Chapter 8 - THE HOUSEKEEPER WHO DISAPPEARED
Selena would not enter the mansion.
She stood near the garden with both hands clasped before her.
“I should have gone to the police.”
“Why didn’t you?” Andrew asked.
“Natalie said your mother would deny everything.”
“Would she?”
“At the time, yes.”
Selena first found Margaret inside the storage room six months earlier.
The door was unlocked.
Margaret had fallen while attempting to transfer from the wheelchair.
Selena helped her.
Natalie arrived and accused Margaret of creating drama.
That night, Natalie fired Selena.
“She told me you agreed.”
“I knew nothing about it.”
Selena looked at him with quiet disappointment.
“You stopped knowing many things inside your own home.”
Andrew accepted the judgment.
Natalie offered Selena money to sign a confidentiality agreement.
She refused.
Days later, someone broke into her apartment.
Nothing valuable was stolen.
Only photographs Selena took of Margaret’s bruises.
After that, Selena left Atlanta.
“Why return now?”
“I saw the ambulance outside the mansion online.”
Selena had hidden one piece of evidence before leaving.
The old lamp.
Thomas Wilson once used it as a reading lamp.
Selena placed a voice-activated recorder inside its base.
She showed Margaret how to switch it on.
Two taps.
The recorder automatically uploaded short audio files to an encrypted account.
“Do you still have access?”
Selena nodded.
Natalie cut the lamp’s cord.
But the recorder used a battery.
It might still have captured the previous evening.
Selena entered the login information at the police station.
The account contained forty-three files.
The first held Margaret crying.
The second captured Natalie’s voice.
Stop interfering in our lives.
Another recording contained the sound of a wheelchair striking the door.
Another captured Natalie withholding water until Margaret signed a page.
Andrew listened with both hands pressed against the table.
Then a man’s voice appeared.
It was not his.
“Once the guardianship is approved, Andrew cannot reverse the transfer.”
Natalie answered.
“He signs anything I place in his briefcase.”
Andrew stopped the recording.
Detective Shaw asked whether he recognized the man.
He did.
Dominic Voss.
A private estate attorney Natalie introduced to the family the previous year.
Andrew believed Dominic was restructuring business insurance.
On the recording, Dominic continued.
“The doctor’s reports will establish incapacity.”
“And the storage room?”
“Remove the lock before anyone visits.”
Natalie laughed softly.
“Andrew never visits unexpectedly.”
The file ended.
May you like
Andrew had come home early once.
That single decision had broken open everything Natalie believed she controlled.
