finally stop looking.”
Alexander went completely still.
“Those exact words?”
“Yes.”
For the first time, Lily saw something close to fear in him.
He opened his phone and pulled up a photograph.
A smiling teenage boy stood beside Alexander.
Same dark hair.
Same blue-gray eyes.
“His name was Evan,” Alexander said.
“My younger brother.”
Lily recognized the name.
Evan Blackwood had disappeared fourteen years earlier.
The case had received national attention.
No body had ever been found.
“My family spent years looking for him,” Alexander continued. “Private investigators. Detectives. Specialists.”
“What does that have to do with Vivienne?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“But three months ago, I found evidence someone had been secretly accessing the old investigative files in my study.”
That explained the hidden cameras.
Lily felt the pieces beginning to connect in ways she didn’t understand.
A missing brother.
A planted Rolex.
Derek breaking into the study.
Alexander’s phone buzzed.
Marcus appeared at the door.
“Sir.”
He looked shaken.
“The police searched Derek.”
“And?”
“They found a key.”
“To what?”
Marcus handed Alexander a small brass key attached to a plastic evidence tag.
The tag had only two things written on it.
Briarwood Storage.
And a number.
317.
Alexander stared at it.
Lily noticed his hand trembling.
“What is it?”
He turned the tag over.
Someone had scratched two initials into the plastic.
May you like
E.B.
Alexander whispered, “Those were Evan’s initials.”
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