Chapter 2 - What Quiet Costs
“Put the bottle down,” I told the guard who had reached for it.
“Leave everything where it is.”
My voice sounded steady.
My hands weren’t.
Lena sat on the carpet with both boys tucked against her.
Nico kept pulling at her collar.
Noah had gone quiet in a way I suddenly hated.
“Look at me,” I told Margaret.
“Did you give them anything today?”
“She’s making this up.”
“Did you give them anything?”
“They needed routine.
That girl lets them run wild.”
I took one step toward her.
My security chief, Harris, moved beside me.
“Sir.
Stay with the boys.”
He was right.
I hated that he had to tell me.
I knelt beside Noah and touched his cheek.
“Hey, buddy.”
His eyes opened.
He turned into Lena’s shoulder.
The ambulance crew arrived before the police.
A paramedic crouched near us and asked questions I couldn’t answer.
When had they last eaten?
When had they last slept?
Had they vomited?
What had they been given?
I knew the date of my next board meeting.
I didn’t know when my sons had last eaten.
Lena answered everything she could.
“Lunch at eleven.
No medicine from me.
Noah’s been unusually sleepy after Margaret takes over.
I wrote the times down.”
The paramedic looked up.
“You have those notes?”
Lena nodded.
Margaret made a sharp sound from the foyer.
“Don’t you dare.”
A police officer stepped between them.
“Ma’am, stop talking to her.”
We rode to the hospital together.
Nico screamed when someone tried to separate him from Lena, so she stayed close while the crew worked.
I sat beside them with my knees pressed together.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
Lena stared at the ambulance floor.
“I tried.”
My first instinct was to say she hadn’t.
Then I remembered the messages Margaret screened.
The household updates she summarized.
The evenings she told me the boys were already asleep.
“How?”
“Emails.
An envelope.
Once outside your office.”
I remembered that, too.
Lena standing near the study.
Margaret saying the nanny needed an advance.
Me checking my watch.
“I told you to handle it through Margaret.”
Lena nodded.
At the hospital, while nurses took the boys behind a curtain, she finally looked at me.
May you like
“I have proof,” she whispered.
“But I don’t know if it’s still there.”
