Chapter 3: What the Maid Remembered
Claire descended three steps.
Just three.
Enough to be seen, not enough to be cornered.
"I want her out of this house by tonight," she said.
"Her and the child."
Dominic didn't move.
"Come down here, Claire."
"I don't think I will."
"That wasn't a request."
She studied him for a moment.
Then she came down the rest of the stairs slowly, the silk robe trailing behind her, the coffee cup still in her hand as though she were walking into a Sunday morning and not a stone cellar with a broken lock on the floor.
She stopped six feet from him.
"You're looking at me like I'm the problem," she said.
"That woman has been in love with you since the day she walked through our door.
I saw it.
Nathan saw it.
Everyone saw it except you."
"Nathan." Dominic turned.
"Did you see it?"
Nathan had moved to the far wall.
His arms were crossed.
"Claire brought it to my attention a few weeks ago.
She was concerned."
"Concerned enough to lock her in a cellar."
"I didn't say that."
"Then say what you did say.
Exactly."
Nathan's jaw tightened.
"Claire told me Mia had been going through your private correspondence.
Your financial records.
She thought Mia might be passing information to someone outside."
Dominic looked at Claire.
"Is that the story?"
"It's not a story.
I found printed copies of your Atlantic City account transfers in her room.
I have them."
"Show me."
Claire set the coffee cup on the bottom step.
She reached into the pocket of her robe and produced a folded sheet of paper.
She held it out without stepping closer.
Dominic took it.
He unfolded it.
He looked at it for four seconds.
"This is dated eight months ago," he said.
"I signed off on this transfer myself.
It's a payroll document."
Claire didn't blink.
"She had no reason to have it."
"She managed the household accounts.
She had every reason."
"Dominic—"
"Who tied her wrists?"
The question landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Claire's mouth opened.
Closed.
"I want a name," Dominic said.
"Right now.
Who physically tied Mia Carter's wrists and put her in that cellar?"
Nathan pushed off the wall.
"Dom, let's take this upstairs.
Get everyone calm.
The doctor is with Mia.
Let her recover.
We can sort out what actually happened—"
"Nathan." Dominic's voice didn't rise.
It went the other direction.
Quieter.
Flatter.
The way it went right before something became irreversible.
"I have known you for seventeen years.
I have trusted you with things I have trusted no one else with.
So I am going to ask you one time, and I need you to understand what it means that I am only asking once."
Nathan said nothing.
"Did you know she was in that cellar?"
The silence stretched for five full seconds.
"I thought it would only be for a day," Nathan said.
"Until you got back.
Until Claire could talk to you privately and explain what she'd found."
The air in the room changed.
"A day," Dominic repeated.
"She wasn't supposed to be there that long.
You were meant to come back Thursday.
You stayed two extra days."
"She was in there for three days, Nathan.
Her lips were cracked.
She couldn't lift her arms."
"I know." Nathan's voice dropped.
"I know.
I checked on her.
I brought water."
"You brought water." Dominic looked at him for a long moment.
"And you said nothing.
Every call.
Every report.
You said nothing."
"Claire said if you found out the wrong way, it would look worse than it was.
She said she needed to be the one to tell you.
She said—"
"I'm going to stop you there." Dominic turned back to Claire.
"What were you going to tell me?"
Claire picked up her coffee cup again.
Her hand was steady.
"That your housekeeper had developed an obsession.
That she needed to be let go.
That I had handled it quietly to protect you from the embarrassment of a scene."
"And the bruises on her arms?"
"She struggled.
That wasn't intended."
"The knocking Harper heard.
Was that intended?"
Something shifted in Claire's face.
Just slightly.
The first crack.
"The child wasn't supposed to hear that."
Dominic walked to the staircase.
He put one hand on the iron rail.
"Marcus," he called up.
His guard appeared at the top.
"Bring me Mia's phone.
Whatever personal items she had in her room.
Don't let anyone else touch them."
He looked back at Claire and Nathan.
"Neither of you leaves this property."
He climbed the stairs without looking back.
He was almost at the top when Mia's voice reached him from somewhere down the hall above.
She was speaking to the doctor.
Her words were too low to make out.
But one sentence carried.
May you like
"There's something else," she said.
"Something I found before they took me."
