Chapter 2 - Someone Else Was Inside
Lily screamed.
Daniel dropped to one knee and wrapped both arms around her.
“Stay with me.”
The house was almost completely dark.
Only the emergency lights near the staircase glowed faintly red.
Daniel could still hear the emergency dispatcher speaking through his phone.
“Sir, are you safe?”
“I don’t know.”
“Police are on the way.”
A crash came from the kitchen.
Daniel looked up.
“Nora.”
No answer.
He reached for the flashlight on his phone.
The beam cut across the dining room.
Nora was gone.
Daniel stood.
“Lily, hold my shirt.”
She grabbed the back of his sweater with both hands.
He moved toward the kitchen.
The brown bottle was no longer on the counter.
The rear door was open.
Rain blew across the tile.
Daniel swore under his breath.
Then something moved near the pantry.
He spun around.
A shadow disappeared behind the door.
“Who’s there?”
Nothing.
Daniel grabbed a heavy wooden chair and shoved Lily behind the island.
“Stay down.”
He approached the pantry.
His pulse hammered in his ears.
He pulled the door open.
Empty.
Then he heard the front door slam.
Daniel rushed into the foyer.
Nora stood near the entrance.
She was soaked.
Daniel stared at her.
“Where were you?”
“Outside.”
“Why?”
“I panicked.”
“You disappeared when the lights went out.”
“I thought you were going to have me arrested.”
“I am.”
Nora looked past him.
“Where’s Lily?”
Daniel immediately moved to block her view.
“Don’t worry about Lily.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Nora closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she seemed almost calm.
“You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“The mistake was bringing you into this house.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You really believe I tried to poison you?”
“I believe my daughter.”
“You believe a frightened child over the woman you were going to marry next month?”
“Yes.”
Nora laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Then you deserve what happens next.”
Police arrived three minutes later.
Two officers separated Daniel and Nora.
Another photographed the spilled tea.
A paramedic examined Lily’s wrist.
Daniel watched as an officer carefully collected the broken cup and a sample of the liquid.
Then Daniel remembered the bottle.
“There was something on the kitchen counter.”
“What?”
“A small brown bottle.”
They searched.
Nothing.
Nora denied knowing anything about it.
She also denied adding anything dangerous to Daniel’s tea.
She claimed Lily had misunderstood a harmless herbal supplement.
Daniel did not believe her.
But without the bottle, the police could not immediately prove what had happened.
Nora was taken away for questioning because of Lily’s injury and the suspicious circumstances.
Before stepping into the patrol car, she looked directly at Daniel.
“You should check your security system.”
Daniel froze.
Nora smiled faintly.
“Ask yourself why the cameras stopped recording twenty minutes before dinner.”
The car door closed.
Daniel immediately opened the security application on his phone.
Every camera in the mansion had gone offline at 6:42 p.m.
Not from a power failure.
Someone had entered the administrator account and shut them down manually.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Only four people had administrator access.
Daniel himself.
His security chief, Marcus Hale.
Nora.
And Daniel’s younger brother, Ethan.
Daniel slowly looked toward the dark windows of the house.
May you like
Because Ethan had told him he was spending the entire week in New York.
Yet according to the security log, Ethan’s access code had been used from inside Daniel’s mansion less than an hour earlier.
