PART 2: I pretended to fly to Canada after suspecting the housekeeper was doing something terrible to my daughters whenever I was away. 002
Part 2
In the security room, I stood straight up out of my chair.
My pulse thundered so violently I could hear it in my ears.
On the monitor, Chloe still had her hand wrapped around Sofia’s wrist.
Marisol’s hand remained on Chloe’s forearm.
For one frozen second, nobody moved.
Then Chloe slowly released my daughter.
Her face changed.
Not into remorse.
Into fury.
“Take your hand off me,” she whispered.
Marisol obeyed, but she did not step away from the girls.
“I said do not touch her,” Marisol repeated.
Chloe stared at her.
Then she smiled.
It was the kind of smile that made the temperature in the security room seem to drop ten degrees.
“You’ve gotten very brave lately.”
Marisol said nothing.
Chloe walked slowly around her, studying her as though she were deciding what to do with an insect she had found crawling across her dinner plate.
“
Do you know what Alexander thinks of you?”
Marisol’s expression remained guarded.
Chloe continued.
“He thinks you’re stealing from us.”
My stomach twisted.
Beside me, Hector glanced in my direction.
Onscreen, Marisol’s face finally changed.
Not guilt.
Shock.
“Excuse me?”
“The earrings,” Chloe said. “The money. The perfume. Alexander knows.”
For several seconds, Marisol simply stared at her.
Then something happened that I did not expect.
She laughed.
It wasn’t a happy laugh.
It was soft and bitter.
“So that is what you’re doing.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed.
Marisol looked toward the hallway, making sure the girls were still behind her.
“You’re setting me up.”
Chloe shrugged.
“I don’t need to set you up. People like you eventually expose themselves.”
People like you.
The words made my skin crawl.
Marisol’s jaw tightened.
“You put those things in my room.”
Chloe’s smile disappeared.
“Careful.”
But Marisol wasn’t careful.
Not anymore.
“You’ve been
trying to make Mr. Vance fire me for months.”
Chloe stepped closer.
“And yet you’re still here.”
“Because the girls need me.”
That answer seemed to enrage Chloe more than anything else.
“They don’t need you.”
Marisol glanced back at Valeria and Sofia.
Both children were staring at the floor.
“They’re afraid of you.”
Silence.
Then Chloe slapped Marisol across the face.
The sound cracked through the living room speakers.
I lunged toward the security-room door.
Hector caught my arm.
“Mr. Vance.”
“Get out of my way.”
“Sir, wait.”
I turned on him.
“My daughter was grabbed, and that woman just struck an employee in my house.”
“I know.”
“Then move.”
Hector didn’t.
Instead, he pointed toward the monitor.
“Look.”
I looked.
Marisol had not struck Chloe back.
She hadn’t even raised her hand.
She simply touched the side of her cheek and said, very quietly, “You shouldn’t have done
that.”
Chloe leaned closer.
“What are you going to do? Tell Alexander?”
A cold smile spread across her face again.
“Please do. He’ll believe me.”
Marisol looked at her for several seconds.
Then she said something that made every hair on my arms rise.
“Not after what I found.”
Chloe froze.
So did I.
“What did you say?”
Marisol lowered her voice.
“I found the medication.”
Chloe’s entire face changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
But once I saw it, I knew.
Fear.
Real fear.
Hector’s grip loosened on my arm.
I slowly sat back down.
“What medication?” I whispered.
Onscreen, Chloe glanced toward the hallway.
“Girls,” she snapped, “go upstairs.”
Valeria didn’t move.
Marisol turned toward them.
“It’s okay,” she said gently. “Go to the library.”
Valeria looked at her.
There was an understanding between them that broke my heart.
My nine-year-old daughter nodded.
She took Sofia by the hand.
Together, they disappeared down the hallway.
The moment they were gone, Chloe grabbed Marisol by the arm.
“What did you find?”
Marisol pulled herself free.
“A bottle hidden behind the cleaning supplies in the upstairs linen closet.”
“What bottle?”
“You know exactly what bottle.”
“I don’t.”
Marisol stared at her.
“Then maybe we should ask Mr. Vance why his daughter keeps falling asleep in the afternoons.”
My breath stopped.
Sofia.
For nearly two months, she had been unusually tired.
I had noticed.
Of course I had noticed.
But Chloe told me it was grief.
A delayed reaction to losing her mother.
The pediatrician had found nothing alarming in her basic examinations.
And I, like an idiot, had accepted that answer because I wanted it to be true.
Onscreen, Chloe’s voice dropped.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I took a photograph of the label.”
Chloe went pale.
“Where
is it?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
Chloe stepped toward her.
“Give it to me.”
Marisol stood her ground.
“Why? So it can disappear like the bottle?”
A silence followed.
Then Chloe suddenly turned and walked toward the staircase.
Marisol followed.
“Where are you going?”
Chloe ignored her.
She climbed the stairs rapidly.
Hector switched cameras.
Camera twelve.
Upstairs hallway.
Chloe appeared at the top of the stairs and hurried toward the linen closet.
She opened it.
Knelt.
Pushed several bottles aside.
Her movements became frantic.
Nothing.
She stood.
Marisol remained ten feet away.
“It’s gone,” she said.
Chloe spun around.
“What did you do with it?”
“I didn’t touch it.”
For the first time, Chloe seemed genuinely confused.
“If you didn’t take it, who did?”
Marisol hesitated.
And that hesitation was enough.
Chloe saw it.
Her face hardened.
“Valeria.”
My heart dropped.
Marisol said nothing.
Chloe rushed
past her.
I was already moving.
“Hector.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call the gatehouse. Nobody leaves this property.”
“Already done.”
“Call the police.”
He stared at me.
I stopped.
Something in his expression bothered me.
“You heard me.”
“I did.”
“Then call them.”
Hector didn’t move.
Instead, he looked toward the monitor.
“Sir, there is something else you need to see first.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“The security system archived footage from the previous thirty days.”
“You told me footage automatically deletes after seventy-two hours.”
“It does from the normal interface.”
My eyes narrowed.
“The normal interface?”
Hector swallowed.
“Three weeks ago, Miss Valeria came to me.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“My daughter?”
“She asked if cameras recorded sound.”
I looked back toward the monitors.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“And?”
“She asked me to save anything involving Miss Chloe.”
My anger shifted.
Not disappearing.
Changing direction.
“You
did that without telling me?”
“She begged me not to.”
“She’s nine years old!”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you come to me?”
Hector’s eyes filled with something I rarely saw in men who had spent years in private security.
Shame.
“Because she told me you wouldn’t believe her.”
The sentence hit harder than a punch.
My own daughter believed I would choose Chloe over her.
And the worst part was that I couldn’t immediately prove she was wrong.
Hector pulled up another screen.
A folder appeared.
CHLOE_ARCHIVE.
Twenty-eight video files.
My stomach turned.
“Play them.”
“Sir—”
“Play them.”
He opened the first.
Three weeks earlier.
Kitchen.
Chloe stood beside Sofia.
Sofia was crying.
Chloe held a small glass of juice.
“Drink it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Drink it.”
“It tastes funny.”
Chloe crouched until they were face-to-face.
“Your father doesn’t like difficult children.”
Sofia sniffled.
“Daddy loves me.”
“
Of course he does.”
Chloe brushed hair away from Sofia’s face.
“But fathers get tired. Especially when little girls complain all the time.”
Sofia stared at the juice.
Chloe pushed it closer.
“Drink.”
The video ended.
My hands had begun shaking.
“Next.”
The second clip showed Chloe entering my bedroom.
She opened a drawer in her vanity.
Removed a pair of diamond earrings.
Then walked out.
Camera eighteen picked her up in the downstairs hallway.
Camera twenty showed her entering the staff corridor.
Hector changed angles.
A minute later, Chloe emerged from Marisol’s room.
The earrings were no longer in her hand.
My vision blurred red.
“Next.”
A third video.
Chloe with Valeria.
They were in the breakfast room.
“You think you’re clever,” Chloe said.
Valeria said nothing.
“You’ve been spying on me.”
“I haven’t.”
Chloe bent down.
“Then why did you ask Hector about the cameras?”
My blood went
cold.
Valeria looked terrified.
Chloe smiled.
“You thought I didn’t know?”
“I just wanted—”
“You wanted evidence.”
Chloe gripped Valeria’s chin.
“You listen to me very carefully. Your father is marrying me. When that happens, I become your family whether you like it or not.”
Valeria jerked away.
“You’re not my mom.”
Chloe’s face changed.
“No.”
Then she leaned forward.
“But your mother isn’t coming back.”
I heard something behind me.
A low sound.
It took me a moment to realize it came from my own throat.
Hector stopped the video.
“No.”
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
“Keep going.”
The fourth recording began.
Chloe stood inside my home office.
She was speaking on her phone.
At first, the conversation seemed ordinary.
Then she said:
“No, Alexander still hasn’t changed the trust.”
I froze.
Hector looked at me.
Chloe paced slowly beside my desk.
“The girls inherit their mother’s shares at twenty-five,
but Alexander controls everything until then.”
A pause.
“I know.”
Another pause.
“No, marrying him isn’t enough. The guardianship language is the problem.”
My blood turned to ice.
Chloe continued.
“If something happens to him before they’re eighteen, custody goes to his sister.”
My sister Caroline.
Chloe walked toward the window.
“So we need Caroline out of the picture too.”
I couldn’t breathe.
The voice on the other end was too faint for the camera microphones to identify.
Chloe listened.
Then laughed quietly.
“No. You’re being dramatic.”
Another pause.
“Stop. Nothing has to happen to anyone.”
She lowered her voice.
“Not if Alexander changes the documents voluntarily.”
The video ended.
I stared at the black screen.
For several seconds, neither Hector nor I spoke.
Then I said, “Who was she talking to?”
“We don’t know.”
“Phone records.”
“I can get them.”
“Do it.”
Hector didn’t respond.
Because movement on another
monitor caught our attention.
Valeria was running.
Camera fourteen showed her racing down the upstairs hallway.
Barefoot.
Holding something.
A small plastic bottle.
Chloe appeared behind her.
“Valeria!”
My daughter sprinted toward the rear staircase.
Chloe followed.
Marisol chased after both of them.
I didn’t wait anymore.
I ripped open the security-room door.
“Hector, call LAPD. Now.”
I ran.
Across the service corridor.
Through the garage.
Into the house.
I heard shouting above me.
Then glass breaking.
“Valeria!”
I took the stairs two at a time.
When I reached the second floor, Marisol was standing in the hallway, breathing hard.
“Mr. Vance?”
Her face went white.
I didn’t stop.
“Where is she?”
Marisol pointed.
“Your office.”
I ran.
The door was locked.
I slammed my shoulder into it.
“Valeria!”
“Daddy!”
Her scream nearly stopped my heart.
I hit the door again.
The frame cracked.
Third time.
It burst open.
Chloe
stood beside my desk.
Valeria was backed against the window.
One hand behind her back.
Chloe turned toward me.
For perhaps two seconds, no one said anything.
The expression on Chloe’s face was unforgettable.
Not fear.
Calculation.
She recovered almost instantly.
“Alexander!”
I crossed the room.
“What are you doing here?”
She attempted a laugh.
“I thought you were going to Toronto.”
“Move away from my daughter.”
The smile disappeared.
“Alexander, something is wrong with Valeria. She stole medication and—”
“Move.”
She did.
Slowly.
Valeria ran toward me.
I dropped to my knees.
She crashed into my chest.
Her entire body was trembling.
“I knew you’d come back,” she whispered.
That nearly destroyed me.
I held her tightly.
“I’m here.”
Chloe folded her arms.
“This is ridiculous. Marisol has manipulated these children against me.”
I looked at Valeria.
“What do you have?”
She reached behind her back.
A small amber
prescription bottle.
The label had been partially peeled off.
I took it carefully.
“What is this?”
Valeria wiped tears from her face.
“I saw Chloe put it in Sofia’s juice.”
Chloe laughed sharply.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
I looked at her.
She stopped laughing.
Valeria continued.
“I took it because Marisol told me we needed proof.”
Chloe stepped forward.
“She’s lying.”
“Stay where you are.”
“Alexander—”
“I said stay where you are.”
For the first time in our entire relationship, Chloe obeyed me without argument.
Hector appeared in the doorway.
Behind him stood Marisol.
“Police are on their way,” he said.
Chloe’s face drained of color.
“You called the police?”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
She stared at me for several seconds.
Then something astonishing happened.
She began to cry.
Not the controlled tears I had seen at charity dinners or during sentimental movies.
Deep, desperate sobs.
She covered her
face.
“Alexander, please.”
I felt nothing.
She lowered her hands.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.”
“No. You don’t.”
“You terrorized my daughters.”
“I was trying to protect this family.”
“You drugged Sofia.”
“I never hurt her.”
“The bottle is in my hand.”
“That isn’t what you think it is!”
Her voice cracked.
I stood.
“Then tell me what it is.”
Chloe stared at me.
Her breathing slowed.
Then she looked at Marisol.
And suddenly, unexpectedly, she smiled.
“Oh.”
Marisol’s body stiffened.
Chloe nodded slowly.
“That’s clever.”
Nobody spoke.
“What?” I said.
Chloe kept looking at Marisol.
“Very clever.”
“Chloe.”
She turned to me.
“You think I put that bottle in the closet?”
“The cameras show you giving Sofia something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Melatonin.”
I stared at her.
She pointed toward the bottle in my hand.
“But that isn’t melatonin.”
I looked down.
The label had been mostly destroyed.
Only fragments
remained.
Chloe continued.
“Ask Marisol where she got it.”
Marisol stepped forward.
“Don’t listen to her.”
Chloe laughed.
“Of course you’d say that.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
Chloe looked almost relieved now.
“You’ve spent forty-five minutes watching cameras, Alexander. Wonderful. Keep watching.”
A faint siren could be heard in the distance.
Chloe nodded toward the hallway.
“Go back three months.”
My skin prickled.
“Before Marisol supposedly discovered I was evil.”
Marisol shook her head.
“She’s trying to confuse you.”
Chloe raised her voice.
“Go back to the night of June eighteenth.”
Marisol went completely still.
It was subtle.
But I saw it.
So did Hector.
My stomach tightened.
“What happened June eighteenth?”
Nobody answered.
“Marisol?”
Her eyes met mine.
“Mr. Vance—”
“What happened?”
For the first time since I had known her, Marisol looked afraid of me.
Not nervous.
Afraid.
Chloe smiled again.
“There it is.”
“Shut
up.”
“Oh, now you want me quiet?”
I turned to Hector.
“June eighteenth. Find the footage.”
Marisol stepped forward.
“Mr. Vance, please.”
I looked at her.
“What am I going to see?”
Tears appeared in her eyes.
“Something I should have told you.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
Before she could answer, Valeria whispered from behind me.
“Daddy.”
I turned.
She was staring at Marisol.
And the expression on her face terrified me.
“Valeria?”
She swallowed.
“Marisol told me never to tell you about that night.”
Silence fell across the room.
Even Chloe stopped smiling.
I crouched in front of my daughter.
“What happened?”
Valeria’s eyes filled with tears.
“I woke up because I heard someone downstairs.”
“Who?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t know.”
“Then what did you see?”
Valeria looked toward Marisol.
Marisol closed her eyes.
“Tell me,” I said.
My daughter whispered, “I saw Marisol in Mommy’s old
room.”
My heart stopped.
My late wife’s bedroom had remained untouched since her death.
Nobody entered without permission.
Not even me.
“What was she doing?”
Valeria began crying.
“She was opening Mommy’s safe.”
I slowly stood.
Marisol looked at me.
“It’s not what you think.”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently I have no idea what anything is anymore.”
The sirens grew louder outside.
Chloe stepped toward the doorway.
Hector blocked her.
“Stay.”
She raised both hands.
“I’m not leaving.”
I turned to Marisol.
“Why were you opening my wife’s safe?”
Marisol’s face seemed to age ten years in a matter of seconds.
“Because your wife told me to.”
Every sound in the room disappeared.
I stared at her.
“My wife has been dead for three years.”
“I know.”
“Then explain yourself.”
Marisol looked at Valeria.
Then Sofia appeared in the hallway behind Hector, clutching the stuffed rabbit she had apparently retrieved
from the shelf downstairs.
Her eyes were huge.
Marisol seemed to make a decision.
She reached into the pocket of her uniform.
Hector immediately moved forward.
“It’s okay,” she said.
Slowly, she withdrew a small brass key.
I recognized it instantly.
My wife’s safe key.
I hadn’t seen it since the week she died.
Marisol placed it on the desk.
“Mrs. Vance gave me this two days before the accident.”
My lungs forgot how to work.
Chloe’s face changed.
“What?”
That caught my attention.
For the first time, Chloe genuinely seemed not to know what Marisol was talking about.
Marisol continued.
“Your wife made me promise that if anything ever happened to her, I would protect the girls.”
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Protect them from what?”
Marisol looked directly at Chloe.
“Not from her.”
Chloe blinked.
“Then from who?”
Marisol turned back to me.
“From whoever
killed your wife.”
Nobody moved.
I felt Valeria’s hand grip mine.
“My wife died in a car accident.”
Marisol shook her head.
“No, sir.”
“Yes.”
“The police investigated it.”
“I know.”
“Her brakes failed.”
“I know.”
Marisol reached into her pocket again.
This time, she removed a folded piece of paper.
Old.
Creased.
She placed it beside the key.
“Mrs. Vance knew something was wrong with her car before she died.”
I stared at the paper.
“What is that?”
“A note she wrote to me.”
My hand shook as I picked it up.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Isabella.
My wife.
There were only two sentences.
If anything happens to me, do not trust the official story.
And do not let Alexander marry her.
I read the second sentence again.
Do not let Alexander marry her.
I slowly raised my eyes.
Chloe had stopped breathing.
“No,” she whispered.
I looked
at Marisol.
“Marry who?”
Marisol didn’t answer.
Chloe stepped forward.
“That note could mean anyone.”
I stared at her.
She shook her head.
“Alexander, think. Isabella died almost two years before you met me.”
That was true.
I turned to Marisol.
“She’s right.”
Marisol’s expression was unreadable.
“Mr. Vance…”
“Who was my wife talking about?”
Marisol opened her mouth.
Before she could answer, Hector’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His expression immediately changed.
“What?”
He answered.
“Hector.”
A pause.
Then his eyes moved toward Chloe.
“No.”
Another pause.
“Are you certain?”
He listened.
“Send it to me.”
He ended the call.
“What is it?” I demanded.
Hector looked at Chloe.
Then at me.
“Sir, when you asked me to pull Miss Chloe’s phone records, I also ran the primary numbers against archived security records.”
“And?”
“One number appears constantly.”
Chloe shook her head.
“Hector, don’t.”
He ignored her.
“
The same number called Miss Chloe twenty-three times this month.”
“So?”
Hector swallowed.
“That number also called Mrs. Vance twelve times during the week before she died.”
My entire body went cold.
Chloe backed away.
“I can explain.”
“Whose number?”
Hector’s phone buzzed.
He opened the message.
Then he stared at the screen.
I had never seen him look frightened before.
“Hector.”
He slowly handed me the phone.
The report contained a name.
I read it.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time because my mind refused to accept the letters arranged in front of me.
The number did not belong to a stranger.
It did not belong to some criminal.
It did not belong to one of Chloe’s friends.
It belonged to a man I had trusted since I was twenty-three years old.
A man who had stood beside me at my wedding.
A man who had carried Valeria out
of the hospital the day she was born.
A man who had identified Isabella’s body after the crash because I had been too shattered to do it myself.
My older brother.
Daniel Vance.
I looked up.
“Why is Chloe speaking to my brother?”
Nobody answered.
Chloe’s lips trembled.
I stepped toward her.
“Why did my wife call Daniel twelve times before she died?”
Chloe began shaking her head.
“Alexander—”
“Why are you calling him?”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Tears ran down her face.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then what is it?”
She looked toward the hallway, where the distant sound of police cars entering the property could now be heard.
And then she said the one sentence that made everything we had watched that morning seem almost insignificant.
“Daniel isn’t your brother.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Chloe wiped her face.
Marisol suddenly whispered, “Don’t.”
Chloe looked at her.
“You knew?”
Marisol’s silence answered the question.
I stepped backward.
My daughters stood behind me.
My dead wife’s note lay open on the desk.
The mysterious bottle remained in my hand.
Outside, police officers were entering my home.
And the people around me—my fiancée, my housekeeper, even my own daughter—were carrying pieces of a life I apparently knew nothing about.
I looked at Chloe.
“Who is Daniel?”
Her eyes locked onto mine.
And what she said next almost brought me to my knees.
“He’s Valeria’s biological father.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
