Chapter 3 - Shadows Behind the Marble
At St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, the room was quiet except for the rhythmic monitor beep tracking Lily’s heart rate. Her small hand was swallowed inside Ethan’s larger grip. Maria sat nearby on a visitor chair, her arms wrapped in clean white bandages.
“The doctor said she’s going to make a full recovery,” Ethan murmured, leaning over to kiss Lily’s forehead. He turned to Maria, sincere gratitude filling his eyes. “Maria, words will never be enough for what you did today. You bled for my daughter when her own stepmother left her to suffocate.”
Maria shook her head softly. “I love Lily like she is my own family, Mr. Graves. When my own daughter was sick years ago back in Mexico, nobody helped me. I promised God if I ever saw a child in danger, I would throw my body in the way. Glass means nothing.”
Ethan pulled out his phone and made two immediate calls. The first was to his head of security, Lucas, ordering a total lockdown of the estate and the extraction of every security camera hard drive. The second was to Arthur Vance, the city’s top matrimonial and criminal defense attorney.
Within an hour, Lucas delivered shocking news to Ethan’s hospital room.
“Boss,” Lucas reported softly, handing Ethan a tablet. “We pulled the internal garage and courtyard camera feeds. But three hours of footage from this afternoon were manually erased from the main server inside the house.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Clara.”
“Yes, sir. But she made a mistake,” Lucas continued with a grim smile. “She didn’t realize you installed an offsite secondary backup system connected directly to your office server downtown two months ago. We have the raw footage.”
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Ethan tapped the screen. The high-definition video showed Clara clearly: walking toward the running SUV, reaching inside to turn off the engine, locking the doors, and ignoring Lily’s desperate fists beating against the glass. The camera captured Clara looking directly at the little girl, adjusting her sunglasses, and turning on her heel to walk back into the mansion.
Ethan felt sick to his stomach, but beneath the nausea was a burning resolve. “Send this directly to Detective Vance and Arthur. I want a restraining order filed by midnight.”
