Chapter 5
Adrian ended the call without answering.
Elena stared at him.
“Why do they want me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That man knew who I was.”
“He saw you in the security footage.”
“He called me the nanny. He expected you to understand.”
Adrian turned to the detective.
“Trace the call.”
“We already started.”
The detective took Elena’s phone.
Ruby stood between them, listening to every word.
Elena crouched beside her.
“You’re safe.”
“Are they going to hurt you?”
“No.”
Adrian answered more honestly.
“I won’t let them.”
The detective returned the phone.
“The number was masked. We’ll need the carrier records.”
Adrian called his own security team.
Within minutes, armored vehicles arrived at the estate.
Elena felt as though she had stepped into someone else’s life.
That morning, she had been packing Ruby’s lunch.
Now armed guards were leading her through a service entrance because someone wanted to trade her for stolen evidence.
They drove to Malibu in silence.
Ruby sat between Elena and Adrian.
She held both their hands.
The secure property stood behind concrete walls overlooking the ocean.
It was smaller than the Beverly Hills mansion, but every window was reinforced.
Adrian took them to an upstairs suite.
“You can both stay here.”
Elena shook her head.
“I need answers.”
“You need rest.”
“I was framed, assaulted, and named in a threat. I’m not sleeping until you tell me what is happening.”
Adrian looked at Ruby.
The little girl had fallen asleep against Elena’s shoulder during the drive.
He carried her to the bed.
Then he and Elena stepped onto the balcony.
The ocean below was black.
A helicopter moved in the distance.
Adrian closed the glass door behind them.
“My foundation funds education programs,” he said. “Six months ago, the board approved forty-eight million dollars for learning centers in Central America.”
“And the centers do not exist?”
“Some exist. Most of the money was transferred through shell companies.”
“With your approval?”
“With digital signatures that appear to be mine.”
“Could Grant create them?”
“Yes.”
“And Celeste?”
“She chaired the foundation.”
Elena folded her arms.
“Why would they want me?”
Adrian hesitated.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Your last name.”
She stared at him.
“Ruiz?”
“My mother’s watch was purchased from a jeweler named Tomas Ruiz.”
“That was my father’s name.”
Adrian’s expression confirmed that he already knew.
“My father died twelve years ago.”
“How?”
“A robbery at his store.”
“Were the people responsible arrested?”
“No.”
Elena felt a knot form in her stomach.
“What does that have to do with your mother’s watch?”
“My mother had a private inscription added beneath the case.”
“What inscription?”
Adrian looked through the glass at Ruby.
“Numbers.”
“What kind of numbers?”
“A bank routing code.”
Elena nearly laughed because it sounded impossible.
“Why would your mother hide a bank code inside a watch?”
“She discovered my father was secretly moving company money offshore. She was gathering proof before she died.”
“How did she die?”
“A car accident.”
The ocean wind suddenly felt colder.
“You don’t think it was an accident.”
“I did until tonight.”
Elena stepped back.
“My father repaired that watch?”
“Yes.”
“And then he was killed?”
“A month later.”
She struggled to breathe.
“You knew my father’s name when you hired me.”
“No. Celeste hired you. I learned who you were after I reviewed the employment file tonight.”
Elena remembered the first interview.
Celeste had appeared unusually interested in her family.
She asked where Elena grew up.
She asked what her father did.
She asked whether he left anything behind.
At the time, Elena assumed the questions were friendly.
Now they sounded like an interrogation.
“She hired me because of my father.”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“There may be something he gave you.”
“He didn’t.”
“Think carefully.”
Elena turned away.
Her father had owned a tiny jewelry repair shop in downtown Los Angeles.
After his death, the police returned a cardboard box containing his wallet, keys, and wedding ring.
There had been nothing valuable.
Then she remembered the music box.
It was made of dark wood, with a silver ballerina inside.
Her father gave it to her on her eighteenth birthday, two weeks before he died.
He had told her never to sell it.
“Elena?”
“My father gave me a music box.”
“Where is it?”
“At my mother’s apartment.”
Adrian immediately called security.
“No one approaches the apartment until police arrive.”
Elena grabbed his arm.
“My mother is there.”
He issued new instructions.
Two teams were sent.
Elena called her mother.
No answer.
She called again.
Voicemail.
Her hands began to shake.
“She always answers at night.”
Adrian took the phone and tried.
Nothing.
Elena rushed toward the bedroom door.
“I’m going there.”
“You can’t.”
“That is my mother.”
“And someone may be waiting for you.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
She turned on him.
“You don’t get to lock me inside another rich person’s house and tell me to wait.”
His voice softened.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“Then come with me.”
He looked at Ruby sleeping on the bed.
Elena understood his conflict.
“You stay with her,” she said. “Send the officer with me.”
“No.”
“Adrian—”
“I’m not asking you to choose between yourself and your mother.”
He called the detective and arranged for Ruby to remain with the female officer and four guards.
Then he and Elena left.
During the drive, Elena called her mother six more times.
No answer.
When they reached the apartment building, police vehicles crowded the street.
The front door was broken.
Elena ran toward it.
An officer stopped her.
“That’s my mother!”
“The apartment is empty.”
Elena stopped struggling.
“Empty?”
“There are signs of a search, but no one is inside.”
She pushed past him.
Drawers had been ripped out.
Cushions were cut open.
Family photographs covered the floor.
The music box was gone.
On the kitchen table sat a white envelope.
Elena’s name was written across it.
A detective opened it with gloves.
Inside was a photograph of Elena’s mother sitting in the back seat of a car.
Her hands were tied.
On the back, someone had written:
BRING THE WATCH.
Elena nearly collapsed.
Adrian caught her.
“This is my fault,” she whispered.
“No.”
“If I had remembered the music box—”
“They planned this before tonight.”
The detective examined the photograph.
“We’ll search traffic cameras.”
Elena looked at Adrian.
“Celeste knows where my mother is.”
“She may.”
“We need to speak to her.”
The police informed them that Celeste had posted bail less than an hour earlier.
Her attorney claimed she had gone home.
But she had never arrived.
Adrian called her.
The call went straight to voicemail.
Elena walked through the destroyed apartment.
Her father’s photograph lay beneath the dining table.
She picked it up.
He stood outside his jewelry store, smiling in a brown apron.
Behind him, a sign showed the shop’s address.
Elena stared at the numbers.
2147.
The password Ruby had entered into Adrian’s old security computer ended with the same four digits.
She looked at him.
“What was the password Ruby used tonight?”
He told her.
CLAIRE2147.
“Why 2147?”
“That was the address of my mother’s childhood home.”
“No,” Elena said. “It was the address of my father’s store.”
Adrian took the photograph.
Confusion spread across his face.
“My mother knew your father long before he repaired the watch.”
Elena searched the scattered photographs.
She found one she had never seen before.
Her father stood beside a young woman with dark hair.
The woman was Adrian’s mother, Claire Vale.
They were holding the wooden music box together.
Behind them stood Adrian’s father.
He was not smiling.
Adrian turned the photograph over.
A handwritten message covered the back.
If Claire is dead, the truth belongs to Elena.
Do not trust Victor Vale.
Elena looked up.
“Victor is your father?”
Adrian nodded slowly.
“He died five years ago.”
A voice came from the apartment doorway.
“No, he didn’t.”
Adrian and Elena turned.
An elderly woman stood beside the detective.
She wore a hotel housekeeper’s uniform.
Elena recognized her as her mother’s friend, Rosa.
May you like
Rosa’s face was terrified.
“I saw Victor Vale tonight,” she said. “He took your mother.”
