Chapter 6: Lauren Makes Her Move
Raymond Chu's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building that had no signage at street level.
Maya had been given the address by Daniel in a text that deleted itself thirty seconds after she read it.
She had memorized it before it disappeared.
She arrived at ten-fifteen.
Raymond Chu was already waiting.
He was a small man in his early sixties, precise in the way that people are precise when they have spent decades in rooms where imprecision costs someone everything.
He shook her hand once, firmly, and gestured to the chair across from his desk.
"Mr.
Hargrove told me you kept records," he said.
"Yes."
"How detailed?"
Maya placed the folder on his desk.
Forty-one pages.
Dates, times, observations, copies of documents she had photographed on her personal phone, transcriptions of conversations she had overheard and written down within the hour while the words were still exact.
Raymond Chu opened the folder.
He read the first three pages without speaking.
Then he looked up.
"You photographed the employment record."
"The morning after Lauren filed it.
I returned the original to the household file before anyone noticed."
"And this conversation—" he turned to page nine — "between Lauren and an unidentified male caller.
You transcribed this from memory?"
"Within forty minutes of overhearing it.
I noted the time, the date, and my location in the house."
He studied her for a moment.
"Why didn't you go to the police?"
"With what?" Maya said.
"A maid's handwritten notes?
Lauren would have had me removed from the house within the hour and the notes dismissed as fabrication.
I needed someone with standing to bring it forward.
I needed it to matter before I moved."
Raymond Chu closed the folder.
He placed both hands flat on top of it.
"It matters now," he said.
Maya's phone rang on the way back to the hospital.
Daniel.
"Lauren's attorney contacted me an hour ago," he said.
"She's filing for an emergency custody review.
She's claiming Noah's injury was caused by negligence — specifically, that Maya left him unsupervised near the staircase."
Maya stopped walking.
"She's blaming me."
"She's trying to get Noah placed with her family temporarily while the review is pending.
If that happens—"
"It won't happen," Maya said.
"Raymond has the log."
"Her attorney is fast.
She may file before Raymond can respond."
"Then you need to be at the courthouse when she does."
A pause.
"There's something else.
Lauren called a press contact this morning.
There's going to be a story.
Negligent household staff.
Wealthy family's child injured while under a maid's supervision."
Maya understood immediately.
Lauren was not trying to win in court.
Not yet.
She was trying to destroy Maya's credibility before the log could be taken seriously.
A story in the press — even a false one — would make every document Maya had produced look like the work of a disgruntled employee.
"When does the story run?"
"Tomorrow morning."
Maya thought for three seconds.
"Can Raymond file today?"
"He's already drafting."
"Tell him to include the employment record.
The notary.
The will discrepancy.
All of it.
Don't hold anything back for later — put it all in front of a judge today, before the story runs."
"If we show our hand now—"
"If we wait until tomorrow, we won't have a hand to show.
Lauren knows that.
That's why she called the press."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Alright," Daniel said.
"I'll call Raymond."
The story ran anyway.
Not the next morning — that evening.
Someone had moved the timeline up.
Maya's name appeared in the fourth paragraph.
Her photograph — taken from the household staff registry, which was a private document — appeared beside it.
She read the article once, standing in the hospital corridor outside Noah's room.
Then she went inside, sat down beside his bed, and read him two chapters of the book they had been working through for the past month.
Noah fell asleep before the second chapter ended.
Maya marked the page, set the book on the table, and looked at the door.
Lauren had not come to the hospital all day.
That was the part that frightened Maya most — not the article, not the custody filing, not the phone call from the unknown man.
May you like
Lauren's silence.
Because Lauren only went quiet when she was already certain of something.
