Chapter 2 - THE THING PATRICIA WAS HIDING
“Tell me where you put it,” Patricia whispered.
Rosa stared at her.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
Patricia glanced toward the two girls.
Then she smiled.
It wasn't the smile I knew.
It was colder.
“You really want me to say it in front of them?”
Rosa's face tightened.
“Please leave the girls out of this.”
Patricia laughed softly.
“That is exactly the problem. You keep putting yourself between me and them.”
My hands clenched against the edge of the surveillance desk.
Marcus, my security chief, looked at me.
“Sir, should I bring them out?”
“Not yet.”
My voice sounded strange even to me.
For weeks, I had believed Patricia's version of everything.
Now I was watching the woman I planned to marry terrorize two little girls while the housekeeper I had suspected stood between them.
Patricia reached into her purse.
She pulled out a small velvet box.
Rosa immediately went pale.
Patricia opened it.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
The same bracelet she had claimed was stolen.
“There,” Patricia said. “That's what I was talking about.”
Rosa shook her head.
“I've never seen that bracelet.”
Patricia turned toward me.
Of course, she couldn't see me.
But suddenly I wondered whether she had always wanted me to hear those words.
“You're a liar,” Patricia said to Rosa. “And you know exactly where the missing jewelry has gone.”
Daniela spoke quietly.
“Dad doesn't believe that.”
Everyone froze.
Patricia slowly turned toward her.
“What did you say?”
Daniela swallowed.
“Dad wouldn't believe it.”
Martina moved closer to her sister.
Patricia's expression hardened.
“You don't know what your father believes.”
Daniela looked down.
“Yes, I do.”
My chest tightened.
Patricia stepped toward her.
Rosa immediately moved between them.
“That's enough.”
Patricia's eyes flashed.
“You think because he trusts you, you can challenge me?”
“No.”
Rosa's voice remained calm.
“I think because they're children, they deserve to feel safe.”
Patricia stared at her for several seconds.
Then she bent down and picked up Martina's rabbit.
She held it out.
Martina reached for it.
Patricia pulled it away.
“Tell me where the bracelet is.”
“I don't know.”
Patricia dropped the rabbit onto the floor.
“Then perhaps your father should know what kind of children he has.”
That sentence broke something inside me.
Not because Patricia was cruel.
Because she sounded practiced.
This wasn't anger.
It was a method.
Marcus quietly switched to another camera.
The hallway.
The kitchen.
The upstairs landing.
Then he paused.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“Look at the timestamp.”
I leaned closer.
A camera showed Patricia entering the house three days earlier.
She carried the same velvet box.
Marcus rewound the footage.
Patricia walked into the study.
She stayed inside for eleven minutes.
When she came out, the box was gone.
“Can you zoom in?”
He did.
The bracelet was visible in her hand.
My stomach dropped.
Patricia hadn't discovered the bracelet missing.
She had moved it herself.
But Marcus wasn't finished.
He switched to the previous week.
Patricia entered my bedroom carrying a small black handbag.
She came out without it.
Then Rosa entered twenty minutes later carrying a laundry basket.
She never went near the jewelry drawer.
I closed my eyes.
The evidence was no longer suspicion.
It was a pattern.
“Why would she frame Rosa?” I asked.
Marcus didn't answer.
Instead, he brought up another recording.
This one was from the girls' playroom.
Patricia was sitting beside Martina.
Her voice was soft.
Almost gentle.
“If your father asks,” she said, “you tell him Rosa takes things.”
Martina shook her head.
“I don't want to lie.”
Patricia's voice became colder.
“You don't want your father to be disappointed in you, do you?”
Martina started crying.
I felt sick.
Then Daniela appeared in the doorway.
She was holding something.
A child's drawing.
She stepped beside her sister.
“Don't tell her anything,” Daniela whispered.
Patricia stood.
“What did you say?”
Daniela quickly hid the drawing behind her back.
“Nothing.”
Patricia snatched it from her.
She looked at the paper.
Then something unexpected happened.
Her face changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
She tore the drawing in half.
Daniela gasped.
“That's Mom!”
Patricia froze.
Rosa came running.
“What happened?”
Daniela pointed at the torn paper.
“She ripped Mommy.”
Patricia looked toward the camera.
For one impossible second, I had the feeling she was looking directly at me.
Then she said something that made my blood run cold.
“That picture should never have existed.”
Marcus stared at me.
“What picture?”
I didn't answer.
Because I suddenly remembered the drawing.
My wife had died when Daniela was three.
Martina barely remembered her.
There were only a handful of photographs of her left in the house.
And Patricia had always insisted that the girls stop asking questions about their mother.
I had accepted that as grief.
Now I wasn't sure.
Rosa quietly gathered the torn pieces.
Patricia turned toward her.
“You should have left this house months ago.”
Rosa looked at her.
“Why?”
Patricia's voice dropped.
“Because if he finds out what you know, you won't be the one he blames.”
Rosa went still.
“What are you talking about?”
Patricia smiled.
“He'll blame the person who kept it from him.”
The surveillance feed suddenly flickered.
Marcus looked at the system.
Then back at me.
“Sir, someone just accessed the camera network from inside the mansion.”
I stared at the monitors.
Patricia had stopped smiling.
She was looking directly at the hidden camera.
And then she whispered:
“Your fiancé isn't the only person watching.”
Marcus's hand moved toward his phone.
But I stopped him.
Because Patricia had just looked down at her wrist.
May you like
The silver bracelet was gone.
And when she raised her hand again, she was wearing my dead wife's watch.
