Chapter 1 - Five Days Left
The first time Raymond Winslow opened his eye, my nine-month-old son was asleep on his chest.
And the first words Raymond whispered to me were not help me.
They were worse.
“Don’t tell anyone I woke up.”
My name is Nora Bennett, and five hours earlier, I had believed the most frightening thing in my life was being broke.
I was wrong.
I arrived at the Winslow estate in Bellevue, Washington, on a gray Monday afternoon with one suitcase, forty-three dollars in my checking account, and my son Theodore strapped against my chest.
The mansion overlooked Lake Washington from behind iron gates and towering evergreens. It was the kind of house that made you lower your voice without knowing why—three stories of stone, glass, polished wood, and rooms large enough to swallow the apartment Theodore and I had lost two weeks earlier.
I had been hired as a live-in caregiver.
The arrangement sounded almost too generous.
A private bedroom.
Meals.
A salary.
And permission to keep Theodore with me.
There was only one reason the position had become available so suddenly.
Raymond Winslow was dying.
He was forty-six, unmarried, and enormously wealthy. His transportation companies had made him a millionaire many times over, but none of that money seemed useful now.
For almost two months, Raymond had been unable to speak or move.
His doctors believed his condition was irreversible.
When I arrived, his nephew Christopher met me in the foyer.
He was perhaps thirty-five, tall and polished, wearing a gray suit and a watch that probably cost more than everything I owned.
“Nora Bennett?”
“Yes.”
His eyes dropped briefly to Theodore.
“The baby stays out of my uncle’s room unless absolutely necessary.”
“I understand.”
Christopher smiled, but there was no warmth behind it.
“The doctors believe Uncle Raymond has five days. Maybe six.”
Five days.
He said it the way someone might discuss the delivery date for a package.
I followed him upstairs.
Raymond’s bedroom had been transformed into a private hospital suite. An adjustable bed stood near enormous windows overlooking the water. An IV pole, oxygen equipment, and a cardiac monitor surrounded him.
And in the middle of all that machinery lay Raymond Winslow.
Even unconscious, he looked younger than I had expected.
Dark hair.
Strong jaw.
Light stubble.
But his cheeks were hollow and his skin was pale.
“Can he hear us?” I asked.
Christopher shrugged.
“Doctors say probably not.”
Probably.
That word stayed with me.
My responsibilities were simple. Keep Raymond comfortable. Monitor him. Help the private nurse when necessary. Call the physician if anything changed.
Nothing was expected to change.
That was the point.
By ten that night, however, Theodore was miserable.
He was teething and running a mild fever. I rocked him through the service hallway.
I fed him.
I sang every lullaby I knew.
Nothing worked.
His crying grew louder.
I became increasingly terrified Christopher would hear him and decide the convenient arrangement wasn't convenient anymore.
Eventually, exhausted, I carried Theodore into Raymond’s room.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the unconscious man. “We’ll only stay a minute.”
I sat beside the bed.
Theodore continued crying.
Then, without really thinking, I did something I would later replay in my mind a thousand times.
I laid Theodore gently across Raymond’s chest.
“Just for a second,” I whispered.
Almost immediately, Theodore became quiet.
His tiny cheek rested against Raymond’s chest.
His breathing slowed.
Within seconds, he was asleep.
I nearly laughed from relief.
Then something moved.
At first I thought it was Theodore.
It wasn’t.
Raymond’s right hand was resting beside my son.
One finger moved.
Then another.
I stopped breathing.
His fingers slowly curled around the edge of Theodore’s blanket.
“Mr. Winslow?”
Nothing.
I leaned closer.
“Raymond?”
His eyelids trembled.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped against the floor.
One of Raymond’s eyes opened.
Not fully.
Only enough for me to see it.
But what I saw made every hair on my arms rise.
Awareness.
There was a person looking back at me.
“Can you hear me?”
His eye closed.
Opened.
His lips moved.
I leaned closer.
“What?”
His breath touched my ear.
“Don’t…”
I stared at him.
He swallowed painfully.
“Don’t tell anyone…”
Another pause.
“I woke up.”
I looked instinctively toward the door.
“Why?”
His fingers tightened weakly around Theodore’s blanket.
Raymond tried to speak again, but no sound came.
Then footsteps sounded somewhere in the hallway.
His eye widened.
Fear.
Pure, unmistakable fear.
A millionaire lying in his own mansion was terrified of whoever was approaching his bedroom.
Raymond immediately closed his eye.
His hand went limp.
I lifted Theodore from his chest just as the door opened.
Christopher stood there.
He looked at me.
Then at Theodore.
Then at Raymond.
“What are you doing?”
“My son wouldn’t stop crying.”
Christopher entered slowly.
“And you thought my dying uncle was a crib?”
“I’m sorry.”
He stared at Raymond.
For one horrible second, I wondered whether he had seen something.
Then he smiled.
“Five days, Nora.”
“What?”
“That’s what the doctor believes.”
His gaze remained on his uncle.
“Maybe less.”
He turned and walked away.
I waited until his footsteps disappeared.
Then I looked at Raymond.
His eye opened again.
This time, tears filled it.
I leaned closer.
“Are you afraid of Christopher?”
One blink.
I didn't understand.
Raymond blinked once again.
“Yes?” I whispered.
One blink.
I tried another question.
“Should I call the doctor?”
Two blinks.
No.
My stomach tightened.
“Is the doctor dangerous too?”
Raymond stared at me.
Then—
one blink.
Theodore stirred in my arms.
Outside, the mansion was silent.
Inside Raymond Winslow’s room, everything I thought I knew about my new job had changed.
I had entered this house believing I had been hired to care for a dying man.
But Raymond wasn't asking me to help him die comfortably.
May you like
He was asking me to keep his recovery secret.
And before sunrise, he would tell me why.
