Chapter 5 - the nanny who disappeared)
Claire Benson had not moved to Seattle.
She had moved to Vermont.
Detective Hayes found her within six hours.
Convincing her to speak took longer.
Claire initially refused to answer calls.
Then Hayes sent her the photograph.
Claire called immediately.
By evening, Mark and Elena sat in the guesthouse study while Hayes placed a secure video call.
Claire appeared on screen.
She looked younger than Elena expected.
Late twenties.
Dark blonde hair.
Tired eyes.
The moment she saw Mark, her face tightened.
“You should have listened.”
Mark swallowed.
“You never told me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The night before I left.”
Mark searched his memory.
“You spoke to Victoria.”
“I asked for you.”
“She told me you were in Chicago.”
Mark frowned.
“I was upstairs.”
Claire gave a bitter laugh.
“Of course you were.”
Elena leaned closer to the screen.
“What happened?”
Claire looked at her.
“You’re the new nanny?”
“Elena Brooks.”
“Is the baby okay?”
“Yes.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Thank God.”
Hayes said, “Claire, tell us why you left.”
Claire looked uncertain.
Then she began.
“When Victoria was pregnant, she started behaving differently. At first I thought it was stress. Then I realized she was afraid of something.”
“Of Sophie?” Mark asked.
“No. Of records.”
“What records?”
“Financial documents. Medical paperwork. Security logs. She was constantly checking who had access to what.”
Mark glanced at Elena.
Claire continued.
“One night she asked me to bring a folder from your office.”
“What folder?”
“A blue folder.”
Elena’s breath caught.
Vail Domestic Holdings.
Claire saw her reaction.
“You’ve seen it.”
“Yes.”
“I opened it.”
Mark leaned forward.
“What was inside?”
“Invoices. Transfers. Copies of your signatures. Some documents with Victoria’s signature.”
“Anything else?”
“A list of names.”
Hayes asked, “Do you remember them?”
“Not all.”
“Any?”
Claire hesitated.
“One.”
“What name?”
“Marshall Vale.”
Mark shook his head.
“I don’t know him.”
Claire looked at him carefully.
“Victoria does.”
“How?”
“I heard them arguing.”
“Where?”
“In the basement.”
Elena thought of the missing recorder.
Claire continued.
“I was putting laundry away. I heard Victoria say, ‘You promised this would be finished before the baby came.’”
Mark’s face hardened.
“What did he say?”
“I couldn’t hear everything. But I heard him say your father had made a mistake.”
Mark stopped breathing for a moment.
“My father died two years ago.”
“I know.”
“What did he have to do with this?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire leaned closer.
“The next morning Victoria asked if I had heard anything.”
“What did you say?”
“I lied.”
“Then what?”
“She smiled and told me I had always been good with children.”
Elena felt a chill.
Claire’s voice weakened.
“She said it would be terrible if anyone misunderstood how close I had become to your family.”
“She threatened you,” Hayes said.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
“With what? A conversation? A folder I wasn’t supposed to open?”
“You could have told Mark.”
“I tried.”
Claire looked directly at him.
“Victoria intercepted me every time.”
Mark rubbed his face.
Claire continued.
“Then things started happening.”
“What things?” Elena asked.
“Money disappeared from a drawer. A necklace appeared in my coat. Medication was moved. Victoria told me I was becoming forgetful.”
Elena stared at the screen.
“The same things happened to me.”
Claire’s expression changed.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. This means it wasn’t random.”
Claire nodded.
“The final night, I found a note inside my car.”
“What did it say?”
Claire disappeared from screen briefly.
When she returned, she was holding a folded sheet of paper.
“I kept it.”
She opened it.
Three handwritten sentences.
YOU ARE BEING WATCHED.
LEAVE BEFORE THE BABY COMES.
THE CAMERA DOES NOT BELONG TO MARK.
Hayes leaned toward the monitor.
“What camera?”
“I assumed it meant the security cameras.”
Elena remembered the tiny camera above the hallway.
Mark shook his head.
“I chose that system.”
Claire looked uncomfortable.
“There’s another camera.”
Silence.
“Where?” Hayes asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But you saw it?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think there is another one?”
“Because one night I heard Victoria tell Marshall that the hallway unit was for Mark.”
Mark stared at her.
“What did she say exactly?”
Claire thought.
“She said, ‘Let him keep his little camera. The real one sees everything.’”
Elena felt her heartbeat quicken.
Hayes asked, “Did she say where the real camera was?”
“No.”
The call ended twenty minutes later.
Mark walked through the guesthouse without speaking.
Elena followed.
“If there’s another camera in your house…”
“I’m thinking.”
“Where would Victoria put something you wouldn’t notice?”
Mark stopped.
“She wouldn’t.”
“What?”
“She hated visible electronics.”
“Then someone else installed it.”
Mark looked at her.
“My father.”
Elena blinked.
“You think your father put in a hidden camera?”
“He became paranoid during the last year of his life. He thought someone was stealing from the family trust.”
“Did he suspect Victoria?”
“He never said.”
Mark went to his laptop.
He opened an old folder of property invoices.
Renovations.
Electrical work.
Security upgrades.
One project stood out.
HALLWAY ART REINFORCEMENT.
Elena frowned.
“Art reinforcement?”
Mark opened the invoice.
The contractor had been paid twelve thousand dollars to reinforce the wall supporting a framed American flag print.
Elena immediately pictured the large framed flag hanging near the staircase.
“That makes no sense.”
“No.”
Mark checked the contractor’s name.
VALE RESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS.
Elena stared.
“Vale.”
Mark whispered the name.
“Marshall Vale.”
Twenty minutes later Hayes had officers inside the house.
They removed the American flag print.
Behind it was a rectangular opening in the wall.
Wires.
A miniature lens.
And an empty mounting bracket.
The hidden camera was gone.
But one wire still led downward.
Through the wall.
Toward the basement.
Hayes followed it to a locked compartment behind the security cabinet.
Inside was a second recording unit.
Unlike the first, it had not been removed.
Mark stared at the blinking light.
“Is the footage there?”
Hayes did not touch it.
“We’ll let forensics handle it.”
Elena looked at the machine.
A small label had been attached to the side.
Handwritten.
Mark recognized the handwriting immediately.
His father’s.
May you like
Three words.
IF I’M DEAD, WATCH.
