Chapter 3 - Six Weeks in Uniform
Grace sat in a hotel office with an ice pack against her wrist.
Through the glass wall, she could see Ethan kneeling beside Lily.
He kept trying to touch his daughter’s shoulder.
Each time he moved too quickly, she stiffened.
Officer Ruiz pulled up a chair.
“How long have you worked for the Caldwells?”
“Six weeks.”
“Any conflict with Ms. Vale before tonight?”
“Yes.”
Ruiz waited.
Grace studied the melting ice inside the towel.
“She didn’t like that Lily talked to me.”
“That’s a broad accusation.”
“Yesterday she told the girl that good children don’t make people choose sides.”
“How did you hear that?”
“I was changing the flowers outside the breakfast room.”
“And the kick?”
Grace looked up.
“I taught taekwondo for eleven years.”
“You understand why we need more than your explanation.”
“I do.”
The door opened.
Ethan entered alone.
His tie hung loose.
“Lily wants Grace,” he said.
Ruiz glanced at him.
“We’re still taking her statement.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
Grace almost laughed.
Six weeks ago, this man had walked past her while dictating the price of a plane into his phone.
Now he stood against a filing cabinet because his daughter had asked for the maid.
Ruiz stepped outside to speak with her partner.
Ethan waited until the door closed.
“Why would Sabrina have a syringe?”
“I don’t know what was in it.”
“You attacked her without knowing?”
“I saw her pull off the cap.
I heard Lily say no.”
“She could have been treating something.”
“Your daughter was backing away.”
Ethan looked through the glass.
Lily sat curled beside a hotel employee, clutching a paper cup she hadn’t touched.
Grace lowered her voice.
“What would you have wanted me to do?
Wait until the needle went in?”
He had no answer.
His phone buzzed.
Miles’s name appeared.
Ethan silenced it.
Then Grace’s phone lit up on the table.
Ruiz had allowed her to keep it while they spoke.
A message filled the screen.
Unknown number.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED OUT OF OLIVIA’S BUSINESS.
Ethan saw his dead wife’s name.
He looked at Grace.
“How do you know Olivia?”
Grace closed her eyes.
There it was.
The question she had spent six weeks trying to make him ask.
May you like
When she opened them, he was staring at her as though she had become a stranger.
“I didn’t apply for that job by accident,” she said.
