Chapter 5 - A HOUSE FULL OF STRANGERS
Detective Ortiz questioned Victoria for nearly two hours.
Victoria admitted knowing Grace Bennett but insisted their contact had been limited to the original investigation. She claimed Grace had repeatedly altered her account of the night Lillian disappeared.
“That isn’t in the police file,” Ortiz said.
“Then the investigators failed to document it.”
“Or you’re inventing it.”
Victoria’s expression did not change.
“You seem determined to make me a suspect.”
“I’m determined to understand why your name frightens a retired nurse.”
Victoria said Grace had once asked the Caldwell family for money. Daniel did not remember the request. Evelyn did not either.
“Perhaps I handled it privately,” Victoria said.
“How much did she ask for?” Ortiz questioned.
“I don’t recall.”
“What did she claim the money was for?”
“Her sister’s medical expenses.”
“What was her sister’s name?”
Victoria paused for half a second too long.
“I don’t remember.”
Ortiz closed her notebook.
“You remember every clause in a forty-page contract, but not the name of a woman you considered unstable enough to protect your family from?”
Victoria rose.
“I believe this conversation is over.”
“For tonight.”
Daniel watched his sister leave through the front doors.
For the first time in his life, he felt unsafe while looking at someone who shared his blood.
Lily refused to sleep in the servants’ quarters.
Daniel offered a guest room, but she chose to wait in the library until Detective Ortiz could arrange temporary accommodations.
Evelyn sat across from her.
The space between them seemed enormous.
Lily still wore Daniel’s jacket over her torn blouse. The hardcover copy of Jane Eyre rested on the table beside her, its cover scratched from the fall.
Evelyn stared at Lily’s hands.
“When Lillian was born, her fingers were very long,” she said. “The nurse joked that she would become a pianist.”
Lily said nothing.
“I used to count them while she slept. Ten fingers. Ten toes. I knew it was foolish, but I kept checking.”
“Why?”
“Because she had taken eight years to arrive.”
Lily looked up.
Evelyn’s eyes were swollen.
“We tried everything. Doctors, surgeries, treatments. I had three miscarriages before her. When she was finally born alive, I thought the universe had forgiven me for something.”
“And then she disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Did you think she was dead?”
“Sometimes. Other times I imagined a woman raising her somewhere. I told myself she was loved, because the alternative made it impossible to breathe.”
Lily’s voice turned quiet.
“I wasn’t unloved.”
Evelyn’s face crumpled with relief and pain.
“Grace was good to you?”
“She couldn’t adopt me. She didn’t have the money or the health. But she came every birthday. She helped me with homework. When I turned sixteen, she gave me fifty dollars and apologized because it wasn’t more.”
“I’m grateful to her.”
“You don’t know what she did.”
“No. But if she kept you safe—”
“She also lied to me for twenty years.”
Evelyn lowered her gaze.
“Yes.”
Lily studied the woman who might be her mother.
For three months, Evelyn had criticized everything she did. Now every harsh word stood between them.
“Why did you dislike me?” Lily asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
Evelyn took a long breath.
“You made me feel something I didn’t understand. I would look at you and become angry because you seemed familiar. The way you smiled. The way Daniel spoke to you. Even the way you stood at the window when it rained.”
“So you punished me for reminding you of your daughter?”
The question was merciless because it was accurate.
“Yes,” Evelyn whispered.
Lily looked away.
“I spent my whole life wondering what I had done to make my parents leave me. Then I came here, and if you really are my mother, you found reasons to tell me I wasn’t good enough every day.”
Evelyn covered her mouth.
“I am so sorry.”
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
Daniel heard the exchange from the doorway.
He felt ashamed that Lily had displayed more honesty in one conversation than the Caldwell family had managed in decades.
Detective Ortiz returned with a forensic nurse shortly after midnight.
Buccal swabs were collected from Lily, Daniel, and Evelyn. Each sample was sealed in front of them.
Ortiz personally placed one set into a locked case.
The second set went into a separate package for an independent laboratory in Manhattan.
“Results should take forty-eight hours,” she said.
“Can it be faster?” Evelyn asked.
“Accuracy matters more than speed.”
Lily agreed.
Daniel arranged for her to stay in a guest cottage near the eastern edge of the property. It had once housed the estate manager and contained two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a separate gated driveway.
“I’ll pay rent,” Lily insisted.
“No,” Daniel said.
“Then I’ll go to a hotel.”
“You were accused of a crime in my home. Until we determine who placed that necklace in your bag, this is a matter of your safety.”
Lily looked at Ortiz.
The detective nodded. “For the next two days, staying on secured property is sensible.”
Lily reluctantly accepted.
Before dawn, she walked to the cottage with Mrs. Carter.
Daniel watched from the terrace.
Evelyn joined him, wrapping a coat around herself.
“What if she is ours?” she whispered.
“She may be.”
“And what if she hates me?”
Daniel looked through the darkness toward the cottage lights.
“Then we’ll give her every reason not to.”
The following morning, Ortiz examined security footage from the night of the gala.
The cameras showed Lily entering the dressing room at 6:42 p.m. and leaving four minutes later. They showed Evelyn returning at 9:57.
Then the hallway camera went black for twenty-three minutes.
“Technical malfunction?” Daniel asked.
Mrs. Carter shook her head.
“The system was serviced last month.”
“Who has administrative access?”
“You, Mrs. Caldwell, Mr. Reeves from security—and Miss Victoria.”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
The footage returned at 10:20. Victoria appeared at the bottom of the private staircase, but the angle did not show where she had come from.
Ortiz requested server logs.
At 10:03, someone had used Victoria’s credentials to disable the camera.
Victoria claimed her access code must have been stolen.
“By Lily?” Evelyn asked incredulously.
“That would appear to be the implication,” Ortiz replied.
“It’s impossible. Lily didn’t even know we had a private staircase.”
The detective sent the necklace case for fingerprint and fiber analysis.
Meanwhile, Lily attempted to contact Grace.
Every call went to voicemail.
By afternoon, she was pacing the cottage.
“She would answer me,” Lily told Daniel when he arrived with groceries. “Even if she were angry, she would answer.”
“We’ll find her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, but Ortiz has officers checking her apartment.”
Lily looked inside the grocery bags.
“You didn’t need to bring all this.”
“I wasn’t sure what you liked.”
“You bought enough food for a family of six.”
“I’m not good at shopping.”
Against her will, Lily almost smiled.
Daniel noticed but did not comment.
He set a new canvas bag on the table.
The gesture made her expression close again.
“I don’t need replacements.”
“The strap broke.”
“After your wife fired me.”
“My wife was wrong. So was I.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it remains true.”
Lily looked at him for a long time.
“Do you want me to be your daughter?”
The question caught him unprepared.
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I want the chance to.”
“What if the test says I’m not?”
Daniel’s answer came slowly.
“Then I’ll still owe you an apology. And if you allow it, I’ll still help you attend college.”
“I told you I don’t want charity.”
“Neither did I when someone helped me rent my first office.”
“Who helped you?”
“My father.”
“That’s not the same.”
Daniel held her gaze.
“Maybe I’m hoping it is.”
That night, someone entered the cottage while Lily slept.
She woke at 2:14 a.m. to the faint creak of the bedroom floor.
A shadow moved beside the dresser.
Lily reached for the lamp.
The intruder seized her hairbrush and ran.
She screamed.
Daniel and two security guards arrived within minutes, but the rear door stood open and the intruder had vanished into the wooded part of the estate.
Nothing valuable had been taken.
Only the brush containing Lily’s hair.
Ortiz examined the broken lock.
“This wasn’t a burglary,” she said.
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“Someone wants her DNA.”
At 7:00 the next morning—nearly a full day earlier than expected—Victoria arrived at the mansion carrying an envelope.
She found Evelyn, Daniel, Lily, and Detective Ortiz in the library.
“I received a call from the private laboratory,” she announced.
Ortiz stood.
“Why would they contact you?”
“Caldwell Meridian has used the company for employee testing. My office is listed as an authorized contact.”
She placed the envelope on the table.
“The result is negative.”
Evelyn stared at her.
May you like
Victoria opened the report.
“Lily Morgan is not your daughter.”
