Chapter 7 - The Secret Grace Had Been Carrying
I remained behind the office door for eleven minutes.
Every second felt longer than the fall.
Grace went downstairs.
She spoke loudly enough for Daniel to hear her searching the kitchen for a charger.
Then she left through the front door.
Two minutes later, my phone buzzed again.
HALL CAMERA DISABLED FOR 90 SECONDS.
GO NOW.
I slipped from the office and moved toward the stairs.
A tiny black camera sat above the hallway thermostat.
It had never been there before.
Daniel had installed surveillance inside our home after he tried to kill me.
I reached the mudroom and left without making a sound.
Nora was furious when I climbed into the pickup.
“You were in there twenty-nine minutes.”
“I found something.”
“So did I.”
She pointed toward a silver sedan parked half a block away.
Its headlights switched on the moment we pulled out.
It followed us for three turns.
Nora accelerated through a yellow light.
The sedan stopped at red.
We did not go directly to the cabin.
We changed routes twice and waited behind a closed grocery store until the road was empty.
Grace called at one in the morning.
I answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere Daniel can’t hear me.”
“Grace, what is happening?”
She began to cry.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For acting like I believed him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me on the phone?”
“Because he took the phone from me.”
“I know.”
“No, Emily, I mean he took my phone after you hung up.”
“He searched it.”
“He asked whether you told me where you were.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you say?”
“That you sounded confused and hung up.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw his face.”
Grace’s voice lowered.
“He wasn’t relieved you were alive.”
“He was angry.”
I closed my eyes.
Grace told me what happened after the call.
Daniel gathered everyone in the living room.
He showed them screenshots of messages supposedly from me.
He cried.
He said my pregnancy had triggered severe depression.
Vanessa confirmed every detail.
My mother said she had noticed the same thing.
Grace pretended to accept it.
Then she went upstairs to use our guest bathroom.
My old laptop was open on the desk.
Daniel had left a messaging window on the screen.
The same fake messages he showed the police were visible there.
But Grace noticed something he missed.
The messages were not screenshots from his phone.
They were drafts inside a desktop scheduling program.
He had created them before the mountain trip.
Grace photographed the screen before Daniel returned.
“Send them to me,” I said.
“I already sent them to Samuel.”
I almost laughed with relief.
“You talked to Samuel?”
“Yesterday.”
“He told me not to contact you until I knew Daniel wasn’t watching.”
My anger softened.
Then I remembered her final message.
“You said you know who helped him.”
Grace became silent.
“Vanessa?”
“No.”
My chest tightened.
“Mom?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
Grace took a breath.
“Two weeks before the mountain trip, I saw Daniel meet someone in the parking garage beneath Hartwell.”
“I was leaving late.”
“They were arguing beside his SUV.”
“Who?”
“Ethan Vale.”
The name meant nothing for a second.
Then I remembered.
Ethan was Hartwell’s head of corporate security.
A former police officer.
The man responsible for cameras, access badges, executive travel, and internal investigations.
“What were they arguing about?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“But Daniel handed him an envelope.”
“Ethan said, ‘You get one chance.’”
My skin went cold.
Grace continued.
“Then Ethan said, ‘After the overlook, I’m out.’”
I stared at Nora.
She had heard enough through the speaker to understand.
“Did you tell Mercer?” Nora asked.
Grace hesitated.
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“He told me Ethan used to work under him.”
Nora’s eyes narrowed.
“Under Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Ethan was a deputy before Hartwell hired him.”
A new shape formed around the conspiracy.
Daniel had money.
Vanessa had company access.
My mother had motive.
Ethan had security expertise.
And the detective handling my case had once supervised him.
I felt suddenly trapped by invisible walls.
“Grace, stay away from Daniel.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he trusts me.”
“That is useful.”
“It is also dangerous.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Grace’s voice sharpened.
“Emily, I found something else tonight.”
“What?”
“One of the burner phones was missing from the drawer.”
I remembered seeing three.
“How many were there before?”
“Four.”
My pulse quickened.
“Do you know where the fourth one is?”
Grace swallowed audibly.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I put a tracker in its battery case yesterday.”
I sat upright.
“Where is it?”
Grace did not answer immediately.
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“It has been parked outside your cabin for forty minutes.”
Grace explained that she had started tracking the burner phones three days earlier.
She noticed Daniel never carried them into the house at the same time.
He rotated them between the garage, his office, and the SUV.
At first she thought he was hiding the affair.
Then she saw one number appear repeatedly on a receipt from a prepaid service kiosk.
The account had been opened the morning before our mountain trip.
She bought a small Bluetooth tracker and slipped it beneath the battery cover while Daniel was speaking to reporters outside.
“I thought I was being clever,” she said.
“You were.”
“No, Emily.”
Her voice cracked.
“If I had paid attention two weeks earlier, maybe I could have stopped him before he took you up there.”
I wanted to tell her that she was not responsible.
The words would not come easily because I was still learning who had known what and when.
“Just tell me everything now,” I said.
“I can handle ugly truth better than another beautiful lie.”
Grace promised she would.
May you like
I wanted to believe that promise.
I did not yet know how much she was still leaving out.
