Chapter 7
Daniel moved in front of me.
It was instinctive.
Protective.
Vanessa laughed from the television.
“You still don’t understand, do you?”
Daniel looked toward the room’s control panel.
“Who connected this?”
No one answered.
The chief information officer started typing rapidly on his tablet.
“The feed is external.”
“Kill it.”
“I’m trying.”
Vanessa lifted one finger.
“Don’t.”
The screen changed.
A live camera feed appeared.
Noah’s nursery.
My blood turned cold.
Margaret stood beside the crib.
Two guards were visible outside the door.
Daniel went white.
“What have you done?”
“Nothing yet.”
He grabbed his phone.
Vanessa smiled.
“Call the estate. Please.”
Daniel did.
Margaret answered.
“We’re fine.”
He put her on speaker.
“Check the nursery windows.”
“Daniel?”
“Now.”
We watched on the television as Margaret crossed the room.
The nursery image was live.
She checked the windows.
Locked.
The guards entered.
Everything appeared normal.
Vanessa’s voice returned.
“See? I don’t need to be in your house to make you afraid.”
Daniel’s voice shook with fury.
“If you go near him—”
“You’ll what?”
She smiled.
“Drag me by the hair again?”
Several board members looked uncomfortable.
Daniel ignored them.
Vanessa continued.
“Noah was never supposed to die in that pool.”
I felt sick.
Daniel stared at her.
“We watched you push him.”
“Yes.”
“You tried to murder my son.”
“I tried to make Claire save him.”
The room went silent.
I stepped around Daniel.
“What?”
Vanessa looked directly into the camera.
“There she is.”
“You pushed a baby into a pool.”
“And I knew you would jump.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because you always choose Noah.”
My hands began shaking.
Daniel asked, “Why?”
“To create the only thing powerful enough to crack open Emily’s secrets.”
I stared.
“You knew about the flash drive.”
“I knew she gave something to Claire.”
Vanessa’s smile disappeared.
“I searched her room twice. Couldn’t find it.”
Daniel looked at me.
The moved photograph.
I had been right.
Vanessa continued.
“But I knew Claire would reveal everything if she believed Noah was in immediate danger.”
“You nearly killed him.”
“The stroller had flotation material hidden under the seat.”
Daniel shouted, “He went underwater!”
“For seconds.”
“That is your defense?”
“No. It is the truth.”
I wanted to reach through the screen.
“You used an eight-month-old baby as bait.”
“Yes.”
Her lack of shame was worse than any excuse.
Daniel slammed his fist onto the table.
“Where are you?”
She laughed.
“Ask Detective Shaw.”
My phone rang.
Shaw.
I answered on speaker.
“Claire, do not react visibly. We’re listening to Vanessa’s feed.”
Too late for that.
“She’s talking to us.”
“We know. The motel was empty. The video there was prerecorded.”
Daniel looked at the boardroom screen.
“This looks live.”
“It may be. We are tracing it.”
Vanessa tilted her head.
“Are the police on the phone?”
Shaw went quiet.
Vanessa smiled.
“Hello, Detective.”
Everyone stared.
She somehow knew.
The feed was more than a broadcast.
She could hear the room.
The CIO ripped cables from the conference system.
The television stayed on.
Vanessa laughed.
“You built a very expensive building, Daniel. Richard made sure it listened beautifully.”
Thomas Bell stood.
“This is absurd. I’m leaving.”
Daniel blocked him.
“No one leaves.”
“You have no authority to detain this board.”
“Then call the police.”
Bell glared.
Vanessa’s voice cut through.
“Oh, Thomas. Sit down.”
Bell froze.
Every head turned toward him.
Vanessa smiled.
“You always were impatient.”
Daniel stared at Bell.
“You know her.”
Bell recovered.
“No.”
“Vanessa just called you by your first name.”
“She knows everyone here.”
Vanessa laughed.
“Tell him, Thomas.”
Bell’s face reddened.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Tell me what?”
Bell said nothing.
Vanessa leaned back.
“Thomas helped Richard remove money from Harrison Global for almost nine years.”
The board erupted.
Bell shouted at the screen.
“Shut up!”
Daniel looked at him.
That was enough.
Shaw’s voice came through the phone.
“Officers are on the way to the building.”
Bell moved toward the exit.
Daniel stood in front of him.
“Sit down.”
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
“No. Apparently I’ve been paying all of you too well to lie to me.”
Bell suddenly shoved Daniel.
Daniel pushed back.
Two board members separated them.
The doors opened.
Corporate security entered.
Bell screamed, “Remove Harrison!”
The head of security did not move.
Daniel stared at him.
“Who do you work for?”
The man looked at Bell.
Then Daniel.
“For Harrison Global.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Silence.
Then the guard stepped toward Bell.
“Sir, please sit.”
Bell’s face collapsed.
Vanessa clapped slowly on the screen.
“Beautiful.”
I looked at her.
“What do you want?”
Her expression changed.
For the first time, she seemed tired.
“I want what Emily took.”
“We don’t have it.”
“You opened her first drive.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Richard knew the moment you inserted it into the isolated laptop.”
Daniel stared.
“That laptop isn’t networked.”
Vanessa laughed.
“Nothing is isolated if the hardware is compromised.”
Daniel turned toward his CIO.
The man looked horrified.
“We need to shut down the entire executive network.”
“Do it.”
Vanessa raised her voice.
“If you shut it down, the nursery feed disappears too.”
Daniel froze.
“You’re bluffing.”
“Maybe.”
The nursery remained on half the screen.
Noah slept peacefully.
Margaret held him.
Vanessa continued.
“Emily copied financial records that could destroy Richard, Thomas, and several others.”
Bell shouted, “She’s lying!”
Vanessa ignored him.
“She also copied something that could destroy me.”
I asked, “What?”
“You know.”
“No.”
“Yes, Claire. You just don’t remember.”
I stared.
“What am I supposed to remember?”
“The night Emily died.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Daniel turned toward me.
“I wasn’t there.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Were you not?”
“No.”
“You saw her that night.”
“I saw her that afternoon.”
“Where?”
“At a coffee shop.”
“And after that?”
“I went home.”
“Are you sure?”
Images flashed through my mind.
Rain.
Emily crying.
A phone call.
Headlights.
I suddenly felt dizzy.
Daniel noticed.
“Claire?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa watched me carefully.
“That’s because you were drugged.”
The room went silent.
I gripped the table.
“What?”
Daniel’s face changed.
“Claire, sit down.”
I ignored him.
Vanessa continued.
“You met Emily again that night.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying.”
“She called you from a gas station outside Irving. You drove there.”
I remembered getting into my car.
I remembered rain hitting the windshield.
Then nothing.
My next clear memory was waking in my apartment the following morning with a terrible headache.
At the time, I thought I had been sick.
Then Emily’s mother called.
The accident.
The fire.
The funeral.
“No,” I whispered.
Daniel’s hand closed around my arm.
“What happened that night?”
“I don’t remember.”
Vanessa nodded.
“Exactly.”
Shaw spoke through the phone.
“Vanessa, what did you give her?”
Vanessa smiled.
“Ask Richard.”
“Where is he?”
“Closer than you think.”
A loud noise came from the hallway outside the boardroom.
Then gunshots.
Not inside.
Several floors away.
Security radios exploded with voices.
“Shots fired!”
“Executive elevator!”
“Lock the floor!”
Daniel pulled me down behind the boardroom table.
Bell ran.
A security guard tackled him near the door.
Vanessa’s image remained on the screen.
Calm.
Watching.
Almost enjoying it.
Then another figure appeared in the nursery feed.
A man.
Wearing a maintenance uniform.
He stepped through a door behind Margaret.
Daniel saw him.
“Mom!”
Margaret turned.
The man raised something.
One of the estate guards rushed him.
The nursery camera shook.
The feed went black.
Daniel screamed Noah’s name.
He grabbed his phone.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Vanessa’s face filled the entire screen.
Her smile was gone.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Daniel stared at her.
“What?”
For the first time, Vanessa looked genuinely frightened.
May you like
“Richard changed the plan.”
Then her screen cut to black.
