Chapter 3 - The Price of Silence
“She’s here,” Damon said.
“She’s safe.”
The woman made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob.
“Who is this?”
“Damon Cross.”
Silence.
Then, sharply, “Put June on.”
He looked toward the garden.
“You know June?”
“She hired me.
Please.”
He brought the phone to her.
June listened, her expression draining.
“Yes, Mara.
She’s right here.”
June handed the phone to Nora.
“Mom?”
The child’s face crumpled.
“No, I didn’t run away.
I waited.
I got scared.”
Damon stepped back to give her room.
Beside him, Elisa said, “Well.
That settles the emergency.”
He looked at her.
“Where is she?”
“I assume she went home.”
June took the phone when Nora finished.
Then she covered the microphone.
“She’s at a gas station on Mercer.
Security left her there.
Her wrist is hurt.”
Damon called emergency services from his own phone.
He gave Mara’s location, reported what he had been told, and asked for medical help and an officer.
Elisa caught his arm.
“Do you understand what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t even heard our side.”
“Your side can speak to the police.”
Her fingers fell away.
While June stayed with Nora, Damon instructed the property manager to preserve security recordings and entry logs.
No one was to erase or overwrite anything.
Then he returned to the child.
She had barely touched the cake.
“Your mom is getting help.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“I don’t know everything yet.”
“People say that when the answer’s yes.”
He sat across from her.
“Then here’s what I do know.
You didn’t do anything wrong.
And asking for food isn’t wrong.”
Nora studied him.
“Even fancy food?”
“Especially when we’ve got enough to share.”
Twenty minutes later, a patrol officer arrived at the estate.
A second officer remained with Mara while she received care.
Elisa gave her account beside the fountain.
An employee had stolen confidential documents.
Security had escorted her away.
Any injury was unfortunate and unrelated.
Damon listened without interrupting.
Then June spoke.
“Mara asked me to check something this afternoon.”
Elisa turned.
“June.”
“She said the meal records were wrong.”
“Be very careful.”
June’s hands shook, but she continued.
“She showed me an invoice for six hundred dinners.”
Damon glanced toward the serving tables.
“What’s wrong with six hundred dinners?”
June looked at Nora.
“They were billed to the children’s shelter.”
The officer lifted his pen.
“And where were they delivered?”
May you like
June pointed at the guests’ abandoned plates.
“Here.”
