Chapter 9 - The Nanny's Lie
Rachel slapped Nora's old photograph onto the hospital security desk.
"Find her."
The guard rewound the footage. Nora moved like she knew exactly where every camera was mounted. She wore a surgical mask and pushed Lily in a covered bassinet.
"She planned this," Daniel said.
Torres shook her head. "Or someone trained her."
Nora's phone went straight to voicemail.
Her apartment was empty.
In the kitchen, police found five thousand dollars in cash, a second passport, and a printed map of Ashbourne property.
Daniel felt betrayed and stupid. Nora had arrived at the perfect moment, carrying the perfect evidence.
Rachel stood by the window, arms wrapped around herself.
"We trusted her because she told us what we wanted to hear."
"The video is still real," Torres said. "Celeste drugged Lily. Nora being involved doesn't erase that."
A laptop on Nora's desk contained encrypted files. Technicians cracked one folder within an hour.
Inside were photographs of Rachel taken over several months.
Rachel at the grocery store.
Rachel leaving her doctor's office.
Rachel pushing Lily through the park.
Rachel asleep beside the nursery window.
Daniel's hands curled into fists.
"She's been stalking my wife."
Then Torres opened another folder.
It contained photos of Daniel.
Not recent ones.
College photographs. Family vacations. A picture of Daniel at sixteen standing beside his father.
"Why would Nora have these?" Rachel asked.
Daniel couldn't answer.
A birth certificate appeared in the folder.
Nora Bell's original name was Nora Cole.
Father: Henry Cole.
Mother: blank.
Daniel turned toward Henry, who was now being held at the station.
"She's his daughter."
Torres nodded slowly. "Which explains why she had access to his files."
Rachel kept reading.
At the bottom of the folder was a scanned letter written twenty-seven years earlier.
Henry,
The child can never know I am her mother. William would destroy me.
There was no signature.
But Daniel recognized the handwriting.
He had seen it on birthday cards his entire life.
Celeste's.
Nora wasn't just Henry's daughter.
May you like
She was Daniel's half-sister.
And she had his baby.
