Chapter 9: Nathan
I showed Marcus the message.
He read it twice.
Then he handed the phone to Daniel without a word.
"Nathan Cain," Daniel said.
"Has to be."
"Where is he?" Marcus asked.
"We're working on that.
His last known address is in Phoenix.
He hasn't used a credit card in four days."
"He knows," I said.
"He knows Vanessa was caught.
She must have contacted him before we stopped her car."
"She had her phone in the car," Marcus said.
"We stopped the vehicle.
We didn't take her phone."
Daniel looked at him.
"We need to flag Nathan to the financial crimes unit today.
If he moves that money out of the country—"
"Then we lose it," Marcus said.
"Most of it, yes."
Marcus picked up his own phone and dialed.
He walked toward the window, voice low.
I looked at the text again.
*You should have stayed invisible.*
It was the same thing Vanessa had said to me once, in different words.
The best household staff are the ones guests never remember seeing.
I had been invisible in that house for eight months.
I had cleaned around their conversations, their arguments, their quiet moments.
I had learned to move without sound, to finish a room before anyone noticed I'd been in it.
And then Lily had walked through a door, pressed her hand to a screen, and said *mean lady.*
Daniel sat across from me.
"Nina.
The text — do you want to file a report?"
"Yes," I said.
I didn't hesitate.
"Good.
We'll add it to the package for the DA." He made a note.
"Are you concerned about your safety?
Yours or your daughter's?"
I thought about it honestly.
"I don't know who Nathan Cain is," I said.
"I've never met him.
I don't know what he's capable of."
"That's a reasonable concern." Daniel looked toward Marcus, who was still on the phone.
"I'll recommend a security detail for the staff wing until Nathan's location is confirmed."
Marcus ended his call and came back.
"Financial crimes unit has Nathan's name and the account details," he said.
"They've flagged the accounts.
If he tries to wire anything above ten thousand dollars, it triggers a hold." He paused.
"His passport was flagged at the border this morning.
He tried to cross into Mexico at Nogales at 6 a.m."
"Was he stopped?"
"He's being held for questioning."
The air in the room changed.
Daniel set down his pen.
"That's the money secured."
"Most of it," Marcus said.
"He had converted approximately sixty thousand to cash.
That's likely gone.
The rest is in the flagged accounts."
Four hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
I thought about the pediatric clinics.
Four states.
Children who had nothing to do with any of this.
"Can it be recovered?" I asked.
"The accounts are frozen," Marcus said.
"The legal process takes time.
But yes." He looked at me.
"The foundation will recover it."
He sat down across from me.
For the first time since early that morning, he looked like a man who had set something heavy down.
"I owe you an apology," he said.
I looked at him.
"For what?"
"For the position I put you in.
You came to work this morning.
You had a missing phone and a three-year-old who wandered somewhere she shouldn't have." He paused.
"Instead you spent the morning in a room full of lawyers watching someone try to destroy my family."
"I chose to stay," I said.
"I asked you to."
"I still chose."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Why?" he said.
"You could have taken Lily and gone back to the staff wing.
I couldn't have stopped you."
I thought about Eleanor Cole's photograph at the end of the corridor.
The clinic opening.
The silver-haired woman who had given me her personal number and said, use it if you ever need anything.
"Your mother gave me this job," I said.
"Not through the agency.
She called the agency director personally and asked her to place me here.
I didn't know that until three months in, when the director mentioned it." I paused.
"She never told me why.
She just said she thought it would be a good fit."
Marcus looked at me steadily.
"She knew," he said slowly.
"She knew something was wrong with Vanessa.
She couldn't prove it.
So she put someone she trusted inside the house."
"I don't know that," I said.
"I don't want to assume—"
"She gave you her personal number," he said.
"She called the director herself.
She placed you in the east wing, which is the wing closest to the security room." He stopped.
"My mother is not a careless woman."
I didn't know what to say to that.
Lily climbed off the sofa and walked to Marcus.
She held Mr.
Bun up toward him.
He looked at the stuffed rabbit.
"For me?" he said.
"He wants to see you," Lily said.
Marcus took the rabbit carefully with both hands.
He looked at it for a moment with an expression that was hard to read.
"Thank you," he said.
To Lily.
Completely seriously.
She nodded, satisfied, and climbed back onto the sofa.
Daniel's phone rang.
He stepped out to answer it.
Marcus set Mr.
Bun gently on the cushion beside Lily.
"What happens to Vanessa now?" I asked.
"Her attorney is negotiating cooperation terms.
She'll give up Nathan fully in exchange for a reduced charge." He paused.
"She'll still face charges.
The cooperation just affects the sentencing range."
"And the complaint she filed?
The one naming you?"
"Withdrawn as part of the cooperation agreement.
The regulatory body has already been notified." He looked at me.
"My name will be cleared formally within the week."
Daniel came back in.
He stood in the doorway with his phone still in his hand.
"Vanessa just told Garrett something," he said.
"Something she says she wants Marcus to know before this goes any further."
Marcus looked up.
"She says the foundation wasn't the only target," Daniel said.
"She says Nathan had a second plan.
May you like
One she claims she didn't know about until last month." He paused.
"She says it involves Eleanor directly."
