Chapter 3 - Footsteps Below the Silent Nursery
Margaret heard the sound before anyone else did.
The front door downstairs closed with the careful softness of someone trying not to be heard.
Her grip tightened around Leo.
“Who else is here?”
Victoria’s anger vanished.
“No one.”
David looked toward the hallway.
Margaret noticed.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You keep looking at the door.”
“I’m thinking.”
“No,” Margaret said. “You’re listening.”
A floorboard creaked beyond the nursery.
Then another.
The mansion had old bones despite its modern renovation, and Margaret knew its sounds because she had purchased the property twelve years earlier.
The east hallway always gave away heavy footsteps.
These were heavy.
She stepped toward the nursery door.
David blocked her.
“Margaret, don’t.”
That told her everything she needed to know.
She handed Leo to Victoria.
Victoria blinked.
Margaret’s eyes hardened.
“You hold him. You do not move from this room.”
For once, Victoria obeyed without argument.
Margaret pulled out her phone and dialed her driver, Samuel.
He answered immediately.
“I’m outside, Mrs. Wellington.”
“Come inside. Bring Mr. Cho.”
Mr. Cho was not a servant.
He was Margaret’s head of security.
David’s face went gray.
“Why is your security here?”
Margaret looked at him.
“I came because my grandson’s nanny called me crying.”
Victoria turned.
“What?”
Margaret glanced toward her.
“Caroline called me at six-forty. She said Leo had been screaming for nearly an hour and that you had locked her out of the nursery.”
Victoria stared at the child in her arms.
“I told her to go home.”
“She didn’t.”
David muttered a curse.
Margaret heard another sound in the hallway.
A door closing.
Someone was moving toward the back staircase.
She stepped out.
“Thomas?”
Silence.
“Thomas Reed?”
A shadow moved at the end of the corridor.
Margaret saw a man in a dark jacket disappear around the corner.
“Stop.”
He ran.
David rushed past her.
“Thomas!”
Margaret followed.
By the time they reached the stairs, Samuel was entering from below with Mr. Cho behind him.
Thomas reached the bottom landing and stopped.
For a moment, everyone stood still.
Thomas looked older than Margaret remembered.
Not physically.
Guilty people aged differently under sudden light.
He held a leather document case.
Margaret descended two steps.
“Put it down.”
Thomas’s eyes filled with something close to grief.
“I’m sorry.”
“Put it down.”
He obeyed.
Mr. Cho collected the case.
David came down behind Margaret.
“Did Eleanor send you?”
Thomas looked at him.
“No.”
Margaret’s gaze sharpened.
“Then why are you here?”
Thomas glanced toward the ceiling.
“Because she called me.”
“Eleanor?”
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“Your daughter.”
Margaret stopped breathing.
She had only one daughter.
Rebecca Wellington.
Rebecca had died five years earlier in a car accident outside Boston.
Victoria shifted upstairs, holding Leo.
David looked at Margaret as if he were afraid she might collapse.
She didn’t.
“What did you say?”
Thomas looked miserable.
“Rebecca.”
Margaret descended the remaining steps.
“My daughter is dead.”
“I know what you were told.”
The sentence landed like a blow.
Margaret stared at him.
Mr. Cho opened the leather case.
Inside were copies of banking records, passport photographs, and a flash drive taped to a folded envelope.
Margaret recognized the handwriting on the envelope immediately.
Her daughter’s.
MOM.
Margaret took it with shaking fingers.
The room around her became strangely silent.
She opened the envelope.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
Mom, if Thomas gives you this, something has gone wrong.
Please do not trust Eleanor.
Do not trust what you were told about the accident.
And whatever happens, protect Leo.
Margaret’s knees nearly gave out.
Samuel stepped closer, but she raised one hand.
Not yet.
She read the letter again.
Then again.
The words stayed the same.
Protect Leo.
Victoria came slowly down the stairs with the baby in her arms.
“What does Rebecca have to do with my son?”
Margaret looked at Leo.
A memory moved through her.
Rebecca had never met Leo.
At least, that was what Margaret believed.
Rebecca had died nearly three years before Victoria became pregnant.
Margaret turned to Thomas.
“Tell me where my daughter is.”
Thomas shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You just said she called you.”
“She did. Six months ago.”
“From where?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Thomas looked down.
“Because she said if Eleanor discovered you knew Rebecca was alive, Leo would be in danger.”
David’s voice came from behind Margaret.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Thomas looked directly at him.
“It does if you know who Leo’s legal guardian becomes if both of his parents are disqualified.”
Victoria frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
Thomas opened the document case again.
He pulled out another file.
At the top was a guardianship clause Margaret had never seen.
It named a successor guardian.
Eleanor Shaw.
Margaret stared at it.
David whispered, “Oh my God.”
Thomas nodded.
“She wasn’t stealing Leo’s money.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed.
May you like
Thomas’s voice turned grim.
“She was building a paper trail to make it look like you were.”
