Chapter 5 - Karen Mitchell Was Never Just the NannyAdrian’s late wife had been dead for eight months.
Karen Mitchell had worked for the Valente family for six.
That meant she should never have owned a private photograph of Sofia Valente holding Emma.
Not unless someone gave it to her.
Not unless she had known the family before she walked through the front door with a polished résumé and soft voice.
We returned from the tunnel to find the estate no longer pretending to be a home.
It had become a crime scene with marble floors.
Detective Santos’s team moved through the corridors. Uniformed officers questioned staff in the breakfast room. Adrian’s security men stood in tense clusters, furious at being told to stay back by police half their size.
I stayed near the service hallway, arms wrapped around myself.
The place felt too loud now.
Every whisper sounded guilty.
Every closed door looked like a threat.
Adrian stood with Dante near the grand staircase, speaking quietly. He had not touched anything since the tunnel. Not the walls. Not the railing. Not even his phone unless necessary.
I wondered if he was afraid his own house would accuse him.
Mrs. Bell, the head housekeeper, sat at the kitchen table crying into a tissue.
She was in her sixties, stern on good days and terrifying on inventory days. I had seen her make a grown sous-chef apologize to a stack of improperly stored linens. Now she looked small.
“I told Karen to rest,” she kept saying. “She said she had a migraine. I told her to rest.”
Santos sat across from her.
“What time?”
“Eleven fifteen. Maybe eleven twenty.”
“Where was Emma?”
“In the nursery.”
“Who was with her?”
“Karen.”
Santos’s pen moved.
“And after Karen said she had a migraine?”
Mrs. Bell covered her mouth.
“I assumed Emma was asleep.”
“You assumed.”
The old woman flinched.
“I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds like a seven-month-old was left unaccounted for inside a locked nursery.”
Mrs. Bell began crying harder.
I looked away.
I wanted to hate her.
Part of me did.
But another part recognized the horror of realizing your ordinary mistake had become a doorway for evil.
Santos asked, “Did Karen have access to the old service tunnels?”
“No. None of the newer staff did.”
“Who did?”
Mrs. Bell hesitated.
Adrian’s voice came from the doorway.
“Answer.”
The head housekeeper looked at him with fear and shame.
“The family. Senior security. Myself. Mr. Dante. And Mrs. Valente.”
The room went still.
Santos looked up.
“Mrs. Valente is dead.”
Mrs. Bell’s eyes filled again.
“I meant Mrs. Celeste Valente.”
Adrian’s stepmother.
I had heard the name in staff whispers.
Celeste Valente lived in the east wing when she visited, wore white even in winter, and had a way of making servants lower their voices before she entered the room. She had been married to Adrian’s father for nine years before the old man died. No one called her mother. Not to Adrian. Not twice.
Adrian’s expression became unreadable.
Santos watched him.
“Where is Celeste now?”
“Paris,” he said.
Dante’s phone buzzed.
He checked it.
“Not Paris.”
Adrian turned.
Dante’s face hardened.
“Her jet landed at Midway two nights ago.”
Two nights ago.
Before Emma was found.
Before Karen vanished.
Before Harlan disappeared.
I felt the invisible pieces shift.
Santos closed her notebook.
“I’ll need to speak with her.”
“You’ll need to find her first,” Dante said.
Santos smiled without warmth.
“Detective work does occasionally involve that.”
Despite everything, I liked her.
A young officer entered the kitchen holding an evidence bag.
“Detective, we found this in Karen Mitchell’s room.”
Inside was a cell phone.
Not new.
Not expensive.
A burner.
Santos took it.
“Where?”
“Inside the lining of a suitcase.”
Dante stepped closer.
“Can you access it?”
The officer glanced at Santos, not Dante.
“We’ll need tech.”
Santos nodded. “Get it done.”
But before the officer could leave, the phone lit up.
One message appeared on the cracked screen.
No name.
No number.
Just words.
SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD BEFORE THE MAID FOUND HER.
The kitchen became silent.
Mrs. Bell sobbed.
I stared at the message until the letters blurred.
Adrian moved like the room had finally given him permission to become dangerous.
Santos blocked him with one arm.
“No.”
His eyes were black.
“Move.”
“No.”
“That message concerns my daughter.”
“It concerns my investigation.”
“My daughter.”
“My evidence.”
For a second, I thought he might go through her.
Then Emma’s name seemed to stop him.
Not Santos.
Not the law.
Emma.
He stepped back.
Santos handed the phone to the officer.
“Bag it. Now.”
The officer left quickly.
I turned toward the sink, gripping the counter.
My stomach twisted.
She should have been dead.
Not kidnapped.
Not hidden.
Dead.
Someone inside or near that house had wanted a baby to die in the rain.
And I had touched the edge of that evil with my bare hands.
Adrian’s voice came low behind me.
“You should leave.”
I laughed without turning around.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The order.”
“It’s not an order.”
“It sounded like one.”
A pause.
Then, quieter, “Please leave.”
That was worse.
I turned.
He stood too close, then realized and stepped back.
“I can protect you better away from here,” he said.
“You said that about this house.”
Pain crossed his face.
“I know.”
“Emma was carried through a tunnel under your own feet. Karen lied to your face. Harlan treated your daughter and my sister. Celeste may have been in Chicago. And you want me gone because I make you remember you were wrong.”
His expression changed.
“You think that’s why?”
“I think men like you prefer women grateful or afraid.”
“And you are neither.”
“No.”
A faint shadow of something almost respectful touched his eyes.
“No,” he agreed. “You are not.”
Before I could answer, my phone rang.
It was the temporary phone Santos had given me because mine was still evidence.
The screen showed St. Brigid’s Hospital.
I answered immediately.
“Lucia?”
No reply.
Only breathing.
“Lucia?”
Then my sister’s voice came through, faint and shaking.
“Isa.”
My blood chilled.
“What happened?”
“He came.”
The kitchen vanished.
“Who?”
“Harlan.”
I gripped the phone.
“Where are the guards?”
“I don’t know. The lights went out. The nurse told me to stay calm.”
Adrian was already moving, signaling Dante.
I pressed the phone hard against my ear.
“Lucia, listen to me. Is he in the room?”
A door creaked on the other end.
Lucia inhaled sharply.
Then a man’s voice spoke.
Smooth.
Familiar.
“Hello, Isabella.”
Dr. Harlan.
Adrian’s entire body went still.
My voice came out cold.
“If you touch her—”
“I don’t want to touch her,” Harlan said. “I want you to listen.”
Santos reached for her radio.
Harlan continued, “You have involved people who do not understand what is at stake.”
“What is at stake is my sister’s life.”
“And Emma Valente’s, apparently. Though that was unfortunate timing.”
Adrian’s face went deadly.
I held his gaze as I spoke into the phone.
“You drugged a baby.”
“I followed instructions.”
“Whose?”
A soft laugh.
“You really were just supposed to be a maid.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Because maids see things. And because you have something that belongs to us.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“The baby heard your voice. Adrian saw it. That makes you inconvenient.”
My hand tightened.
“So kill me. Leave Lucia.”
“No,” Harlan said. “I think you’re more useful alive.”
A muffled sound came through.
Lucia crying.
My heart split.
“Please,” she whispered.
Harlan’s voice lowered.
“Come alone to the old chapel behind St. Brigid’s. Twenty minutes. No police. No Valente men. Or your sister becomes too unstable for surgery.”
The line went dead.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Adrian said, “No.”
I looked at him.
“Did I ask?”
“You are not going alone.”
“My sister—”
“Will die if you walk into a trap and disappear.”
Santos stepped forward.
“He wants you isolated. That means he’s desperate.”
“He has Lucia.”
“We don’t know that,” Santos said. “He may be near her, he may be using hospital access, but—”
“She was crying!”
My voice cracked.
The room went quiet.
I turned away, shaking.
Adrian spoke softly.
“Isabella.”
I hated the way my name sounded in his mouth when he was careful with it.
Like he had learned it could break.
“I owe you Emma’s life,” he said. “Let me help save Lucia’s.”
I closed my eyes.
I did not trust him.
Not fully.
Maybe not ever.
But I trusted one thing.
Adrian Valente understood what it meant to hear your child cry and know someone else held the knife.
So I turned back.
“We do it my way.”
Santos folded her arms.
“And what is your way?”
I looked at the detective.
Then at Adrian.
May you like
Then at Dante.
“We let Harlan think I’m still just a maid.”
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