Chapter 4 - CATHERINE’S WARNING
I stared at the photograph until the room around me seemed to disappear.
“Who gave you this?”
My mother adjusted the blanket over her knees.
“I told you. A woman.”
“What did she look like?”
“About fifty. Gray hair. Nervous.”
“Did she give you a name?”
“She said Marta.”
I knew exactly who she meant.
Marta Ruiz.
She had been Lily’s nanny before me.
According to Renata, Marta had quit suddenly and returned to Puerto Rico because her sister was sick.
But the personnel file I had once processed showed something different.
Marta had lived in Yonkers for more than twenty years.
“Did she say anything else?”
My mother frowned, thinking.
“She asked if you still worked there.”
“And?”
“I said yes.”
“What did she do?”
“Started crying.”
Cold slid down my spine.
“Mom, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were working doubles. I thought it was some old employee drama.”
She touched the photograph.
“Now I don’t.”
I called Marcus from the clinic hallway.
He answered on the second ring.
“Emma?”
“I need you to find Marta Ruiz.”
A pause.
“Why?”
“She gave my mother something.”
“What?”
I photographed both sides of the picture and sent it.
Marcus called back thirty seconds later.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m at St. Anne’s Dialysis.”
“I’m sending someone.”
“For what?”
“Protection.”
I glanced through the glass doors.
“Marcus, what aren’t you telling me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That frightened me more than any answer could have.
Grant arrived personally forty minutes later.
No driver.
No assistant.
No security convoy.
He walked into the clinic wearing dark jeans and a sweater as if he had finally remembered he was capable of being a human being without a suit.
My mother looked him up and down.
“You’re the billionaire.”
Grant blinked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You look tired.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Sit.”
He sat.
I nearly smiled.
Apparently my mother possessed more authority than half the Callahan board.
She handed him the original photograph.
Grant looked at Catherine.
Whatever air remained in his lungs seemed to leave.
“That was her car.”
“The one in the accident?” I asked.
“No.”
He stared more closely.
“That was my SUV.”
He turned the image over.
His jaw tightened.
“Catherine was afraid of Renata?”
“That’s what Marta apparently believed.”
Grant stood abruptly.
“I need to talk to her.”
“We have to find her first.”
Marcus did.
That evening, we drove to a small apartment building in Yonkers.
Grant insisted I remain in the car until Marcus confirmed the building was safe.
I ignored him and got out anyway.
He glared at me.
“You have a remarkable inability to follow instructions.”
“You hired a nanny, not a soldier.”
“You’re currently suspended.”
“Then I definitely don’t have to follow instructions.”
Marcus looked between us.
“I’m begging both of you to save this argument for later.”
Marta opened the door after three knocks.
The moment she saw Grant, she tried to close it.
He stopped the door with his palm.
“Please.”
She stared at him.
Tears appeared almost instantly.
“I’m sorry.”
Grant lowered his hand.
“For what?”
“For leaving Lily.”
His voice softened.
“Then help us now.”
Marta let us inside.
Her apartment was warm and crowded with family photographs.
She made tea nobody drank.
Then she sat across from us at a scratched wooden table and began telling the truth.
Renata had known Catherine before Grant ever met her.
Not well.
But enough.
They belonged to overlapping charity circles.
Catherine disliked her.
“She said Ms. Cole was always watching,” Marta explained. “Always asking questions about Mr. Callahan. His schedule. His marriage. His company.”
Grant’s expression darkened.
“Why didn’t Catherine tell me?”
“She tried.”
“What?”
Marta looked down.
“Two months before the accident, I heard you arguing.”
Grant went still.
He remembered.
“You were leaving for Singapore,” Marta continued. “Mrs. Callahan wanted you to stay. She said she needed to talk about someone she didn’t trust.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“I told her we’d discuss it when I returned.”
“Yes.”
He whispered a curse.
I reached across the table and touched his hand.
He looked at me.
For once he didn’t pull away behind pride.
Marta continued.
“Mrs. Callahan started documenting things.”
“What things?” Marcus asked.
“Renata showing up unexpectedly. Calling the house. Asking staff questions. There were also messages.”
“What kind?”
“Threatening without sounding threatening.”
Grant leaned forward.
“Do you have them?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
Marta hesitated.
“Mrs. Callahan hid something.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Grant’s frustration sharpened.
“Please, Marta.”
“She told me that if anything ever happened to her, I should make sure Lily had her music box.”
Grant stared.
“What music box?”
“A wooden one. White roses painted on the lid.”
I knew it.
Lily kept it on the highest shelf of her bedroom.
Renata had once ordered me not to touch it because it was “cheap sentimental junk.”
We drove back to the estate immediately.
Lily was asleep.
Grant entered her room with me while Marcus waited outside.
The music box sat exactly where I remembered.
White roses.
Faded gold trim.
Grant lifted it carefully.
He turned the key.
A delicate melody played.
Something from an old ballet.
“Catherine loved this song,” he whispered.
He examined the base.
Nothing.
Then I noticed one of the felt pads was slightly raised.
“Wait.”
We peeled it back.
A tiny screw.
Marcus brought tools.
Within minutes, the false bottom opened.
Inside was a small memory card wrapped in plastic.
Grant stared at it.
Catherine had hidden evidence inside her daughter’s music box.
The first file was a video.
Catherine appeared on screen.
Alive.
Beautiful.
Nervous.
Grant stopped breathing.
The date stamp was five days before her death.
She sat in what looked like the estate greenhouse.
“If you’re watching this,” Catherine said, “then either I finally found the courage to show Grant, or something has happened that prevented me from doing it myself.”
Grant gripped the desk.
Catherine looked directly into the camera.
“Renata Cole has been approaching people connected to Grant for months. She has information she should not have. Private schedules. Company details. Information about Lily.”
She swallowed.
“Last week she told me that some women are not built to survive beside powerful men.”
Marcus looked at Grant.
Catherine continued.
“I know how that sounds. Dramatic. Paranoid. But I found payments from an account linked to Cole Risk Management to someone named Peter Sloan.”
Grant’s head jerked up.
“You know him?” I asked.
He looked sick.
“Peter Sloan was the mechanic who serviced Catherine’s car.”
Nobody spoke.
My skin prickled.
Catherine said there was more.
She had discovered Sloan had received twelve thousand dollars shortly before her brakes failed during a drive home from the Catskills.
The brake failure had not caused the fatal crash.
She had managed to stop using the emergency brake.
But she had become frightened.
She had scheduled an independent inspection.
Before it happened, she died.
The official report said Catherine lost control on a rain-slicked curve.
No evidence of mechanical sabotage had been found.
But according to Catherine’s recording, somebody may have tried once before.
Grant stopped the video.
“I need air.”
He walked out.
I followed him onto the terrace.
Rain fell over the Hudson.
The same kind of rain, I imagined, that had fallen the night Catherine died.
“I ignored her.”
“Grant.”
“I ignored my wife.”
“You didn’t know.”
“She told me she was scared.”
“You thought you had time.”
“That’s always my excuse.”
He turned toward me.
“After she died, Lily stopped talking. Doctors called it trauma. I put her in therapy. I hired specialists. I paid for everything.”
“But you weren’t there.”
“No.”
He covered his face.
“I couldn’t look at her without seeing Catherine.”
The confession landed hard.
“So I traveled more.”
“You were grieving.”
“And Lily paid for it.”
I didn’t argue.
He didn’t need absolution.
He needed change.
Marcus interrupted us.
“There’s another file.”
This one wasn’t a video.
It was a scanned document.
A private investigator’s report Catherine had commissioned.
At the bottom was an address.
A storage unit in White Plains.
And beside it, a handwritten note.
Originals kept here. Grant must see them.
We drove there the next morning with police.
The unit had been rented under Catherine’s maiden name.
Inside were boxes.
Photographs.
Printed emails.
Financial documents.
Everything Catherine had gathered.
But one box was missing.
A rectangle of dust showed where it had once sat.
The storage manager checked access records.
Someone had entered the unit two months earlier.
Using forged identification.
The security image was grainy.
But we could see the woman’s face.
Renata.
Grant stared at the screen.
“She knew.”
Marcus nodded.
“She knew Catherine had evidence.”
Grant’s phone rang.
Daniel.
Grant answered.
“What?”
I watched his expression change.
“When?”
He looked at me.
Then at Marcus.
“Lock the estate down.”
My stomach dropped.
“What happened?”
Grant ended the call.
“Renata’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
“Her hotel security detail lost contact with her thirty minutes ago.”
Marcus swore.
Then Grant’s phone buzzed again.
A text.
Unknown number.
He opened it.
There was a photograph.
Lily.
Taken that morning through the estate schoolroom window.
May you like
Beneath it were six words.
You should have left the past buried.
