Chapter 1 - The Camera Above the Foyer
“Take your hands off him!”
Clara Ruiz hit the marble floor hard enough to lose her breath, but the sound that terrified her was not her own body striking stone. It was two-year-old Ethan Blackwood’s thin cry as Serena Vale dragged him by one arm across the foyer.
The child’s little shoes skidded uselessly. His face had gone white.
“Serena, stop!” Clara gasped, forcing herself onto one elbow. “You’re hurting him.”
Serena turned in a silk cream dress, beautiful and furious, and kicked Clara in the stomach.
“Who do you think you are?” she snapped. “You’re a maid.”
Clara folded around the pain. Serena’s heel pressed down against the front of her uniform.
Ethan whimpered, “Cwa-wa.”
That sound made Clara move.
She caught Serena’s ankle, shoved it aside, and crawled toward the boy. His right arm hung at a wrong angle. Clara gathered him carefully against her chest, keeping the injured limb still.
“Ethan, look at me. Stay with me, sweetheart.”
Heavy footsteps thundered from the dark hallway.
Victor Blackwood stepped into the light.
He was still wearing the charcoal suit from a board dinner downtown. Behind him came Marcus Hale, head of estate security, and two guards.
Victor stopped dead.
His son was crying in the maid’s arms. Clara was on the floor. Serena stood over both of them.
“What the hell happened?”
Serena’s face changed instantly. Her anger vanished. Tears appeared.
“She attacked Ethan,” she said, pointing at Clara. “I tried to stop her.”
Clara stared at her.
Victor crossed the foyer in three strides and took Ethan from Clara.
“Dad—” the boy sobbed.
Victor’s eyes moved over his son’s limp arm, then to Clara.
“What did you do?”
The words cut deeper than the kick.
“Nothing,” Clara whispered. “She was dragging him. I tried to stop her.”
Serena covered her mouth and shook her head. “She’s lying.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
For one terrible second, Clara saw belief forming in his eyes.
Then Marcus said, “Sir.”
Victor turned.
Marcus was looking up.
A security camera sat above the foyer arch.
Its tiny status light was blinking green.
Serena went very still.
Marcus pulled a tablet from inside his jacket.
“That camera was disabled twelve minutes ago,” he said. “It just came back online.”
Victor looked at Serena.
Then at Clara.
“Why was it disabled?”
Marcus tapped the screen once.
“I don’t know yet.”
May you like
A second later, his expression changed.
“But somebody logged into the system under Serena’s access code.”
