Chapter 3 - The Second Phone
Daniel answered.
A man’s voice came through the speaker. “Is it done?”
No one breathed.
Daniel looked at Claire. “Is what done?”
Silence on the line.
Then the man said, “Who is this?”
“Daniel Mercer.”
The call ended.
Claire closed her eyes.
Three police officers came through the front door less than a minute later. Maria gave them the facts in a rush: the grab, the push, the fall, her hands around Lily’s shirt. Lily clung to Daniel while an officer photographed the bruise on her face.
Claire cried immediately.
Not quiet tears. Big shaking sobs.
“She’s been unstable for weeks,” Claire said, pointing at Maria. “She hates me. She wants my job—my life. She grabbed Lily and nearly dropped her.”
Maria stared. “That is a lie.”
Claire looked at the officers. “Ask my husband. He came in after it happened. He didn’t see the push.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
One officer, Sergeant Cole, separated them. He listened to Lily gently, then asked about the cameras.
Daniel led him to the home-security panel.
Every balcony camera had gone offline at 3:17 p.m.
The fall happened at 3:24.
Claire pointed at Maria. “She knows the security code.”
“I do not,” Maria said.
“You’ve worked here for three years.”
“I clean the house. I don’t run the cameras.”
Cole checked the panel logs. “System was disabled from the master phone.”
Daniel looked at Claire.
Claire raised her own phone. “Mine was upstairs.”
“Which master phone?” Daniel asked.
The security screen showed a device name: D-MERCER-IPHONE.
His phone.
Daniel pulled it from his pocket. “I was at the office.”
Cole took the phone. “Any chance someone had your passcode?”
Claire gave a weak laugh. “We’re married. Of course I know it.”
Daniel stared at her.
She had just made the first mistake.
Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Mercer, I need you to come with us while we sort this out.”
Claire turned pale. “You’re arresting me based on a maid’s word?”
“I said come with us.”
As an officer cuffed her, Claire leaned toward Maria.
“You think you saved that little girl,” she whispered. “You just put a target on both of you.”
That night, after police took Claire away, Maria found a black envelope pushed beneath her apartment door.
Inside was a photograph of her teenage son leaving school.
May you like
Across his face, someone had written one sentence in red ink.
NEXT TIME, YOU WON’T CATCH HIM.
