I Came Home in Secret to Catch the Woman I Trusted. The Cameras Revealed the Monster Had Been Sleeping Beside Me.105
Frightened.
Lily hugged the rabbit.
Maria whispered, “Take that with you, sweetheart.”
Claire looked at her sharply.
Emma led Lily away.
The moment the hallway door closed, I turned to Maria.
“Tell me.”
Maria rubbed both hands together.
“Mrs. Mercer had become worried during the last few weeks before the accident.”
“About what?”
“She didn’t tell me everything.”
“Then tell me what she did tell you.”
Claire stepped backward.
Slowly.
Toward the foyer.
I blocked her path.
“You’re staying.”
“I don’t have to stand here for this.”
“Yes, you do.”
Maria took a shaky breath.
“Mrs. Mercer believed someone was stealing from you.”
I stared at her.
“Stealing what?”
“Money, I think. Maybe information.”
Claire laughed.
“This is ridiculous.”
Maria continued.
“She kept receiving copies of invoices that didn’t make sense. Security upgrades. Consulting contracts. Payments to companies she couldn’t identify.”
I frowned.
“Sophie didn’t handle company finances.”
“No. But she handled the family foundation.”
That was true.
Sophie had been the executive director of the Mercer Foundation.
Millions passed through it every year.
“She found payments from the foundation to security vendors,” Maria said.
“What vendors?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect him to believe this?” Claire snapped.
Maria ignored her.
“About two weeks before the accident, Mrs. Mercer started locking her office.”
I remembered.
Sophie and I had argued about it.
I had accused her of withdrawing from me.
She had been distracted, paranoid, sleeping badly.
At least, that was what I had told myself.
“She asked me something strange,” Maria continued.
“What?”
“She asked if I knew how to sew.”
I stared.
Maria glanced toward the hallway where Lily had disappeared.
A chill moved through my body.
“The rabbit.”
Claire’s head snapped around.
Maria nodded.
“She brought it to the laundry room one night. The seam underneath was open. She asked me to repair it after she put something inside.”
“What?”
“I never saw.”
“You’re lying,” Claire said.
Maria turned.
“Am I?”
Claire’s mouth closed.
I looked between them.
“How does Claire know any of this?”
Maria didn’t answer.
Claire did.
“She doesn’t.”
But Maria was staring at Claire’s wrist.
At the thin diamond bracelet encircling it.
A silver serpent biting its own tail.
Maria whispered, “Take off the bracelet.”
Claire covered it instinctively.
“What?”
“Take it off.”
“This was a gift.”
Maria’s voice shook.
“Take it off.”
I stepped closer.
“Why?”
Maria looked at me.
“Because Sophie drew it.”
My skin went cold.
“She what?”
“The night before she died.”
Maria walked to the console table and opened the lowest drawer.
From beneath a stack of linen napkins, she removed an old envelope.
My wife’s handwriting covered the front.
ALEX.
I knew those letters.
The slight curve in the A.
The way Sophie never completely closed an E.
I reached for it.
My hands were shaking.
“Why do you have this?”
“She gave it to me.”
“When?”
“The night before the accident.”
“And you never gave it to me?”
“She told me not to.”
Anger flashed through the shock.
