Chương 3
“Mine?”
“No.”
Marcus tapped the screen.
“A building across the street.”
Sebastian looked closer.
The image was clearer than he expected.
Claire was standing outside his office entrance.
She was holding a folder.
The timestamp was three days earlier.
The same day she had called him and said she was too busy to meet for lunch.
“Did she know about the camera?”
“Probably not.”
Sebastian leaned back.
The anger from the previous night returned, but it no longer felt simple.
Simple anger was easier.
Someone hurt Lily.
Someone was wrong.
Someone needed to answer.
This was different.
This had gaps.
And gaps were where people hid things.
“I want everything about that meeting,” Sebastian said.
Marcus nodded.
“Already started.”
Sebastian looked toward the window.
Outside, the city was moving as if nothing had happened.
Cars passed.
People carried coffee.
A delivery driver argued with someone over a parking spot.
The ordinary world had a strange way of continuing while private disasters unfolded behind closed doors.
“I don’t want revenge,” Sebastian said.
Marcus looked at him.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking you haven’t slept.”
“That too.”
Marcus almost smiled.
Almost.
Then his expression returned to normal.
“There is something else.”
Sebastian waited.
“The woman who spoke up last night.”
“The one by the window?”
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
“She contacted me this morning.”
Sebastian frowned.
“Why?”
“She wants to talk.”
“About what?”
Marcus hesitated.
“She said she remembered something.”
Sebastian did not like the way the sentence sounded.
People rarely remembered something at convenient times.
But people also rarely admitted what they had ignored.
“Bring her here.”
Marcus nodded.
“She asked if Lily would be around.”
Sebastian’s expression changed immediately.
“No.”
Marcus understood without needing more explanation.
“She said she doesn’t want to upset her.”
“Then she can talk to us.”
An hour later, the woman arrived.
Her name was Rachel Mercer.
She worked with one of Claire’s charities and had known the family for almost five years.
She sat across from Sebastian in the study and kept touching the edge of her sleeve.
A nervous habit.
Not a dramatic one.
Just something a person did when they wished they had chosen differently.
“I should have stopped it,” Rachel said.
Sebastian did not rescue her from the silence.
People often revealed more when nobody helped them escape.
“I thought Claire was just being mean.”
“She told Lily to clean the cake.”
Rachel nodded.
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you stop her?”
The question was direct.
Rachel looked down.
“Because everyone else was laughing.”
Nobody spoke.
It was an ugly answer.
That made it believable.
“Not laughing at Lily,” Rachel added quickly.
“At the situation.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I know.”
Her voice became smaller.
“I know that now.”
He looked at the photograph on the desk.
“What did you remember?”
Rachel took a breath.
“Claire was not surprised when you came home.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean?”
“She looked scared.”
“She looked scared?”
Rachel nodded.
“But not because Lily was crying.”
A cold feeling moved through the room.
“What was she scared of?”
Rachel looked toward the door before answering.
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
She swallowed.
“She kept checking her phone.”
Sebastian leaned forward.
“Before I arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Who was she waiting for?”
“I thought it was Daniel.”
“Why?”
“Because he kept asking where you were.”
The room went quiet again.
“Why would Daniel care where I was?”
Rachel shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Sebastian stood and walked toward the bookshelf.
The movement helped him think.
It was an old habit from years of difficult negotiations.
Walking made him less likely to say the first thing that came to mind.
Claire had not simply attended a birthday party.
She had arranged something.
She had brought someone.
She had watched the door.
And somehow, Lily had ended up at the center of it.
His phone rang before he could say anything.
The number was unfamiliar.
He almost ignored it.
Then he answered.
“Sebastian Stellan.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a man’s voice came through.
“You found the photograph.”
Sebastian’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Who is this?”
“You need to stop asking what Claire did.”
The voice was calm.
Too calm.
“You need to ask what she was trying to prevent.”
Sebastian looked at Marcus.
Marcus was already moving toward him.
“Who are you?”
A pause followed.
Then the man said something that changed the shape of the entire morning.
“Your sister-in-law did not come to your daughter’s party to hurt Lily.”
The line went silent for a moment.
“She came because someone was trying to use Lily to get to you.”
The envelope had been sitting on the kitchen table for three days before Mara finally touched it.
She had moved it twice, once to clear space for groceries and once because looking at the return address made her stomach tighten.
The name printed in the corner belonged to a company she had spent the last six months pretending did not exist.
When she finally tore it open, the paper inside was not the apology she had imagined and not the threat she had feared.
It was worse because it was ordinary.
It was a formal notice asking her to appear at a hearing regarding the complaint filed against her.
Mara read the first paragraph twice, then folded the paper back along the same crease it had arrived with.
Her coffee went cold beside her hand.
She did not notice until she lifted the mug and tasted it.
The bitterness made her wince, and for some reason that small reaction bothered her more than the letter.
The world had not stopped.
The neighbor upstairs was still dragging a chair across the floor.
A delivery truck beeped somewhere outside.
May you like
Someone in the apartment building laughed loudly in the hallway.
Everything kept moving while her name sat on a page accusing her of something she had spent years trying not to become.
