. CHAPTER 2 — The Son Who Saw Everything
Daniel dropped to his knees beside Evelyn so hard the marble should have cracked beneath him. His hands hovered over her, afraid to touch, afraid not to touch. Blood traced a thin red line from her nose to her chin, and her dress, the soft cream one he had bought because she said it made her feel light, was wrinkled and torn near the shoulder.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Eve, look at me. Stay with me.”
Evelyn opened her eyes. “The baby…”
“I know. I know.” Daniel pulled out his phone with shaking fingers and called emergency services. His voice changed when the operator answered—still terrified, but controlled, sharp, precise. “My pregnant wife fell down the main staircase. Possible abdominal trauma, facial injury, conscious but in pain. Send an ambulance now.”
Margaret reached the lower steps, smoothing her dress as if she were entering a board meeting. “Daniel, don’t be dramatic. She slipped.”
Daniel looked up at her.
It was not the look of a son. It was the look of a man watching the last illusion of his childhood burn to ash.
“She slipped?” he repeated.
Margaret lifted her chin. “She was emotional. I was trying to calm her down.”
Evelyn made a small sound, not quite a sob, not quite a warning. Daniel saw it. The fear in her eyes was not only from falling. It was from being trapped in that house with a woman powerful enough to rewrite the truth before anyone arrived.
He removed his jacket and draped it gently over Evelyn’s legs. Then he looked toward the corner of the foyer, where a tiny black dome rested above a decorative column.
The security camera.
Margaret followed his gaze. For the first time, something like panic cracked through her perfect expression.
Daniel stood slowly.
“Say it again,” he said.
Margaret’s mouth tightened. “You’re confused. You just walked in.”
“No,” Daniel said. “I walked in because the motion alert from the foyer camera hit my phone. I saw the last five seconds in the car.”
The mansion seemed to inhale.
Margaret’s hand found the banister.
Daniel stepped closer to the staircase, his eyes wet but furious. “I saw you push her.”
The words landed harder than Evelyn’s fall.
Margaret’s lips parted, but no sound came.
From the floor, Evelyn whispered, “Daniel, please…”
May you like
He turned instantly, his anger folding back into fear. “I’m here.”
Outside, sirens began to rise.
