Chapter 3: What the Nursery Saw
“Carla, what happened in the nursery?” I asked.
She looked toward Margaret instead of answering.
Detective Elena Ruiz noticed.
“Don’t look at your mother,” Ruiz said.
“Mr.
Wentworth asked you.”
“I went in to measure the windows,” Carla replied.
“Irene twists everything.”
From the stretcher, Irene shook her head.
“There was a camera.”
Carla’s face tightened.
“You were spying on us?”
“I was protecting myself.”
Margaret stepped forward, but an officer blocked her.
“She planted that camera because she’s paranoid.
Pregnancy has made her unstable.”
Irene gripped my hand.
“I started feeling dizzy after every cup of tea Margaret made.
You were in Chicago last Tuesday, so I turned on the nursery camera.”
“What did it record?”
“Carla replacing the tea packets in the kitchen.
Then she came upstairs and found the camera.”
Carla folded her arms.
“If that were true, she would have shown you.”
“She tore it off the wall,” Irene said.
“Then she told me no one would believe a woman who couldn’t stay awake.”
I stared at my sister.
“Did you say that?”
“She’s making it up.”
“The recording uploads to the cloud,” Irene whispered.
Carla’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Ruiz held out her hand.
“Where is the login information?”
“In a note behind the nursery light switch.”
Margaret lunged toward Irene.
“You deceitful little—”
“Take another step,” Ruiz said, “and you’ll be restrained.”
A paramedic checked Irene’s monitor.
“We need to leave now.”
I walked beside the stretcher, but Irene pulled me closer.
“The camera recorded more than Carla,” she said.
“Your mother came into the nursery after midnight.”
“What was she doing?”
“Talking to someone on the phone about your father’s trust.”
Margaret’s voice rose behind us.
“Austin, don’t listen to her!
She has wanted your money from the day she met you.”
I turned around.
“Then why were my documents in your suitcase?”
“You asked me to protect them.”
“At one forty-seven in the morning?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
At the hospital, Dr.
Singh drew Irene’s bl00d while Detective Ruiz sat near the door.
Irene flinched when the needle went in, and I reached for her hand.
“Will the baby be all right?” I asked.
“We have a heartbeat,” Dr.
Singh said.
“But I need to know everything she may have consumed.”
“Tea,” Irene said.
“Margaret made it every evening.”
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
I pulled my hand away before I understood what I was doing.
“Six weeks?
Why didn’t you tell me?”
Irene stared at the empty space between us.
“Because every time I tried, you said, ‘Mom means well.’”
“Irene—”
“You told me she was lonely.
You told me Carla was going through a difficult time.
You asked me to be patient while they were teaching me to doubt my own mind.”
Her voice cracked.
She turned her face toward the wall.
Nurse Patel stepped between us and raised the bed rail.
“Mr.
Wentworth, your wife needs someone beside her, not another person asking her to defend herself.”
The words landed harder than a shout.
I moved back to the bed.
“You’re right.”
Irene covered her eyes.
“I should have listened,” I said.
“I should have seen it.”
She lowered her hands.
Tears ran into her hair.
“I kept waiting for you to notice.”
I rested my forehead against her fingers.
“I notice now.
And I will never ask you to face them alone again.”
Detective Ruiz’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and looked directly at me.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The trust company opened at seven for an emergency appointment,” she said.
“Someone has already filed the transfer.”
“That’s impossible.
They didn’t have the originals.”
Ruiz stood.
“They had documents bearing your signature, a medical declaration claiming you were mentally unfit, and a witness who swore you signed everything yesterday.”
My phone vibrated.
May you like
The message came from Wentworth Family Trust Services.
**Your authority over all trust accounts has been suspended, effective immediately.**
