Chapter 2 - THE FALSE TRIP TO MAINE
Emma lunged for the keypad.
Isabella grabbed her arm. “Do not touch that door.”
Emma twisted free. “He may be hurt.”
“He is being treated.”
“In a locked room behind a painting?”
The words hung between them.
Isabella glanced toward the ballroom. “Ethan has emotional problems. He becomes violent. William cannot accept it, so I arranged private care.”
“You told everyone he was in Maine.”
“For the family's privacy.”
Emma struck the steel door with both fists. “Ethan! Stay awake!”
A faint scrape answered.
Isabella reached for the remote again.
Emma caught her wrist.
For one sharp second, the billionaire's elegant new wife and the housekeeper stood locked together in the narrow hall.
Then Isabella screamed.
Not from pain.
For attention.
Two private guards rushed through the staff entrance.
“She attacked me,” Isabella said, instantly breathless. “She tried to break into a restricted medical room.”
Emma stared at the guards. “There is a child behind that wall.”
One guard, Daniel Pike, avoided her eyes.
He knew.
The other took Emma by the elbow.
“Please come with us.”
“Ask Ethan to speak,” Emma said. “Just ask him.”
Isabella lifted her chin. “The room is soundproof.”
Emma froze.
If it was soundproof, Isabella should not have heard the supposed pipes.
“You just admitted the room exists.”
Daniel moved fast. He grabbed Emma's broken phone from the floor and slipped it into his jacket.
“Take her downstairs,” Isabella ordered.
They marched Emma toward the service elevator. As the doors opened, she kicked the alarm panel. A shrill bell rang through the corridor.
Guests began turning toward the noise.
William Sterling appeared from the ballroom, tall and confused, his tuxedo jacket open.
“Emma? What is happening?”
She shouted before the guards could silence her.
“Ethan is behind the wall!”
William stopped.
Isabella hurried to him and touched his chest. “She is having some kind of breakdown.”
“Where is my son?” William asked.
“In Maine, darling. You spoke to him yesterday.”
Emma said, “You spoke to a recorded message.”
William looked at her.
She saw doubt enter his face.
Then Daniel pulled a syringe from his pocket and drove it toward Emma's arm.
She knocked it away.
It hit the floor between them.
William stared at it.
“What was that for?”
No one answered.
Behind the painting, Ethan began pounding on the steel door.
May you like
This time, every guest in the hallway heard him scream.
“DAD!”
