Chapter 3 - The Little Girl Who Remembered
Lachlan reached the doorway before the second piece of glass hit the floor.
“Stay here.”
Naturally, Thea followed him.
He looked over his shoulder.
“I said stay.”
“And yesterday you said you were blind. Your credibility isn't spectacular.”
Under other circumstances, his expression might have been funny.
There was no humor in the house that morning.
Emil appeared at the end of the corridor.
“Greenhouse window,” he called. “Security is checking it.”
Lachlan stopped.
“Broken from inside or outside?”
“Outside.”
Thea looked through the tall windows toward the gardens.
“Rock?”
“Possibly.”
A security officer came through the side hall carrying something wrapped in a handkerchief.
“Sir.”
He opened the cloth.
A stone.
Around it, a white piece of paper was tied with string.
Lachlan unfolded it.
Thea watched his face.
“What does it say?”
Nothing.
She reached for the note.
He held it away.
“Lachlan.”
“No.”
“You agreed to show me everything twenty minutes ago.”
“This isn't evidence from the accident.”
“It was thrown through your window immediately after Sophie said she recognized a voice.”
He handed it over.
Four words.
STOP ASKING THE CHILD.
Thea felt sick.
Sophie was still in the breakfast room.
Only yards away.
“Someone is watching the house.”
Lachlan looked toward security.
“Lock the estate.”
“Already done.”
“Search the grounds.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And nobody approaches Sophie except approved staff.”
The guard hurried away.
Thea read the note again.
“Who knew she said anything?”
“You. Me. Emil.”
“And whoever can hear us.”
Lachlan looked up sharply.
Thea pointed toward the ceiling.
“You said Elena uncovered financial crimes inside your company. Someone entered your hospital room. Last night a man got near your gate. Now a message appears seconds after Sophie speaks.”
“You think the room is bugged.”
“I think pretending that's impossible would be stupid.”
For once, Lachlan did not argue.
Thirty minutes later, his private security team found the first listening device beneath the breakfast table.
They found another behind an electrical outlet.
A third inside the chandelier.
Emil sat down when they brought him the devices.
His face aged ten years.
“These fixtures were serviced last month.”
“By whom?” Lachlan asked.
Emil pulled out his phone.
“A contractor used by the estate for years.”
“Get the records.”
Thea looked toward the ceiling.
“How long could those have been there?”
The security chief answered.
“Months.”
That meant someone might have heard everything.
Conversations.
Names.
Plans.
Maybe even Lachlan admitting he could see.
He understood the same thing.
“We move,” he said.
“Where?” Thea asked.
“A secure property.”
“No.”
He stared at her.
“Excuse me?”
“My mother has surgery tomorrow.”
“We can protect the hospital.”
“I am not disappearing while she's there.”
“Thea—”
“You promised her treatment wasn't conditional on me.”
“It isn't.”
“Then neither is my presence at the hospital.”
Lachlan ran one hand over his face.
“You are remarkably difficult.”
“You married me.”
“I am beginning to understand the consequences.”
Sophie tugged Thea's sleeve.
“Are we leaving?”
Thea crouched.
“Maybe for a little while.”
“I don't like new houses.”
“Why?”
“Mommy left from a new house.”
Lachlan's expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
Sophie stared at him.
“The lake house.”
Lachlan went still.
“Elena wasn't at the lake house that day.”
“Yes, she was.”
“No. She was at the office.”
Sophie shook her head.
“We went to the water.”
Lachlan crouched.
“Sweetheart, think carefully.”
Sophie looked frightened.
Thea touched Lachlan's arm.
“Don't interrogate her.”
“I need to know.”
“And she needs not to be terrified.”
His jaw tightened.
But he nodded.
Thea turned to Sophie.
“Did you go swimming?”
“No.”
“Did you see ducks?”
Sophie thought.
“One.”
“What color was the house?”
“Brown.”
“What did your mom do there?”
“She talked to a man.”
Lachlan stopped breathing.
“Do you remember him?”
Sophie shook her head.
“Was he old?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he have glasses?”
“I don't know.”
“Did Mommy seem happy?”
Sophie became quiet.
Then she whispered, “She was mad.”
“What did she say?”
Sophie looked down at the rabbit.
“She said, 'I'm telling Lachlan.'”
The room froze.
Lachlan's hands curled slowly into fists.
Thea saw anger beneath his composure for the first time.
Not loud anger.
Something colder.
“Did the man answer?”
Sophie nodded.
“What did he say?”
“I don't remember.”
Lachlan looked away, mastering himself.
Thea rubbed Sophie's back.
“That's okay.”
“I remember his shoes.”
Lachlan turned back.
“What shoes?”
“Brown ones.”
Thea almost smiled despite the tension.
“Lots of people have brown shoes.”
“They had a mark.”
“What mark?”
Sophie pointed to the rabbit's eye.
“A bird.”
Lachlan's face changed.
Thea noticed.
“You recognize that?”
“No.”
“You're lying again.”
“I recognize a brand.”
“What?”
“Custom shoes made by Bellamy & Croft.”
“And?”
“Half the executive committee owns them.”
Thea stared.
“You rich people really do make murder investigations unnecessarily complicated.”
Something almost resembling a laugh escaped Emil.
Lachlan looked at him.
Emil immediately became serious again.
The security chief returned.
“Sir, we found where the stone came from. North hedge. Footprints lead to the service road.”
“Cameras?”
“Disabled for six minutes.”
“Inside access?”
“Possibly.”
Lachlan made a decision.
“Sophie goes to the safe property with Emil.”
“No.”
The child grabbed Thea's hand.
“I want Thea.”
Lachlan looked at her.
Thea exhaled.
“I need to visit my mother.”
“I can have Sophie guarded at the hospital.”
“That's not exactly a relaxing environment for a child.”
“She can't stay here.”
Sophie whispered, “Please.”
Thea looked down.
Damn.
Twenty-four hours ago, she hadn't known this child existed.
Now Sophie looked at her as though Thea were the only fixed point in a world that kept disappearing.
“I'll take her with me.”
Lachlan shook his head.
“We go together.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You're going to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“As blind Lachlan or sighted Lachlan?”
“Blind.”
Something about that irritated her.
Then she remembered why.
If the killer discovered the truth, Lachlan would lose his advantage.
“Fine.”
An hour later, Thea sat in the back of a black SUV with Sophie.
Lachlan sat opposite them wearing dark glasses.
The transformation was unsettling.
His posture changed subtly.
His gaze stopped settling directly on objects.
He counted turns beneath his breath.
He became the man the world knew.
Thea couldn't decide whether she admired the performance or resented it.
At the hospital entrance, photographers were waiting.
Her stomach dropped.
“How do they know we're coming?”
Lachlan's mouth hardened.
“They always know.”
A reporter shouted as soon as the door opened.
“Mrs. Voss! Was your marriage arranged?”
Another voice.
“Lachlan, is the company forcing you to step down?”
“Is Mrs. Lindquist's mother's treatment part of the marriage settlement?”
Thea stopped.
That detail had never been public.
She turned toward Lachlan.
He heard the question too.
Security moved around them.
Thea kept walking.
Inside the elevator, she whispered, “Someone leaked the contract.”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
“My attorney. Astrid. Two trustees.”
“And whoever bugged the house.”
“Yes.”
The elevator opened.
Thea's mother, Marianne, was awake when they entered her hospital room.
Her face was pale, but she smiled immediately.
“There she is.”
Thea crossed the room and hugged her.
“You look tired,” Marianne said.
“I got married yesterday.”
“I noticed.”
She looked past her.
“And I suppose that's my son-in-law.”
Lachlan stepped forward, cane touching the floor.
“Mrs. Lindquist.”
“Marianne.”
“Marianne.”
Her mother studied him.
Then looked at Thea.
Mothers had a way of seeing too much.
“You two have already fought.”
Thea nearly choked.
“Mom.”
“You have the exact face you used to make after arguing with your chemistry teacher.”
Lachlan's mouth twitched.
“I'm glad someone recognizes it.”
Thea glared at him.
Marianne laughed softly.
For several minutes, the room almost felt normal.
Then Marianne noticed Sophie.
“And who are you?”
“Sophie.”
“My niece,” Lachlan said.
Sophie approached the bed.
Marianne held out her hand.
Within five minutes they were discussing cartoons.
Thea watched.
Something loosened inside her chest.
This was why she'd done it.
For this room.
For her mother's chance to survive.
If every lie in the Voss mansion had purchased Marianne another year, perhaps Thea would have signed the papers again.
She hated that thought.
A nurse entered.
“Mrs. Lindquist, we're going to run your preoperative bloodwork again.”
“Again?” Thea asked.
“There's a discrepancy.”
“What kind?”
The nurse hesitated.
“Your mother's blood type was entered incorrectly in the surgical system.”
Thea went cold.
“Incorrectly?”
“Yes.”
Marianne frowned.
“But I've had the same blood type for fifty-three years.”
Lachlan straightened.
Thea looked at him.
He couldn't react too obviously.
Not here.
“Could it have been a clerical mistake?” he asked.
“Possible,” the nurse said. “That's why we're repeating everything.”
Thea followed her into the hallway.
“What was entered?”
“AB negative.”
“My mother is O positive.”
The nurse's face tightened.
“That is a significant discrepancy.”
“Could surgery have gone ahead with that?”
“No. We check before transfusion. Multiple safeguards exist.”
But Thea understood.
Someone had changed her mother's medical record.
Whether it would have killed her or merely delayed surgery didn't matter.
Somebody had touched the one person Thea had entered this marriage to save.
Thea turned.
Lachlan was standing ten feet away behind dark glasses.
She crossed to him.
“Get Sophie away from here.”
“Thea—”
“Now.”
He heard something in her voice.
“Emil.”
The older man appeared.
Lachlan quietly instructed him to take Sophie downstairs with security.
When they were alone, Thea leaned close.
“Someone changed Mom's blood type.”
His expression went absolutely still.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Who has system access?”
“We're about to find out.”
She started toward the nurses' station.
Lachlan caught her wrist.
“Don't.”
“Take your hand off me.”
“Not because I'm stopping you.”
“Then why?”
“If someone intentionally altered the record, they expect a reaction. Don't give them one until we know who's watching.”
Thea looked around.
Doctors.
Patients.
Families.
Hospital employees.
Anybody could be involved.
She hated that he was right.
Then Lachlan's hidden phone vibrated inside his jacket.
He removed it carefully.
A photograph appeared.
Thea saw his face change.
“What?”
He angled the screen toward her.
The image had been taken less than five minutes earlier.
It showed Thea hugging her mother.
Through the hospital window.
Beneath the photograph was one sentence.
THE NEXT ERROR WON'T BE CORRECTED IN TIME.
Thea's fear disappeared.
Something hotter replaced it.
She looked at Lachlan.
“Find him.”
“Thea—”
“No.”
She took the phone.
“You've spent three years hiding behind dark glasses.”
His jaw tightened.
“And you have good reasons. Fine.”
She looked toward her mother's door.
“But now they're threatening my family.”
She pushed the phone back into his hand.
“So whatever rules you've been playing by?”
Her eyes met his behind the dark lenses.
“They're over.”
And somewhere in the hospital, a man wearing expensive brown shoes stepped into an elevator before security could reach him.
May you like
On the heel of each shoe was the tiny silver shape of a bird.
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