Chapter 3 - THE OPEN DRAWER
Victor sent Daniel upstairs first.
I followed with Ethan in my arms.
Serena stayed behind only because Victor ordered another guard to remain with her.
Every step made my stomach ache.
Ethan had calmed enough to hiccup against my shoulder.
When we reached the nursery, the door was already open.
I knew immediately something was wrong.
I had closed it before lunch.
The room smelled faintly of Ethan’s baby lotion and the lavender detergent I used on his blankets, but one drawer beneath the changing table hung open.
I never left it that way.
Daniel checked the bathroom.
Empty.
Victor checked the adjoining sitting room.
Empty.
No Graham.
Then I saw paper beneath the rocking chair.
A torn white corner.
I bent carefully and picked it up.
Victor reached for it, but I held it closer first.
The visible text read:
BLACKWOOD FAMILY OFFICE
Authorization Amendment
Below that was half a signature line.
Victor took it.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“You were supposed to,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Yesterday, Graham came upstairs carrying a red leather folder. Serena was with him.”
Serena had told me they were choosing photographs for a charity gala.
I had believed her because Ethan had been napping.
“What happened?” Victor asked.
“I came out of the laundry room. Graham shut the nursery door behind him.”
“Was Ethan inside?”
“Yes.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“What did he say?”
“He said you had sent him to get something from your home office.”
“My home office is downstairs.”
“I know that now.”
A small sound came from Ethan.
He pointed toward the changing table.
“Da.”
I crouched.
“What, baby?”
He pointed again.
Under the open drawer was a small black plastic cap.
Daniel picked it up with a handkerchief.
Victor recognized it instantly.
“The security token.”
Not the token itself.
Only its protective cap.
Daniel turned it over.
“There’s adhesive residue.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
“Someone may have made an impression of the casing or attached something to it.”
Victor looked at me.
I thought about Serena’s white face when I said she had help.
Graham entering the house.
The missing token.
The camera blackout.
The torn financial document inside a nursery.
Then Ethan reached toward the rocking chair.
I moved it.
A red leather folder lay crushed between the chair and wall.
Victor opened it.
Most pages had been removed.
One remained.
It listed eight companies that had received payments from the Blackwood Foundation over the previous six months.
Victor scanned the names.
His finger stopped.
“Montigue Event Strategies.”
Serena’s company.
The amount beside it was $612,000.
I stared at him.
“Is that normal?”
“No.”
“How abnormal?”
His mouth tightened.
“I suspended that vendor three months ago.”
Yet someone had continued paying Serena’s company.
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And the evidence had been hidden inside the room of a fourteen-month-old child.
📖 The money gave Serena a motive to fear discovery, but Victor’s next call revealed that the suspicious payments were only a fraction of what had disappeared. 👇
