Chapter 8: What Grace Was Running From
Daniel knocked on Grace's door the next morning.
She lived in a small rental house twenty minutes from the estate — he had the address from her employment file.
He had never used it before.
She answered the door in a cardigan and jeans, Lily on her hip, the little girl's hair in two uneven pigtails that suggested Grace had been in the middle of something when he knocked.
Grace's face went carefully neutral when she saw him.
"Mr.
Whitfield."
"I'm sorry to come to your home.
I wouldn't if it wasn't important." He glanced at Lily, who was staring at him with enormous brown eyes.
"Hello."
"Skyscraper man," Lily said seriously.
Daniel blinked.
Grace made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
"She remembers the drawing." She stepped back.
"Come in."
The house was small and very clean.
A child's drawings covered one section of the kitchen wall — a gallery of crayon suns and stick figures and what appeared to be a very large orange cat.
A pot of something warm was on the stove.
Grace set Lily down, handed her a small cup of dry cereal, and turned to face Daniel.
"What did she say?" Grace asked.
"She told me to ask where you were the night before you started working for me.
And what you were running from."
Grace was quiet for a moment.
She looked at Lily, who was arranging cereal pieces in a line on the kitchen table with great concentration.
"Sit down," Grace said.
Daniel sat.
Grace poured two cups of coffee without asking whether he wanted one and set one in front of him.
"My husband's name was Aaron," she said.
"We were married for three years.
He was not a safe person to be married to." She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"I left with Lily when she was eight months old.
I had forty dollars and a bag of her things and I drove until I ran out of road and then I found a shelter and then I found a job and then I found this house."
Daniel said nothing.
"The night before I started working for you, I was in a courthouse," Grace said.
"Filing for a restraining order.
Aaron had found out where I was living.
He'd been outside the shelter twice." She looked at the table.
"The order was granted.
He moved out of state six months later.
I haven't heard from him since."
"Grace —"
"I didn't put it on my employment application because I was afraid," she said.
"Afraid that if I explained the situation, whoever was hiring would see it as a risk.
A woman with a dangerous ex-husband.
A complication." She looked up at him.
"I needed the job."
"I know."
"I've been afraid every day that someone would find out and use it against me." Her voice was steady but her hands were tight around the cup.
"And now Vanessa Cole is going to use it against me."
"No," Daniel said.
"She's not."
Grace looked at him.
"She's gone," he said.
"The engagement is over.
She left last night and she won't be coming back to the house." He paused.
"But she may try to contact you.
Or say something to someone.
I want you to know that if she does, I will stand behind everything you've told me.
Everything."
Grace was very still.
"Why?" she said.
It came out quieter than she intended.
"Because you told me the truth when you didn't have to," Daniel said.
"Because you stayed on your feet in that sitting room when Vanessa accused you, and you didn't flinch, and you didn't lie." He looked at his coffee cup.
"And because Lily sent me a drawing and I framed it, and I think that means something, even if I'm not entirely sure what."
Grace looked at him for a long moment.
Then her eyes filled.
She turned her head toward the window and pressed her lips together and breathed very carefully.
Lily looked up from her cereal line.
"Mama?"
"I'm fine, baby." Grace reached over and smoothed one of the uneven pigtails.
"I'm fine."
She turned back to Daniel.
Her eyes were still bright but her voice was steady.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't thank me yet," he said.
"I need to ask you something else."
She waited.
"The statement you wrote down — the things you witnessed in the house.
I need you to be willing to share it with my attorney.
Formally.
In case Vanessa pursues any kind of legal action."
"I'll do it," Grace said without hesitating.
"It may be uncomfortable."
"Mr.
Whitfield." Grace looked at him directly.
"I have filed a restraining order against my ex-husband while holding an eight-month-old.
I can handle uncomfortable."
Daniel almost smiled.
Lily held up a piece of cereal toward him across the table.
He took it.
"Thank you," he said to her.
"Welcome," she said, and went back to her line.
Outside, a car passed slowly on the quiet street.
Daniel looked at the window.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message from Paul Renner: *Vanessa's attorney called this morning.
She's threatening a breach of promise claim.
She wants a settlement.*
Daniel read it twice.
May you like
He typed back: *Let her try.*
Then he put the phone in his pocket and finished his coffee.
