Chapter 5: The Price of Silence
Ethan immediately ordered hospital security to lock down the floor.
The photograph had been taken before Victoria entered the parlor.
That meant someone else had been watching Lily.
Someone inside the house.
Rosa stared at the message.
“What does ‘what you really did’ mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan took the photograph carefully by the edges.
“Do not touch anything else.”
Rosa’s fear turned to anger.
“Someone photographed my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Inside your home.”
“I know.”
“And they knew we came here.”
Ethan called his security director, Marcus Reed.
Within an hour, Marcus arrived with two investigators.
They reviewed the estate’s security system remotely.
One camera in the east hallway had been disabled for seventeen minutes that morning.
Another showed a house employee leaving through the service entrance shortly after the ambulance departed.
The employee was Claudia Bell, Victoria’s personal assistant.
“She was not on my staff,” Ethan said.
“She had access because Victoria gave her a key card,” Marcus replied.
Ethan’s expression hardened.
“Find her.”
Rosa sat beside Lily’s bed, overwhelmed by the machinery suddenly moving around them.
Investigators. Security. Lawyers. Private vehicles waiting downstairs.
This was Ethan’s world.
When threatened, he did not panic.
He mobilized.
An hour later, Lily woke.
Her eyes moved sleepily around the room before settling on Ethan.
“Are you the piano man?”
Ethan froze.
Rosa’s lips parted in surprise.
“The piano man?” he asked.
Lily nodded.
“Mama has your picture.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
Ethan looked at her.
“What picture?”
“It’s old,” Rosa said quietly. “From Columbia.”
Lily pointed at Ethan.
“You were wet.”
Despite everything, a broken smile touched his face.
“The rainstorm.”
Rosa nodded.
He remembered the photograph. A stranger had taken it outside the diner after they were caught in the rain. Rosa was laughing. Ethan was holding his jacket over both of their heads.
He had never seen the finished picture.
“You kept it?”
Rosa looked down.
“Yes.”
Lily studied him.
“Are you my daddy?”
The room became painfully still.
Rosa had not prepared for the question.
Neither had Ethan.
He moved closer to the bed but did not touch her.
“I might be.”
Lily frowned.
“Might?”
“We’re going to do a test.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Then can you be my daddy after?”
Ethan swallowed.
Rosa looked away, tears filling her eyes.
“If the test says I am,” Ethan said carefully, “then I will be your daddy for the rest of my life.”
Lily seemed satisfied.
She held out Button.
“You can hold him.”
Ethan accepted the worn rabbit as though Lily had handed him something priceless.
That evening, a technician collected DNA samples.
The results would be expedited.
Before midnight, Marcus called.
They had found Claudia Bell’s abandoned car near the train station.
Inside was a suitcase, twenty thousand dollars in cash, and a burner phone.
The last message on the phone had been sent to Victoria.
May you like
It read:
The maid received the warning. When do I get the rest?
