Chapter 5: Everything She Wrote Down in the Dark
The notebook was exactly where Clara had left it.
She lifted the loose floorboard in the corner of the cottage bedroom — the one that had been loose since she arrived, the one she had never reported to maintenance — and pulled it out.
It was a plain composition notebook, black cover, the kind sold in drugstores for two dollars.
She had filled sixty-one pages.
She carried it back to the mansion without running, even though every instinct told her to run.
Ethan was sitting on the floor beside the sofa when she returned, his back against the cushions, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled to the elbows.
Lily had shifted in her sleep and her hand had found his shoulder.
He hadn't moved away from it.
Clara stopped in the doorway.
He looked up.
"She's been out the whole time.
Didn't even stir."
Clara crossed the room and sat in the chair across from him.
She set the notebook on the desk.
"The first entry is October ninth," she said.
"Three days after Madison moved in."
Ethan reached for the notebook.
He opened it to the first page and read.
He didn't speak while he read.
He turned pages slowly.
Clara watched his face — the careful stillness of it, the way his expression didn't change so much as deepen, like water getting darker the further down you looked.
He stopped at a page near the middle.
Read it twice.
"November twenty-second," he said.
"You wrote that she told you Lily was not welcome in the main house.
That if Lily was seen in any room other than the kitchen or the back hallway, you would be terminated."
"Yes."
"I never gave that instruction."
"I know."
"Lily leaves drawings outside my office every week."
"I know that too.
She does it early, before Madison is awake.
She's been timing it for months." Clara's voice was steady.
"She's five years old and she already knows how to work around a schedule to stay safe.
That's not something a child should know."
Ethan closed the notebook.
He set it on the desk and put his hand flat on the cover, as if he were steadying it.
"December fourth," he said.
"You wrote that you heard Madison on the phone.
That she told someone — you didn't hear who — that she had found a way to make the last one leave and she would do the same with this one."
"I was in the hallway outside the sitting room.
The door was half open.
She didn't know I was there."
"Did you hear a name?
Anything that told you who she was talking to?"
Clara hesitated.
"She said 'Don't worry about Ethan.
He doesn't notice what happens in his own house.' And then she laughed."
The room was very quiet.
Lily made a small sound in her sleep and resettled.
Ethan looked at her.
"She's right," he said.
"I didn't notice."
"You were busy."
"That's not an excuse."
"No," Clara said.
"It isn't."
He looked at her.
It was the first time she had said something direct to him without softening it, without the reflex apology that came from seven months of making herself smaller than she was.
He didn't seem bothered by it.
He seemed to think she was right.
"The message tonight," he said.
"The one from the unknown number.
I need to know who sent it."
"I have a guess."
"Tell me."
"There's a woman named Ruth.
She runs the dry-cleaning service that picks up from the house every Tuesday.
She knew Donna Reyes.
They were friends.
She's seen Madison on the doorstep three or four times when I've been signing for the pickup." Clara paused.
"Two months ago, Ruth pulled me aside while Madison was inside.
She told me to be careful.
She said Donna had tried to report what happened to her and that Madison's family had made it go away."
"Made it go away how?"
"I don't know exactly.
Ruth said there was a complaint filed somewhere — she didn't know if it was a labor board or a police report — and that it was withdrawn.
She said Donna was paid to withdraw it."
Ethan was very still.
"Ruth has my number," Clara said.
"I gave it to her two months ago.
She said if she ever found out anything more, she'd contact me." She nodded toward the phone on the desk.
"She must have found your number instead."
"My personal cell isn't public."
"No.
But Donna might have had it.
From when she worked here."
Ethan stood.
He picked up his phone and looked at the unknown number again.
Then he opened his contacts and scrolled to a name.
He pressed call and put the phone to his ear.
It rang twice.
"James," he said.
"I need you to find someone for me.
Her name is Donna Reyes.
She worked at my Greenwich property until eighteen months ago.
I need to know where she is, and I need to know what happened when she left." He paused.
"Tonight.
Yes, I know what time it is."
He ended the call.
Clara looked at him.
"Your lawyer?"
"My head of security." He set the phone down.
"If Madison's family paid Donna to stay quiet, there's a paper trail.
Money always leaves a trail."
From the far end of the house, the sound of the dinner party drifted under the door — crystal, laughter, the low murmur of important men talking about important things.
Madison's voice rose briefly above the rest, warm and certain, the voice of a woman who had never once doubted that the room belonged to her.
Ethan looked toward the sound.
Then he looked back at Clara.
"She's going to come back in here," Clara said.
"When the guests leave.
She's going to have a story ready."
"I know."
"She's very good at stories."
"So am I," Ethan said.
"I built a company on finding the holes in other people's systems." He picked up the notebook.
"She didn't know you were keeping this."
"No."
"That's the hole."
He set the notebook in the top drawer of the desk and locked it with a small key from his pocket.
Outside, a car door closed.
Then another.
The investors were beginning to leave.
May you like
The dinner party was ending.
And Madison Vale was about to walk through that door with a new story already arranged behind her eyes.
