Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN IN THE RIVER
They searched the Hudson tributary all night.
Divers.
Boats.
Helicopters.
Dogs along the shoreline.
No Renata.
Only one of her shoes.
Blood inside the wrecked SUV.
And enough uncertainty to keep every one of us awake.
Mercer survived surgery.
Then requested a lawyer.
Daniel had a concussion, two cracked ribs, and a personality completely unchanged by kidnapping.
When Grant visited his hospital room, Daniel’s first words were:
“I assume I can expense the shirt.”
Grant laughed for the first time in days.
“Yes.”
“It’s Italian.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
Daniel’s humor faded.
“She’s insane, Grant.”
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
He explained that Renata had talked constantly while holding him.
About Catherine.
About Lily.
About me.
According to Daniel, Renata believed she had been robbed repeatedly.
Catherine had “stolen” Grant.
Lily had “stolen” Catherine’s loyalty.
I had “stolen” Lily.
Grant himself had “stolen” the future Renata believed she was owed.
“She doesn’t think she did anything wrong,” Daniel said.
Grant sat beside him.
“That’s what scares me.”
Mercer eventually talked too.
His loyalty ended when prosecutors presented attempted-kidnapping charges carrying decades in prison.
Renata had paid him to help disappear.
He had arranged the motel.
Burner phones.
Vehicles.
Hospital entry.
The warehouse.
But he insisted he didn’t know where she went after the crash.
“She jumped,” he told detectives.
“Into the river?”
“Yes.”
“Was she injured?”
“Yes.”
“Could she survive?”
Mercer stared.
“You don’t know Renata.”
That became the sentence repeated across news channels.
People assumed she was dead.
Police did not.
Neither did Marcus.
“We act as if she’s alive until we have a body,” he said.
Grant agreed.
So we returned to the estate under guard.
Lily had been kept away from every detail.
She knew Daniel was hurt.
She knew Renata was “still missing.”
That was enough.
Her speech continued improving.
Some days she talked almost normally.
Other days she went silent when frightened.
Dr. Patel said both were okay.
Healing is not a staircase.
It is weather.
It changes.
One afternoon, I found Grant assembling a dollhouse with Lily.
Calling what he was doing “assembling” was generous.
He had somehow installed the roof upside down.
Lily looked horrified.
“Daddy.”
“What?”
“Wrong.”
Grant looked at the instructions.
“They’re badly written.”
I leaned against the doorway.
“They’re pictures.”
He glared.
Lily laughed.
Grant pointed at me.
“You could help.”
“I’m enjoying this.”
“Cruel.”
“Consequences.”
Lily handed him a tiny plastic window.
He studied it.
“Where does this go?”
“Window hole.”
“Thank you, architect.”
I watched them together.
This was what Catherine had wanted.
Not a perfect father.
A present one.
Grant had changed his travel schedule permanently.
He promoted Daniel to oversee more company operations.
He transferred chairmanship duties to an executive committee for ninety days.
Business magazines called it a surprising step back.
They didn’t understand.
Grant was finally stepping forward.
Into his daughter’s life.
My own role became complicated.
Technically, I was no longer Lily’s nanny.
Grant had insisted on terminating my employment.
I nearly hit him.
Then he explained.
“You cannot work for me if we are going to explore what this is.”
I stared.
“What what is?”
He looked annoyed.
“You are going to make me say it?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
We were standing in the greenhouse.
Of course.
Somehow every emotionally dangerous conversation happened there.
“I care about you.”
My heart hammered.
“That sounds very HR-approved.”
He sighed.
“Emma.”
“I’m listening.”
“I think about you when you’re not in the room.”
I stopped smiling.
“I worry when you’re hurt. I argue with you more than I’ve argued with anyone except Catherine.”
“That’s romantic.”
“I’m bad at this.”
“Yes.”
He stepped closer.
“I want to take you to dinner.”
“That’s your grand declaration?”
“I had a better one until you kept interrupting.”
I laughed.
Then the fear hit.
“Grant, people already think I did this for you.”
“I know.”
“They’ll say I used Lily.”
“I know.”
“Your board will hate it.”
“Some will.”
“Renata will use it.”
“If she’s alive.”
“She’s alive.”
Grant’s expression became serious.
“You believe that?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
He reached for my hand.
“Which is why dinner can wait.”
I squeezed his fingers.
“Good.”
He smiled.
“But when this is over?”
“When this is over.”
The words became a promise.
Maybe.
Five days later, the river search was suspended.
No body.
Police quietly moved the investigation from recovery to fugitive status.
Renata was alive until proven otherwise.
Then my mother noticed something.
She had been sitting with Lily in the sunroom looking through old photographs.
Catherine.
Grant.
Baby Lily.
The original estate staff.
My mother called me over.
“Who’s that?”
She pointed to a woman standing in the background of a photograph taken at Lily’s third birthday.
“That’s Renata.”
“No.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“I mean behind her.”
An older woman stood near the catering table.
Short gray hair.
Glasses.
I didn’t recognize her.
Grant did.
“Vivian Cole.”
“Who?”
“Renata’s mother.”
I looked at the image.
“Where does she live?”
Grant’s face changed.
“Vermont.”
Police had checked Renata’s known family connections.
Vivian claimed she hadn’t spoken to her daughter in months.
But when Detective Whitaker reviewed highway cameras north of the crash site, she found something.
A pickup truck registered to Vivian Cole passed a toll camera at three twenty-seven in the morning after Renata disappeared.
Forty miles from the river.
Driving north.
Vivian was not behind the wheel.
A man was.
Unidentified.
Police obtained a warrant.
By sunset, teams surrounded Vivian’s isolated farmhouse outside Manchester, Vermont.
No Renata.
But blood matching Renata’s DNA was found on towels in the bathroom.
Someone had treated an injury there.
Vivian denied everything.
Then investigators found a hidden room beneath the barn.
Inside were cash.
Clothing.
Medical supplies.
Three passports.
And photographs.
Hundreds.
The Callahan estate.
Lily.
Me.
Grant.
One photograph stopped my heart.
It had been taken two days earlier.
From across the road outside the estate.
We were standing in the greenhouse.
Grant’s hand holding mine.
On the back, written in Renata’s handwriting:
She thinks she gets my ending.
That night, Grant ordered the greenhouse curtains closed.
At eleven, Lily came into my room.
She climbed into bed without speaking.
I held her.
Minutes later, the estate alarm sounded.
Not the perimeter.
Not the gates.
Inside.
Marcus’s voice came over the intercom.
“Lock your doors. Now.”
I ran to the door and turned the deadbolt.
Lily sat upright.
“Emma?”
“I’m here.”
Footsteps pounded in the hallway.
Then silence.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Grant.
Stay inside.
Another alert appeared.
Security breach.
Second floor.
My floor.
I backed away from the door.
Lily clung to my waist.
Then came three soft knocks.
“Emma?”
Grant’s voice.
I started toward the door.
Stopped.
Something was wrong.
Grant had a key.
He wouldn’t knock.
“Emma,” the voice came again.
“Open the door.”
Lily shook her head.
“No.”
I stared.
“What?”
May you like
She whispered:
“Not Daddy.”
