Chapter 4
The call came through an old nursery phone.
Not Ethan’s.
A small handset Anna had once used when she stayed late at the estate with him.
Claudia thought it was disconnected.
It was not.
One of my men found it beneath a dresser.
One incoming call.
Blocked number.
2:13 that afternoon.
The snow started twenty minutes later.
I stared at the screen.
“How did Claudia know?”
Ethan whispered:
“She heard.”
Of course.
Claudia had been standing outside the nursery.
She demanded to know who called.
Ethan refused.
Then Mark came home.
Instead of protecting his son, he accepted Claudia’s punishment.
“Why?”
I asked him privately.
He sat across from me in the old study, hands clasped.
“She said Anna was manipulating him.”
“You believed her.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
My voice stayed calm.
“You wanted to.”
His eyes lifted.
That hurt him.
Good.
Because the truth was worse than weakness.
If Anna had called, then eleven months of Mark’s choices had to be reexamined.
He would have to ask where she was.
Why she left.
Whether Claudia had lied.
It was easier to call a three-year-old confused.
Mark looked down.
“Claudia said Anna threatened this family.”
“With what?”
Silence.
I knew.
“The red box.”
His face changed.
I leaned forward.
“Tell me.”
Mark finally whispered:
“Anna found something in Dad’s old accounts.”
My father.
Ethan’s great-grandfather.
Dead fifteen years.
Whatever Anna found predated Claudia.
But Claudia was terrified of it now.
May you like
That meant the red box did not contain a family secret from the past.
It contained something still capable of hurting someone in the present.
