Chapter 3: What a Mother Keeps
Her name was Nora Voss.
She said it quietly, like she wasn't sure I deserved to hear it yet.
Then she folded her hands on the desk and waited.
I looked at the photograph again.
Genevieve standing beside a man I didn't know, in a building I'd never seen.
Her expression wasn't afraid.
It wasn't guilty.
She looked like someone making a decision.
"Genevieve told me she was estranged from her family," I said.
"She was estranged from her father.
Not from me." Nora's voice didn't waver.
"We spoke every week until six months before she d*ed.
Then the calls stopped.
I thought—" She paused.
"I thought she'd chosen her new life over me.
It took me two years to understand why she really went quiet."
"And why did she?"
Nora looked at the photograph, not at me.
"Because someone told her to."
I stood up.
"Who?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Her hands moved to her coat pocket, then stopped.
A decision being made.
"Before I tell you anything else," she said, "I need you to understand something.
I didn't come here to hurt you.
I came here because those children are the only part of my daughter I have left.
And they are running out of time."
"Then stop protecting whoever you're protecting and tell me what you know."
"I'm not protecting anyone." Her eyes came up to mine.
"I'm making sure you're ready to hear it."
Prescott was still standing near the door.
I glanced at him.
He left without being asked.
The room was very quiet.
"Genevieve contacted me in the last weeks of her life," Nora said.
"She was frightened.
She said she'd found something — documents, she called them — that proved the children's illness wasn't natural.
That it had been introduced.
Slowly.
Over time."
The word landed like something physical.
"Introduced."
"Yes."
"That's not possible.
They've been inside this estate.
Every person who enters is screened.
Their food is prepared by staff I've employed for years.
Their medical team was selected by—" I stopped.
Nora watched me stop.
"Selected by whom?" she asked.
I didn't answer.
Because the answer was sitting in my chest like a stone.
The twins' medical team had been assembled eighteen months ago, after the first symptoms appeared.
I had been in crisis.
Genevieve had just d*ed.
I was not thinking clearly.
I had let someone else make the calls.
"Who recommended Dr.
Yates?" Nora asked softly.
My jaw tightened.
"That's not a question you should be asking."
"It's the only question that matters."
I walked to the window.
Below, the grounds were still.
Guards at their posts.
Cameras sweeping their arcs.
Everything exactly as it should be.
"Genevieve sent you the photograph," I said.
"What else did she send?"
Nora reached into her coat again.
This time she didn't stop.
She placed a small envelope on the desk beside the photograph.
"She sent me a letter.
And a name."
I turned.
"She said if anything happened to her, and if the children ever became sick, I should find you.
She said you were a good man who trusted the wrong people." Nora's voice broke for just a moment.
"She said you wouldn't believe it at first.
But that eventually you would."
I crossed the room and picked up the envelope.
My name was written on the front in Genevieve's handwriting.
I had not seen her handwriting in two years.
My hands were not steady when I opened it.
The letter was one page.
The first line read: *Lawson, if you're reading this, I didn't make it.
I'm sorry.
There's something you need to know about Crosby.*
I read the name twice.
May you like
Crosby Vane.
The same man whose men had been spotted near my south fence that morning.
