Chapter 3
“Ask her what she brought into your house.”
I read the words twice before the meaning settled.
The photograph showed me as I had been fourteen months earlier: tired, hopeful, and trying not to look intimidated by the iron gates of Rhett Valin’s mansion. I remembered that morning clearly. I had arrived twenty minutes early, carrying a canvas bag with two changes of clothes, a notebook, and the folder containing the documents I needed for my employment.
Nothing else.
At least, nothing I had known about.
Rhett took the phone from my hand.
“Who sent this?” I asked.
“We’ll find out.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
At the front gate, Daniel and Adrian remained beneath the umbrella. The image on the screen refreshed, showing Adrian turning slightly toward him. Even through the grainy security footage, there was something composed about him. He did not look like a man who had come to argue.
He looked like a man who had come expecting to be admitted.
“What did I bring into your house?” I asked.
Rhett looked at me.
“That’s what I intend to determine.”
The words were measured, but they did not comfort me.
I stepped away from the phone.
“I told you everything I knew.”
“I believe you.”
“Then why does it sound like you think I’m hiding something?”
“Because someone has spent fourteen months watching you, and they believe you’re connected to something inside my organization.”
“I clean your rooms.”
“I know.”
“I make coffee.”
“I know that too.”
“I don’t know anything about your organization.”
“Perhaps not consciously.”
I stared at him.
His expression changed immediately.
“That came out wrong.”
“It sounded exactly the way you meant it.”
“No. It sounded like suspicion. I’m not accusing you.”
“You’re asking what I brought into your house.”
“I’m asking what someone thinks you brought into my house.”
“That’s not much better.”
Rhett looked toward the garden.
The rain had softened to a mist, silvering the hedges and darkening the stone paths. Beyond the glass, the mansion appeared peaceful. It was difficult to reconcile the quiet rooms with the number of secrets moving through them.
Mara stood near the doorway, giving us space without leaving.
“Should I tell security to send them away?” she asked.
Rhett was silent.
I expected him to say yes.
Instead, he asked, “Did Adrian request a meeting?”
“He said he wants to speak with you privately.”
“Of course he does.”
“And Daniel says he has something belonging to Isa.”
My stomach tightened.
“What could he have?” I asked.
Mara’s eyes moved to me.
“Do you know of anything missing from your apartment?”
“My phone was broken. My purse was on the floor, but nothing looked gone.”
“Your documents?” Rhett asked.
“My passport is in the bedroom. My divorce papers too.”
“Keys?”
“Daniel took the old key when he left.”
“Anything else?”
I thought through the apartment. The small kitchen. The overturned chair. The shelves near the television. The bedroom closet where I kept most of my possessions.
“No.”
Mara’s phone rang again.
She answered quietly, listened, and then said, “Understood.”
When she ended the call, her expression had grown more serious.
“Adrian says the envelope is not for Isa. It’s for Rhett.”
Rhett held out his hand.
“What did he say?”
“That you’ll understand why he brought it.”
Rhett’s eyes hardened.
“And Daniel?”
“He says Isa deserves to know the truth before she makes another mistake.”
A faint tremor passed through my injured hand.
Daniel had always spoken that way—calmly, as though my choices were errors he had been patiently correcting.
Rhett noticed.
“You don’t have to see him.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to hear anything he says.”
“I know that too.”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he may have something you need.”
Rhett’s expression softened slightly.
“You’re not responsible for solving this.”
“I’m responsible for my life,” I said. “If someone has been watching me for fourteen months, I deserve to know why.”
He held my gaze.
Then he turned to Mara.
“Bring them to the east sitting room. Search them first. No recording devices, no weapons, nothing concealed.”
Mara nodded.
“Isa stays here?”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I’m coming.”
“Absolutely not.”
“If this concerns me, I’m coming.”
“You’re injured.”
“I can sit in a chair.”
“You can also rest.”
“I’ve spent years letting other people decide what I could handle. I’m not doing it today.”
The words came out with more force than I intended. Pain pulled across my ribs, but I kept my shoulders straight.
Rhett studied me.
Something passed between us—not agreement exactly, but recognition.
He understood that asking me to stay behind would feel too much like being hidden.
“All right,” he said. “You sit beside me. If you want to leave, you leave.”
“I’m not promising to obey you.”
“I didn’t ask you to promise.”
We went downstairs together.
The east sitting room was one of the few areas of the mansion I had rarely entered. It was smaller than the formal drawing room, with dark shelves, comfortable chairs, and tall windows looking over the side garden. A fire burned quietly in the stone fireplace.
Two security men stood near the door.
When Daniel entered, my body reacted before my mind could stop it. My breath shortened, and my fingers curled against the arm of the chair.
Rhett noticed but did not touch me.
He simply shifted slightly closer.
Adrian entered behind Daniel.
Up close, the resemblance between the brothers was obvious. They had the same pale eyes, the same angular cheekbones, and the same habit of watching a room before speaking. But where Rhett’s presence felt restrained, Adrian’s felt polished.
He wore a charcoal suit and carried no umbrella. His silver-streaked hair was perfectly arranged.
Daniel looked at me first.
His expression held no apology for what had happened in my apartment. Instead, he gave me the same patient smile he had used when we were married and I had disagreed with him in public.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said.
I said nothing.
Adrian’s attention moved to Rhett.
“It has been a long time.”
“Not long enough.”
A flicker of disappointment crossed Adrian’s face.
“I came to prevent a misunderstanding.”
“You brought Daniel to my property.”
“I brought the person who can explain why your housekeeper is at the center of this.”
“I’m not at the center of anything,” I said.
Adrian looked at me.
“Perhaps not by choice.”
Rhett leaned back.
“Start explaining.”
Adrian placed the envelope on the table between us.
“It contains a copy of a transfer record from Valin Maritime.”
Rhett did not reach for it.
“What transfer?”
“An internal archive copied before the company was sold.”
“You said this was about Isa.”
“It is.”
“How?”
Adrian glanced at Daniel.
Daniel stepped forward, but one of the security men shifted into his path.
He stopped.
“Isa worked for Northline Logistics before she came to Chicago,” Daniel said.
I frowned.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I worked at a catering company in Milwaukee.”
“For six months. Before that.”
My memory moved backward.
A temporary office job. Four months entering invoices for a trucking company. I had forgotten the company’s name because I had left after my supervisor began making inappropriate comments.
“Northline had a Milwaukee office,” Daniel continued. “You processed shipping records there.”
“I entered numbers into a system. I didn’t know what the company transported.”
Adrian looked at Rhett.
“Northline was one of Valin Maritime’s subcontractors.”
Rhett’s gaze lowered to the envelope.
“Why would a clerical employee matter fourteen months later?”
“Because she accessed a file.”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t.”
Daniel’s voice remained calm.
“You opened a restricted account under the name Vesper.”
The word stirred something faint in me.
Not a memory exactly. More like a door I had passed many times without noticing.
Vesper.
I looked at Rhett.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Adrian spoke carefully.
“Vesper was an internal code used for a series of payments made through Northline. The payments were not recorded in the company’s public ledgers.”
Rhett’s eyes narrowed.
“Who authorized them?”
“That is the question.”
“Why would Isa have access?”
“She didn’t,” Adrian said. “Not officially.”
Daniel added, “But she opened the file.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
“You did,” he repeated. “You used your employee credentials.”
I stood too quickly.
Pain struck my side, and the room blurred. Rhett rose at once, but I lifted a hand.
“I’m fine.”
He did not sit back down.
Daniel watched me with an expression that looked almost sympathetic.
“You were frightened,” he said. “You called me that night.”
“I never called you about work.”
“You didn’t know what you had found.”
“I didn’t find anything.”
“Then why did you ask me whether a company could track the person who accessed a file?”
The question reached into a hazy corner of memory.
I had asked something like that.
Not Daniel, perhaps. Someone at the apartment. A question spoken while I was sorting through paperwork after a difficult day.
I had been worried because a supervisor accused me of opening a confidential invoice. I remembered denying it. I remembered the supervisor backing down two days later.
But I did not remember a file called Vesper.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Adrian opened the envelope.
Inside was a thin stack of photocopied documents and a small memory card sealed in plastic.
“The original archive was copied to this,” he said. “The paper records show Isa’s login credentials accessed the account on March twenty-third, three years ago.”
My mouth went dry.
“That date…” I began.
Daniel watched me closely.
“That was the night you came home crying,” he said.
I turned toward him.
“I was upset because my supervisor threatened to fire me.”
“Because you had opened the file.”
“Because he said I had.”
“Did he show you the access log?”
“No.”
“Did you ask why he accused you?”
“I told him I hadn’t done it.”
Daniel’s expression remained composed.
“You came home with a flash drive.”
The room seemed to grow quieter.
I searched my memory.
That night, I had been carrying a small black flash drive. I remembered putting it on the kitchen counter. I had thought it contained photographs from my mother’s birthday. The next morning, it was gone.
I had assumed Daniel had moved it.
“You took it,” I said.
“I protected you.”
“From what?”
“From evidence you didn’t understand.”
My hands began to shake.
Rhett’s voice cut through the room.
“Daniel, stop speaking as if you’re helping her.”
Daniel turned toward him.
“You should ask your brother why the file exists.”
Rhett looked at Adrian.
Adrian did not flinch.
“I found the archive after the sale,” he said. “I was reviewing old accounts. Several payments led to companies connected to a private security network. Some of the money was routed through Northline.”
“And my brother?”
“Your brother approved the original contract.”
Rhett’s face became unreadable.
“Did he authorize the payments?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect him.”
“I suspect everyone who had access.”
Daniel gave a quiet laugh.
“That is not what you told me.”
Rhett turned sharply.
“What did he tell you?”
“Adrian said the records could destroy you.”
Adrian’s expression tightened.
“I said the records could damage the family.”
“That’s a distinction without meaning,” Daniel replied.
“Not to me.”
The two men faced each other with years of history between them.
I looked at Rhett.
“Did your brother know about me before I started working here?”
Rhett did not answer immediately.
Adrian did.
“Yes.”
Rhett’s head turned.
“Adrian.”
“She deserves to know.”
“Not from you.”
“Then tell her.”
I felt the old fear return, not of Daniel this time, but of being surrounded by information everyone else possessed.
“How did you know me?” I asked Adrian.
He looked at the documents.
“Your name appeared in the employment records.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Adrian folded his hands.
“Three months before you came to work for Rhett, I reviewed the Northline files. Your credentials appeared beside the Vesper account.”
“I didn’t apply for this job because of those files.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you let me work here?”
Adrian’s eyes shifted toward Rhett.
“I didn’t.”
The answer landed heavily.
Rhett looked at him.
“What are you saying?”
“I never approved her employment.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I spoke with Mara when her application came through. I told her to flag the name.”
Mara, standing near the door, went still.
Rhett turned to her.
“Did you receive that instruction?”
Mara’s face had lost its color.
“Yes.”
The room fell silent.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rhett asked.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Before you interviewed Isa.”
“I never interviewed her.”
“I know.”
I looked between them.
“I was hired by Mrs. Bell.”
Rhett’s house manager, Mrs. Bell, had retired six months earlier. She had been the one to call me after receiving my application and arrange my first meeting with the household staff.
Rhett frowned.
“Mrs. Bell said she found you through the agency.”
“She did.”
“Which agency?”
I gave him the name.
Mara immediately pulled out her phone and began typing.
Daniel watched her.
“That agency closed two years ago.”
My skin prickled.
“That’s impossible.”
“I contacted them before you started,” Mara said. “Their number was disconnected.”
“Then who called me?”
No one answered.
Rhett walked to the window.
Outside, the rain had stopped. Water trembled on the branches, catching the pale afternoon light.
“How did you get the job, Isa?” he asked.
“I submitted my application online.”
“To what address?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did anyone contact you first?”
“A woman from the agency. She said your household needed someone immediately.”
“Did she give you a name?”
I closed my eyes.
The memory had been ordinary at the time. A phone call during a lunch break. A woman with a warm voice. She had called herself Evelyn.
“Evelyn,” I said.
Mara’s fingers stopped moving.
“Evelyn what?”
“I don’t know. She never gave me a last name.”
Rhett looked at Adrian.
Adrian had gone very still.
“You know that name,” Rhett said.
Adrian’s gaze remained on me.
“Evelyn Shaw.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“She was an accountant for Valin Maritime.”
Rhett turned fully from the window.
“Was?”
“She disappeared shortly after the company sale.”
The word seemed to echo.
Daniel looked satisfied, as though the conversation had finally reached the point he wanted.
“She was the one who found Isa,” he said.
I turned toward him.
“You knew her?”
“She contacted me.”
“When?”
“Before you left Milwaukee.”
My heart began beating faster.
“What did she want?”
“She asked me to keep you safe.”
The answer was so unexpected that I could not speak.
Rhett’s expression hardened.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Why would an accountant ask Daniel Mercer to protect Isa?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Because you had something she needed hidden.”
I shook my head.
“I had nothing.”
“Not intentionally.”
Adrian moved toward the table and picked up the plastic-sealed memory card.
“Evelyn disappeared with the original Vesper archive,” he said. “We assumed she took it to expose the payments. But if she gave a copy to Isa…”
“I never received anything from her.”
“Perhaps not directly.”
Mara suddenly looked at the photograph on Rhett’s phone.
“The canvas bag.”
I glanced at her.
“What about it?”
“Did you have that bag before the Northline job?”
“Yes. My mother gave it to me.”
“Did anyone else ever use it?”
“No.”
“Did you bring it when you moved to Chicago?”
“Yes.”
Mara’s gaze moved to Rhett.
“Where is it now?”
“In my apartment.”
Rhett’s face changed.
“Did Daniel take it?”
“I don’t know. It was near the entryway.”
Mara pulled up a second security image.
It showed Daniel leaving my apartment the previous night. He carried nothing visible. But in the reflection of the hallway mirror, a dark strap crossed his shoulder.
My canvas bag.
I stood so quickly that Rhett caught my elbow.
“Easy.”
“He took it.”
“Security is checking the apartment now.”
“What’s inside?”
“Nothing important. Clothes. A notebook.”
“What notebook?”
“The one I used for work.”
Rhett and Adrian exchanged a glance.
“Was it with you when you worked at Northline?” Adrian asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve had several notebooks.”
“Think.”
I pressed my fingers against my temple.
A small blue notebook. My handwriting in the margins. Grocery lists, bus times, reminders. I had carried it for years.
Then I remembered something I had never understood.
A page near the back filled with numbers.
I had assumed they were old account totals from my temporary job. After leaving Northline, I had kept the notebook because it contained my mother’s medical appointments.
But the last pages had been torn out.
“I wrote something down,” I said.
“What?” Rhett asked.
“I don’t know. Numbers. Maybe account codes.”
Daniel’s expression changed for the first time.
Not much.
Only a brief tightening around his eyes.
But I saw it.
“So you do remember,” he said.
Rhett released my elbow and turned toward him.
“What did you do with the bag?”
Daniel did not answer.
Adrian stepped closer.
“Daniel, where is it?”
“I gave it to someone.”
“Who?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Evelyn.”
The room seemed to hold its breath.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered. “You said she disappeared.”
“I said she disappeared from the company.”
“Where is she?”
Daniel’s gaze shifted toward Adrian.
“She has been in Chicago for fourteen months.”
Rhett’s voice became very quiet.
“Where?”
Daniel smiled faintly.
“Ask Isa.”
I stared at him.
“I don’t know her.”
“You’ve seen her every morning.”
My breath stopped.
The mansion was full of staff. Cooks, gardeners, drivers, cleaners, security personnel. Faces I recognized without knowing all their names.
Rhett looked at Mara.
“Who has had access to Isa’s apartment?”
“Maintenance, security, and household staff,” she said.
“Names.”
Mara began listing them.
None meant anything until she reached the last one.
“Evelyn Shaw. Temporary kitchen assistant. She started thirteen months ago.”
I turned toward Rhett.
“I’ve seen her.”
“Where?”
“In the mansion.”
Mara’s phone chimed.
She read the message, then looked up slowly.
“Evelyn Shaw left the property twenty minutes ago.”
Rhett’s eyes narrowed.
“Where did she go?”
May you like
Mara swallowed.
“Your brother’s office.”
