Chapter 6 - The Billionaire at the Top of the Stairs
I screamed her name.
A nurse ran toward me.
Daniel pushed past us.
“Lily!”
The bathroom was empty.
So was the examination room next door.
Then I heard crying.
Soft.
Behind a curtain near the nurses’ station.
I ripped it aside.
Lily was crouched underneath a chair.
I dropped to my knees.
“Oh, baby.”
She threw herself into my arms.
“Someone took my picture.”
My blood froze.
“Who?”
“A lady.”
“What lady?”
“She had a mask.”
Security locked down the floor.
Hospital cameras showed a woman in scrubs entering through a service corridor.
Her face was covered.
She never touched Lily.
She photographed her and left.
It was intimidation.
And it worked.
I was terrified.
Charles was furious.
Daniel was something else.
Ashamed.
“This is because of me.”
I looked at him.
“Maybe.”
He flinched.
I had spent years cushioning truths for him.
I was done.
Police advised us to move Lily somewhere secure.
Charles offered his estate.
This time I accepted.
That evening, Lily sat beside him at dinner.
She called him Grandpa twice.
Both times Charles pretended it didn’t nearly make him cry.
Afterward, Daniel asked to speak privately.
“I’m moving out.”
I nodded.
“I’ll sign whatever temporary custody arrangement makes Lily feel safe.”
That surprised me.
“I’m not giving her up,” he said. “But I need to earn my way back into being her father.”
For the first time in twenty-four hours, he said something I respected.
Then he gave me an envelope.
Divorce papers.
Already signed on his side.
“I won’t fight you.”
I looked at him.
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
At least that was truthful.
“But I know what I did.”
He left.
Charles joined me at the staircase.
“You loved him.”
“I did.”
“Maybe part of you still does.”
“Part of me probably will for a long time.”
Love didn’t disappear simply because it became inconvenient.
But love was not the same as permission.
Upstairs, Lily called for me.
I tucked her into bed.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Can Grandpa stay forever?”
I smiled.
“He can stay as long as you want him.”
She considered this.
“Daddy too?”
That hurt.
“Daddy loves you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Five-year-olds sometimes find the shortest path to the truth.
“We’ll figure it out.”
She fell asleep holding my hand.
At midnight, Charles’s security chief knocked.
They had identified the woman from the hospital.
Not Vanessa.
Eleanor Mercer.
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
He showed me footage.
Same height.
Same coat.
Then another camera captured the woman removing her mask in a parking garage.
Eleanor.
Charles looked furious.
I wasn’t convinced.
“Why would she threaten Lily?”
Daniel arrived twenty minutes later.
When I showed him the image, he shook his head.
“That’s not my mother.”
“It looks exactly like her.”
“No.”
He zoomed in.
“My mother broke her left wrist when I was twelve. She can’t rotate it fully.”
The woman in the video used her left hand normally.
A disguise.
Someone wanted us to blame Eleanor.
Then Charles’s investigator called.
Vanessa had been found.
She was sitting inside a parked car two miles away.
Unconscious.
Beside her was a handwritten confession.
Police rushed her to the hospital.
The confession admitted everything.
The forged documents.
The affair.
Hurting Lily.
Even the threat.
Too convenient.
Charles agreed.
Hours later, Vanessa regained consciousness.
She asked for me.
Against every instinct, I went.
She looked small without the gown and makeup.
“Claire.”
I stood beside the bed.
“Who did this?”
Tears appeared.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Someone threatened my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
Vanessa stared toward the doorway.
Then whispered:
“Richard Mercer wasn’t working alone.”
My heart began pounding.
“Who was?”
She opened her mouth.
The door behind me clicked.
Vanessa’s eyes widened.
May you like
And she whispered one name.
“Charles.”
