Chapter 5: What Marcus Saw
The driver's name was Marcus Webb.
He had been with the Blackwood household for seven years.
He came in from the garage still holding his cap.
He was a broad-shouldered man in his late fifties, and he stood in the doorway of the dining room looking at the table full of documents and evidence bags and the attorney he recognized and the attorney he didn't, and he said nothing until Victor asked him to sit down.
"Marcus," Victor said.
"Rosa tells me you may have seen something."
Marcus turned his cap in his hands.
"I wasn't sure it was my place to say."
"It is now."
Marcus looked at Lily.
Something passed between them — not a secret, just recognition.
Two people who had been carrying the same weight.
"Six weeks ago," Marcus said.
"I drove Miss Serena and the baby to her friend's house in Westfield.
You were in Geneva, Mr.
Blackwood.
She told me to wait in the car."
"All right."
"I waited an hour and a half.
When she came back out, she didn't have the baby."
The room went very still.
"She got in the car and told me to drive.
I asked where the baby was.
She said he was staying with her friend for a few days." Marcus paused.
"I drove her home.
But something felt wrong.
So I went back."
"To the friend's house," Victor said.
"Yes, sir.
About twenty minutes later.
I knocked on the door.
A woman answered — I didn't know her.
I asked about the baby.
She looked confused.
She said Miss Serena had picked him up ten minutes after dropping him off."
Victor stood up.
"She had him," Marcus said.
"She must have taken him somewhere else in between.
I don't know where.
I drove around for forty minutes but I couldn't find her.
Then her car came back through the main gate and she was alone.
She told me later she'd stopped at a pharmacy."
Daniel's pen had stopped moving.
"Did you see the baby when she returned?" he asked.
"No, sir.
Not until the following morning, when Lily brought him down for breakfast."
Everyone looked at Lily.
Lily's face was very still.
"He had a bruise on his right knee when I bathed him that night.
He couldn't tell me what happened.
He was barely walking."
Victor's hand went flat on the table.
"Why," he said, and his voice was low and precise, "did no one call me?"
Marcus looked up.
"She had our phones monitored, sir.
The household phones.
She told us it was a security measure you'd approved.
We believed her." He stopped.
"I should have used my personal phone.
I didn't.
That's on me."
"She told you I approved it," Victor said.
"Yes, sir."
Victor looked at Daniel.
Daniel was already writing.
From down the hall, the study door opened.
Footsteps.
Paul Greer appeared in the dining room doorway, and behind him, Serena.
She had composed herself.
Her expression was smooth, almost pleasant, and she looked at Marcus with something that wasn't quite surprise.
"Marcus," she said.
"I didn't know you were here."
Marcus didn't answer.
He didn't look at her.
"My client," Paul Greer said, addressing Daniel, "would like to make a statement."
"I'm sure she would," Daniel said.
Serena stepped forward.
"I want to apologize.
To Victor, and to everyone in this room." Her voice was warm.
Practiced.
"I've been under enormous pressure.
The wedding planning, the adjustment to family life — I haven't handled it well.
I know that.
But what's being described here is a distortion.
I love Ethan.
I would never—"
"Ms.
Voss." Daniel's voice was quiet.
"We have fourteen video recordings, a corroborating audio recording, three staff witnesses, and a forty-minute gap in a child's whereabouts that no one can account for." He set his pen down.
"This is not the moment for an apology."
Serena's warmth flickered.
Paul Greer put a hand on her arm.
She shook it off.
"Victor." She turned to him directly.
Her voice dropped.
"You know me.
Whatever these people have told you — you know who I am."
Victor looked at her for a long moment.
"That's the problem," he said.
"I thought I did."
Serena opened her mouth.
Then her own phone buzzed on the armchair across the room.
She glanced at it.
Just a glance.
But Daniel saw her face change.
"Ms.
Voss," he said.
"Is there someone else who knows you're here tonight?"
May you like
She didn't answer.
Her phone buzzed again.
