Chapter 3 - The Baby Who Wouldn't Go to Her Father
I went to the hospital with them.
Damian didn't ask me.
I told him.
“If she wakes up frightened again, she knows me.”
His security chief, a broad-shouldered man named Marcus Kane, looked as if he wanted to object.
Damian silenced him with one glance.
“She's coming.”
That was how, at four seventeen in the morning, I found myself sitting inside a bulletproof SUV while Chicago slid past the windows.
Isabelle lay against me.
Damian sat across from us.
He never looked away from her.
I had expected a man like him to make calls.
Issue threats.
Demand names.
Instead, he sat unnaturally still.
The stillness felt worse.
At the private hospital entrance, an entire pediatric floor had been cleared.
Nurses rushed Isabelle into treatment.
I stood outside the glass doors, suddenly aware that my maid uniform smelled like bleach and garbage.
Damian stood several feet away.
“Why did she say no?”
“I don't know.”
“She knows me.”
“I didn't say she didn't.”
His eyes hardened.
“She reaches for me every morning.”
“Then something happened.”
“I know that.”
“No. I mean something happened that made her connect you with fear.”
That landed.
He turned toward Marcus.
“Bring me every person who was inside my house yesterday.”
Marcus hesitated.
“Sir—”
“Every person.”
“Yes.”
Damian looked at me again.
“You smelled something.”
I should have lied.
Instead I told him.
“Her clothes smelled like your cologne.”
His expression changed.
“I don't wear cologne.”
I blinked.
“You smell like cedar.”
“My shaving soap.”
The difference seemed meaningless until Marcus spoke.
“Victor wears cedar cologne.”
Damian's head turned.
“Where is my brother?”
“No one has seen him since midnight.”
The air seemed to tighten around us.
I didn't know anything about Victor Vale.
But I knew what Damian's face looked like when a possibility became a suspicion.
“Who had Isabelle yesterday?” I asked.
Damian's eyes returned to mine.
“Her nanny, Elise. Two housekeepers. My sister Celia. Marcus. Myself.”
“And Victor?”
“He arrived around six.”
“What happened after?”
Damian looked toward the treatment room.
“I left at eight for a meeting.”
“When did you find out she was missing?”
“Eleven forty.”
Three hours.
A baby could disappear anywhere in three hours.
“Where's Isabelle's mother?”
That was the first question that made Damian flinch.
He turned toward the window.
“She died seven months after Isabelle was born.”
My anger softened before I could stop it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don't be.”
I frowned.
He looked back at me.
“She was murdered.”
There it was.
The shadow beneath the expensive suit.
I said nothing.
“My wife, Sofia, was killed when a car exploded outside one of my restaurants.”
I felt cold despite the warm hospital corridor.
“Because of you?”
His gaze stayed on mine.
“Yes.”
I respected the answer more than I wanted to.
He could have blamed an enemy.
Circumstances.
Bad luck.
Instead, he said yes.
“That is why I built security around Isabelle.”
“Security someone inside your house bypassed.”
“Yes.”
A nurse came out.
“Mr. Vale?”
Damian moved instantly.
“She's stable. The antibiotics are working. Her oxygen numbers are improving.”
His eyes closed for one second.
“Can I see her?”
“In a few minutes.”
The nurse looked at me.
“She keeps asking for ‘C’.”
I stared.
“C?”
“She points toward the door and says C.”
Damian looked at me.
“Clara.”
My throat tightened.
I had known this child for less than two hours.
Yet when they let us enter, Isabelle reached for me first.
Damian watched.
I saw pain cross his face.
He sat beside the bed.
Didn't touch her.
“Bella.”
Her eyes opened.
She looked at him.
Her bottom lip trembled.
He stayed still.
Then he slowly placed his hand palm-up on the mattress between them.
He didn't reach.
Didn't force her.
“Daddy's here.”
For almost a minute, nothing happened.
Then Isabelle stretched one tiny hand toward him.
Her fingers touched his.
Damian exhaled.
I saw relief.
Then Isabelle noticed his watch.
She screamed.
Her hand jerked away.
Damian stood.
“What?”
She stared at his wrist.
A heavy silver watch.
Black face.
Falcon emblem engraved into the clasp.
Damian removed it immediately.
Isabelle continued crying.
I looked at Marcus.
“Who else has that watch?”
Marcus answered reluctantly.
“Senior members of the family.”
“How many?”
“Eight.”
Damian stared at the watch in his palm.
“She wasn't afraid of me.”
“No,” I said.
“She was afraid of the symbol.”
That changed everything.
Damian turned toward Marcus.
“Lock the house.”
“Already done.”
“No one leaves. No phone calls. No vehicles.”
Marcus nodded.
Then his phone rang.
He checked the screen.
Something drained from his face.
“What?”
Marcus looked at me.
Then at Damian.
“The Wexley Grand security manager was found in his office.”
My stomach dropped.
“Found how?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Dead.”
I grabbed the rail of Isabelle's bed.
Damian's expression became unreadable.
“The cameras?” he asked.
“Hard drives were removed.”
Every instinct in me said the same thing.
Someone had known exactly where Isabelle would be found.
Someone had known which cameras needed to disappear.
Someone had known I worked that loading dock.
Then Marcus said the sentence that made my blood go cold.
“There is one more problem.”
Damian waited.
“The dead security manager made a phone call at 2:41 a.m.”
“To whom?”
Marcus turned the phone toward us.
My name was on the screen.
Clara Hayes.
My number.
I stared at it.
“I never spoke to him.”
Damian's eyes narrowed.
But Marcus wasn't finished.
“The call lasted twenty-seven seconds.”
“That’s impossible.”
Marcus looked at me.
Then quietly said:
“Someone wanted your number connected to the disappearance before you even found the baby.”
And suddenly I understood.
May you like
I had not stumbled into this.
Someone had chosen me.
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