Chapter 4
At 3:17 Christmas morning, Ethan returned to his office.
The building was completely silent.
He turned on one lamp.
The broken music box sat where Hannah had left it.
The handwritten note leaned against the lid.
I am responsible.
Ethan read the sentence twice.
Then he lifted the box.
His thumb moved across the faded engraving underneath.
For Avery.
His hand stopped.
Four years earlier, he’d bought the music box for a nursery that never came home from the hospital.
He had hidden it in his office because he couldn’t throw it away.
He had also never played the song to the end.
Ethan carefully folded Hannah’s note.
He placed it inside the box.
Then he sat alone until sunrise.
At 7:08 Christmas morning, Hannah’s phone buzzed.
A message from her supervisor.
Hannah, security reviewed footage from last night. You’ve been removed from the Whitmore account effective immediately. Call me Friday.
She read it three times.
Ellie slept beside her.
Hannah remembered Ethan’s answer.
I haven’t decided.
She closed her eyes.
“Well,” she whispered to the sleeping baby. “I guess he decided.”
May you like
She didn’t know that Ethan had made no report at all.
And she had no idea that the security footage was about to cost her much more than one cleaning job.
