Chapter 2: The Phone Call Nobody at That Table Expected
Ethan pushed back from the dining table so fast his chair scraped the marble floor.
Every investor at the table went still.
He was already moving toward the staircase when Madison's voice cut across the room.
"Ethan.
Sit down.
She's being dramatic."
He stopped.
Turned slowly.
"You knew?"
Madison set down her wine glass with a small, patient smile.
"Clara is clumsy.
She bumps into things.
It's not my problem she can't manage a kitchen without hurting herself."
Something shifted in Ethan's face.
He didn't answer.
He took the stairs two at a time.
What he found in the upstairs hallway stopped him cold.
Clara was sitting on the floor outside the linen closet, her back against the wall, one hand pressed to her left arm.
Lily was crouched beside her, still holding Ethan's phone with both hands, watching the staircase like she had been waiting for him for a very long time.
"Mr.
Ethan," Lily whispered.
"She pushed Mommy into the shelf.
Because Mommy wouldn't leave."
Clara shook her head quickly.
"Lily, don't—"
"She does it when you're not home," Lily said.
Her voice was steady in the way that only children who have learned to survive are steady.
"She told Mommy that if she told you, we'd both be gone by morning."
Ethan looked at Clara.
Clara looked at the floor.
And then his phone buzzed in Lily's hand — a message from a number he didn't recognize.
*She's not the first one Madison got rid of.
Ask her what happened to the last housekeeper.*
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What Clara had been hiding — and what Madison had done before she ever arrived at the mansion — is all in the full story.
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The truth is worse than anyone at that dinner table imagined.
