Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO VANISHED
The police separated everyone.
Grace sat in the dining room with an ice pack pressed to her shoulder.
Lily refused to leave her lap.
Nathan stood across the room talking to Detective Mara Ellis.
Victoria spoke loudly from the kitchen.
"That woman broke into my fiance's home. She brought a child here to extort him."
Nathan turned.
"She works here."
Victoria blinked.
"What?"
"Grace has worked here for three months. You know that."
"I mean tonight. She wasn't supposed to be here tonight."
Grace looked up.
"How did you know my schedule?"
Victoria stopped.
Detective Ellis noticed.
"Ms. Ashford?"
Victoria folded her arms.
"Everyone knows the staff schedule."
Nathan said, "I don't."
That landed hard.
Grace had agreed to work as a housekeeper under a shortened last name because Nathan's estate offered the one thing she needed.
Access.
She had not come to reclaim him.
She had come because three months earlier someone mailed her a photograph of Lily leaving preschool.
On the back were six words.
COME BACK OR SHE PAYS FIRST.
Grace suspected the Cole family.
She never imagined Victoria.
Until tonight.
Detective Ellis looked at Grace.
"Do you want to press charges?"
"Yes."
Victoria laughed.
"For what? She has no proof."
Nathan pointed toward the ceiling.
"The kitchen has cameras."
Victoria's smile vanished.
Nathan's security director, Owen Pierce, entered carrying a tablet.
"Sir, we have a problem."
"What?"
"The camera feed was disabled at 8:11."
Grace checked the clock.
Victoria attacked her at 8:19.
Nathan looked at Victoria.
"Who disabled it?"
"How would I know?"
Owen hesitated.
"The command came from an administrator account."
"Whose?"
Owen looked uncomfortable.
"Your late father's."
Nathan went still.
His father had been dead for four years.
Detective Ellis said, "We'll need access logs."
Owen nodded.
Victoria spoke quickly.
"This is ridiculous. Someone hacked the system."
Grace looked at Nathan.
"That's how it started last time."
"What started?"
"Your father made me look dangerous."
Nathan's eyes narrowed.
Grace told him the story she had carried alone.
Five years earlier, she had discovered she was pregnant two weeks after Nathan left for Singapore to close a deal.
She called him.
His number had been changed.
She emailed.
Messages bounced.
Then Nathan's father, Charles Cole, came to her apartment.
He brought two attorneys and a folder.
Inside were photographs of Grace entering a counseling clinic after her mother's death.
Old prescription records.
A police report from college when an ex-boyfriend broke into her dorm.
Every page had been twisted into a story.
Unstable.
Obsessive.
Dangerous.
Charles told her if she contacted Nathan again, Cole family attorneys would seek emergency custody the moment Lily was born.
"He said he'd prove I was mentally unfit," Grace whispered.
Nathan stared at her.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried."
"You could have come to me."
"Your father showed me messages from your phone saying you never wanted to see me again."
Nathan's face drained.
"I never sent that."
"I know now."
Victoria interrupted.
"Convenient."
Grace turned toward her.
"Your mother was in the room."
Victoria's lips parted.
Nathan looked sharply at her.
"Your mother knew Grace?"
Victoria said nothing.
Grace answered.
"Eleanor Ashford signed the confidentiality agreement."
Nathan's engagement suddenly looked very different.
Then Detective Ellis's phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression hardened.
"Ms. Bennett?"
Grace looked up.
"Yes?"
"We just ran your identification."
Victoria smiled slowly.
Ellis continued.
"There is an active warrant for your arrest."
Nathan stepped forward.
"For what?"
May you like
The detective looked at Grace.
"International child abduction."
