Chapter 3 - THE MAID WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE
Nora watched the security footage four times.
Each viewing made it worse.
Luis emerged from the servants' entrance at 1:06 a.m.
Evelyn appeared eleven seconds later.
They entered the sedan together.
At 1:08, smoke became visible through the eastern windows.
At 1:09, Nora appeared in the service corridor.
At 1:10, the recording ended.
“You're certain?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
Nora hated how weak her voice sounded.
Luis had been ordinary.
That was what frightened her.
He complained about overtime.
He drank terrible vending-machine coffee.
He had once spent twenty minutes helping Nora find an earring she thought she'd lost in the laundry room.
Normal people were supposed to be safe.
Adrian stood beside the ambulance, watching her.
“What did he know about you?”
“Nothing.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“Where you live?”
“Yes.”
“Family?”
Nora hesitated.
Adrian caught it.
“Who?”
“My brother.”
“Name?”
“Caleb.”
“Where is he?”
“College.”
“Which one?”
“Why?”
“Because if Luis was watching you—”
“He wasn't watching me.”
“You don't know that.”
The truth of it landed hard.
Nora gave Marcus the university.
He stepped away immediately.
Adrian's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression hardened.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Find him.”
He hung up.
“What happened?” Nora asked.
“Hector's alive.”
Relief nearly buckled her knees.
“Where?”
“He got out through the loading dock before the main fire reached the kitchen.”
“Then whose body did they find?”
Adrian looked toward the burning mansion.
“My head of security.”
Marcus turned.
“Daniel?”
Adrian nodded.
The older man's face went pale.
Nora remembered Daniel Price.
He had worked at the estate longer than she had. Quiet. Polite. The only senior staff member who always thanked cleaners by name.
“Was he trapped?” she asked.
Adrian said nothing.
Marcus answered.
“He was shot.”
The cold returned.
This had not been a fire.
It had been an execution.
Adrian had been trapped.
His security chief murdered.
And Evelyn had escaped carrying something called the Zurich case.
“What was in the briefcase?” Nora asked.
Adrian studied her.
“Information.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It is the only one you need tonight.”
She laughed bitterly.
“I'm apparently important enough to be killed but not important enough to know why?”
His eyes narrowed.
“You're important enough that I'm trying to keep you breathing.”
“Then stop giving me half the story.”
Marcus returned before Adrian could answer.
“Caleb Blair is safe.”
Nora exhaled.
“He's in his dorm?”
“No.”
Her heart stopped.
“What?”
Marcus raised a hand.
“He's safe. Campus security picked him up twenty minutes ago after someone tried to enter his residence hall using a maintenance badge.”
Nora stared at him.
“Someone what?”
Adrian's expression turned lethal.
“Description?”
“Male. Baseball cap. Left before security arrived.”
Nora felt the parking lot tilt beneath her.
“They know about Caleb.”
“Yes,” Adrian said.
“How?”
“Luis.”
She looked at him.
Adrian's voice softened slightly.
“Your brother is being moved.”
“No.”
“Nora—”
“No. You are not moving my brother anywhere.”
“Someone just attempted to reach him.”
“And your solution is to put him with mafia bodyguards?”
Marcus looked away.
Adrian's face remained calm.
“My solution is to put him somewhere the people who burned my home cannot reach.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“But they reached yours.”
Nora's phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone saw it.
Marcus immediately said, “Don't answer.”
Nora answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then breathing.
A woman's voice.
“Nora.”
Her blood froze.
Evelyn.
Nora looked at Adrian.
He understood instantly.
Marcus began signaling to someone.
Evelyn continued.
“You should have listened to me.”
Nora's fingers tightened around the phone.
“You left him there.”
“I told you nobody was left.”
“You knew he was in the basement.”
A soft laugh.
“Careful.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian Bellamy isn't the man you think he is.”
“I don't think anything about him.”
“You will.”
Behind Nora, Adrian stood perfectly still.
Evelyn said, “Did he tell you what was in my briefcase?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
“Why did you try to kill him?”
Another pause.
“I didn't.”
Nora frowned.
“I watched you leave.”
“You watched me leave a burning building. That's not the same thing.”
“The door was barred.”
“Yes.”
“From outside.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I wasn't the one who barred it.”
Nora looked at Adrian.
His expression gave nothing away.
“Then who did?”
Evelyn whispered, “Ask Adrian why Daniel Price was really killed.”
The call disconnected.
Marcus cursed.
“Trace?”
A man near the SUV shook his head.
“Burner.”
Nora lowered the phone.
Adrian held out his hand.
“What?”
“The phone.”
“No.”
“Nora.”
“She said you were lying.”
“I haven't told you enough to lie.”
“That isn't comforting.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
Marcus intervened.
“We need to leave.”
Nora looked toward the burning house.
“Where?”
“Safe property.”
“I'm going to Caleb.”
“Caleb is being brought there.”
That ended the argument.
Twenty minutes later, Nora sat in the rear of an armored SUV beside Adrian.
She had refused the front vehicle because she wanted answers.
Adrian had refused to let her travel alone because he apparently wanted her alive.
Neither seemed pleased by the compromise.
The city passed outside in streaks of orange light.
Adrian's injured hand rested between them.
“Does it hurt?” Nora asked.
“Yes.”
“You don't look like it.”
“I've had practice.”
She looked at him.
“That sounds miserable.”
“It often was.”
Silence.
Then Nora said, “Who killed Daniel?”
“We're determining that.”
“Why would Evelyn tell me to ask you?”
“Because she wants you suspicious.”
“It worked.”
“I noticed.”
“Did you love her?”
Adrian looked toward the window.
“That is an unexpectedly personal question.”
“She tried to burn you alive.”
“Allegedly.”
Nora almost laughed.
“You're defending her?”
“No. I'm defending facts.”
That answer surprised her.
The SUV turned into an underground garage beneath an anonymous office building.
Marcus opened the door.
They took a private elevator to the seventh floor.
Caleb was waiting.
Nora ran to him.
Her brother wrapped both arms around her.
“What the hell happened?”
“Long story.”
“I saw the house on the news.”
“I'm fine.”
“You smell like a chimney.”
She laughed despite everything.
Then Caleb looked over her shoulder.
At Adrian.
His eyes widened.
“You rescued Adrian Bellamy?”
“Apparently.”
Adrian said, “Your sister has an unusual definition of apparently.”
Caleb stared.
Nora elbowed him.
“Stop looking at him like he's a zoo exhibit.”
“Sorry.”
“You aren't.”
“No.”
Marcus entered.
“We found Luis's apartment.”
Nora turned.
“And?”
“Empty. Recently cleared.”
“Anything useful?”
“One thing.”
He handed Adrian a plastic evidence sleeve.
Inside was a photograph.
Nora recognized herself immediately.
She was leaving a grocery store.
Another photograph behind it showed her entering her apartment.
A third showed Caleb.
A fourth showed Nora walking into Bellamy Manor.
Dates were written across the bottom.
The earliest was eleven months old.
Nora stopped breathing.
Luis had not begun watching her six months ago.
Someone had been watching her for nearly a year.
“Why?” she whispered.
Adrian took the photographs.
His expression changed when he reached the last one.
“What?”
Nora moved closer.
The photograph wasn't of her.
It showed a woman standing outside a courthouse twenty-two years earlier.
Young.
Blonde.
Holding a baby.
Nora recognized the woman instantly.
Her mother.
Written across the back were six words.
THE BLAIR GIRL HAS THE OTHER HALF.
Nora looked at Adrian.
“What other half?”
May you like
For the first time since she'd dragged him from the flames, Adrian Bellamy looked genuinely afraid.
“My father,” he said quietly, “used those exact words the night he was murdered.”
