Chapter 10 - THE NIGHT CALDER HOUSE WENT DARK
The police reached Calder House before we did.
Sebastian wanted me nowhere near it.
For once, I agreed.
I stayed in a secured car with Lily and Elena while he went inside.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then thirty.
At forty-two, Sebastian returned.
His shirt sleeve was torn.
There was blood on his knuckles.
I stared.
“What happened?”
“I’m fine.”
“That is blood.”
“Not mine.”
Elena muttered, “Rich people are exhausting.”
I almost laughed.
Sebastian got into the front seat.
“They took the archive server.”
“The recordings?”
“Copies exist.”
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“Not there.”
That was all he would say.
Then his security chief handed him a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a phone.
Veronica’s second phone.
It had been found beneath a filing cabinet.
The police had a warrant pending.
But the lock screen showed notifications.
One message preview was visible.
LUCIA: IF MAYA WINS TOMORROW, WE USE PLAN B.
Another.
DANIEL: I’M DONE. LEAVE LILY OUT OF THIS.
Then Lucia again.
YOU DON’T GET TO BE DONE.
Daniel was not innocent.
But he was scared of his own family.
That changed the shape of the danger.
Not the danger itself.
Sebastian looked at Elena.
“Did Daniel ever try to find Sofia?”
“No.”
“Never?”
She hesitated.
“Once.”
“When?”
“About four years ago.”
“What happened?”
“He called me drunk.”
Elena looked out the window.
“He said Sofia was alive.”
Lucia had told everyone the child was overseas with relatives.
Daniel claimed that was a lie.
He had seen a photograph.
Sofia was in Chicago.
“Where?”
“He didn’t know.”
Sebastian went still.
“My sister worked with a children’s foundation before she died.”
Elena looked at him.
“So?”
“So my father’s recording said Caroline discovered the first child.”
He pulled out his phone.
He searched an old photo archive.
Then showed Elena a picture.
Caroline Calder at a charity event.
Beside her stood a little girl around two years old.
Elena made a broken sound.
“That’s her.”
Sofia.
The first child had been photographed with Sebastian’s sister months before Caroline died.
On the back wall of the photograph was the logo of a residential children’s charity.
Saint Agnes House.
Sebastian called the number.
Disconnected.
The charity had closed seven years earlier.
But its records had gone somewhere.
Then Lily began babbling.
Elena looked at her.
And whispered, “If we find Sofia, the trust changes.”
I frowned.
“How?”
“She was first.”
Which meant Lily might never have been the true target.
She was leverage.
A replacement beneficiary.
May you like
A child the family could control if the first one stayed hidden.
