Chapter 3 - THE FIRST LIE
Sarah stared at the message.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
Another text arrived.
PEOPLE WHO FORGET THEIR PLACE GET REPLACED.
She immediately took screenshots.
Then the messages vanished.
Not deleted from her phone.
Gone from the conversation entirely.
“What the…”
Leo stirred.
Sarah forced herself to breathe slowly.
She had worked in the Carter house for fourteen months.
She had seen arguments.
Grief.
Business dinners.
Family tension.
But nothing like this.
Ethan had hired Sarah six months after his wife, Claire, died from complications following Leo’s birth.
At first, Sarah had only cleaned.
Then one evening she found Ethan asleep at the kitchen table with a bottle warmer beside his laptop and Leo crying upstairs.
She picked up the baby.
From that night on, she started helping more.
Not because anyone ordered her to.
Because the house had been full of adults who were too busy being broken.
Then Victoria arrived.
Elegant.
Beautiful.
Charming.
And cold whenever Ethan wasn’t looking.
The nursery door opened.
Sarah quickly locked her phone.
Ethan entered.
“How is he?”
“Better.”
He touched Leo’s forehead.
“Dr. Mason is on his way.”
Sarah nodded.
Ethan looked exhausted.
“Victoria says you’ve been hostile toward her.”
Sarah gave a short laugh.
“Of course she does.”
“She says you undermine her with Leo.”
“I don’t.”
“She says you refuse to follow her instructions.”
“Sometimes.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed.
“Sometimes?”
Sarah met his gaze.
“Three days ago she told me not to pick Leo up when he cried because he needed to ‘learn who’s in charge.’”
Ethan’s face changed.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were in Boston.”
“You could have called.”
“And said what? Your fiancée has a parenting opinion I don’t like?”
He had no answer.
Sarah continued.
“Two weeks ago she took his night-light away because she said he was becoming spoiled.”
Ethan stared at the crib.
“He’s eight months old.”
“I know.”
“Anything else?”
Sarah hesitated.
This was where things became dangerous.
“Last Monday I found him alone in the upstairs hallway.”
Ethan looked at her sharply.
“What?”
“In his carrier.”
“Who put him there?”
“Victoria said she needed silence for a phone call.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Before Sarah could continue, Victoria appeared at the doorway.
“You’re still doing it.”
Sarah looked up.
“Doing what?”
“Poisoning him against me.”
Ethan turned.
“Victoria.”
“No. I’m tired of this.”
She stepped inside.
“She acts like Leo is hers. She has from the beginning.”
Sarah stood.
“Don’t do this in front of him.”
Victoria laughed.
“See? She gives orders in my fiancé’s house.”
Ethan lowered his voice.
“Victoria, Sarah just told me you left Leo in the upstairs hallway.”
“For thirty seconds.”
“She said it was while you took a phone call.”
“It was thirty seconds.”
Sarah shook her head.
“It was twelve minutes.”
“You timed me?”
“I was cleaning the study.”
Victoria pointed at her.
“She watches me.”
“I notice a baby crying alone in a hallway.”
“Because you’re obsessed with him!”
Ethan stepped between them.
“Stop.”
The doorbell rang downstairs.
Sarah exhaled.
“That’ll be Dr. Mason.”
Ethan walked out.
Victoria waited until his footsteps disappeared.
Then her expression changed.
No tears.
No trembling.
“You think one broken video is going to save you?”
Sarah’s skin prickled.
“I never said it was broken.”
Victoria smiled.
“Didn’t you?”
Sarah said nothing.
Victoria stepped closer.
“You need this job, Sarah.”
“I need to sleep at night more.”
“You have rent. Your mother depends on you.”
Sarah went still.
She had never told Victoria about her mother.
“How do you know that?”
Victoria smiled.
“People talk.”
“No. They don’t.”
Victoria leaned toward Leo.
Sarah moved between them instantly.
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
“That instinct right there,” she whispered. “That’s going to ruin your life.”
Then she walked out.
Sarah looked down at her phone.
A new email had appeared.
Sender: Ethan Carter.
Subject: FORMAL EMPLOYEE REVIEW.
Sarah opened it.
Her heart sank.
Attached was a complaint filed three weeks earlier.
Against her.
May you like
By Victoria.
And the complaint accused Sarah of “dangerous emotional attachment to the child.”
