My fiancée thought I was in London.

I asked the social worker to come inside.

Her name was Patricia Odom.

She had a calm face and a careful way of moving, the kind that came from years of walking into houses where things were not what they appeared.

She sat at the kitchen table across from Grace and opened her notebook without making it feel like an interrogation.

Vanessa had followed us in.

I hadn't stopped her.

I wanted her in the room.

"Mrs.

Miller," Patricia said.

"I want to be clear — I'm here today in a neutral capacity.

I was contacted by Ms.

Vanessa Ashworth and asked to observe the household.

What I observed on the terrace is part of my record.

I'm now asking for your account of the last six weeks."

Grace sat with her hands flat on the table.

The mark on her cheek had deepened to a bruise.

"Where would you like me to start?" Grace said.

"Start with the first night you slept outside the children's rooms."

Grace looked at me briefly.

I nodded.

"It was a Wednesday," she said.

"Mr.

Calloway had been in London for nine days.

Miss Sophie came to my room at eleven at night.

She said she'd heard shouting.

I went to check.

Ms.

Ashworth was on the phone in the hallway outside the children's wing, and she was very — her voice was raised.

When she saw me, she ended the call."

"What did she say to you?"

"She said I had no business being in that part of the house after hours.

I said I was checking on the children.

She said if I came back to that hallway again after ten o'clock, she would have me removed from the property."

"And you came back anyway."

"Every night."

Patricia wrote something.

"Did you document any of this?"

Grace reached into the front pocket of her uniform and placed a small notebook on the table.

It was the kind sold at corner drugstores, spiral-bound, the cover soft from handling.

"I wrote it down," Grace said.

"Every night.

What time.

What I heard.

What I saw.

What the children said to me in the morning."

Vanessa's voice came from the doorway.

"That's the account of a disgruntled employee.

She was written up twice for—"

"Sit down," I said.

"Ethan—"

"Sit down or leave the house.

Those are the two options."

She sat.

Patricia picked up Grace's notebook and began reading from the first page.

The kitchen was very quiet.

Outside, I could hear the catering staff beginning to break down the terrace tables.

The sound of champagne glasses being wrapped in cloth.

Sophie and Caleb were upstairs.

I had asked Mrs.

Odom's colleague — a younger woman named Dana who had arrived with Patricia — to stay with them.

Caleb had fallen asleep on the sofa with the rabbit on his chest.

Sophie had not slept.

She was sitting up, Dana had told me, reading a book she wasn't reading.

Patricia looked up from the notebook.

"Ms.

Ashworth.

On the fourteenth of last month, did you remove a photograph from the children's bedroom?"

Vanessa's expression didn't change.

"I redecorated.

The children's rooms needed updating."

"The photograph was of their mother," Grace said.

"It was in a frame that didn't match the new—"

"It was the only photograph of their mother in their room," Grace said.

"Sophie cried for two days.

I found it in the recycling bin in the garage and I put it back."

Patricia made a note.

"On the twenty-first," Patricia continued, reading from the notebook, "did you tell Sophie that her father was considering sending her to boarding school in Switzerland?"

A pause.

"I mentioned it as a possibility.

Children should be prepared for—"

"She's seven," I said.

"She's mature for her age."

"She thought I was sending her away." My voice stayed flat.

"She thought I didn't want her anymore.

That's what she thought, Vanessa.

A seven-year-old child thought her father was discarding her."

Vanessa looked at the table.

"The notebook goes into evidence," Patricia said quietly.

She looked at me.

"Mr.

Calloway, I need to tell you something clearly.

I came here today at Ms.

Ashworth's request.

What I have observed and what I am reading are not consistent with the household she described to me.

I will be filing my own report.

It will reflect what I actually witnessed."

Vanessa stood up.

"You were hired as a neutral observer—"

"I was," Patricia said.

"I am."

She closed her notebook, placed Grace's diary carefully beside it, and looked at Vanessa with an expression that was entirely professional and entirely final.

"Ma'am, I'd recommend you contact your attorney."

Vanessa's jaw tightened.

She looked at me.

Something moved behind her eyes — not regret, but the first real recognition that the numbers she had calculated were no longer adding up.

"This isn't finished," she said.

She walked out of the kitchen.

I heard her heels on the hallway floor, then the sound of the front door.

Then nothing.

Grace let out a breath so slow and controlled it was clear she had been holding it for a very long time.

"She'll come back," Grace said.

"I know."

"She has copies of everything.