Chapter 2 - Catherine’s Last Three Days
I had spent six years believing my wife died because a drunk truck driver crossed two lanes on the Kennedy Expressway.
The official report used cleaner language.
Vehicle collision.
Driver impairment.
Fatal blunt trauma.
Case closed.
No conspiracy.
No unanswered question.
Just grief.
Now Emily Carter sat in my living room wearing a blood-stained housekeeper uniform and told me Catherine had known someone wanted her dead.
My first reaction was anger.
My second was worse.
Belief.
Because Catherine had changed during her last month.
I had noticed.
I had simply interpreted every sign incorrectly.
She checked the locks twice.
Started taking Noah to preschool herself instead of using the driver.
Asked whether the security cameras recorded audio.
Once, at dinner, she asked me whether I trusted my brother.
Daniel.
I laughed.
Of course I trusted Daniel.
He was twelve years younger than me.
I practically raised him.
Catherine changed the subject.
Three weeks later she was dead.
I stared at Emily.
“Start from the beginning.”
She looked toward the stairs.
“Not here.”
“Why?”
“Noah.”
“He’s upstairs.”
“He listens from the landing.”
I almost smiled because she was right.
I walked toward the hallway.
“Noah.”
Silence.
Then:
“I’m in my room.”
Emily looked at me.
I looked at the ceiling.
“Fine.”
We moved into my study.
I locked the door.
Emily noticed.
“Habit,” I said.
“You should probably change some habits.”
That was not what employees said to me.
Then again, this was no longer an employee conversation.
“Who are you?”
She sat across from my desk.
“Emily Carter.”
“Don’t.”
“That is my name.”
“Who were you to Catherine?”
Emily looked down at the medal.
“We met in nursing school.”
I stared.
“You’re a nurse?”
“Was.”
My housekeeper had attended nursing school with my dead wife.
Catherine studied pediatric nursing before marriage.
I knew that.
She quit during her final year because her father became ill.
Or that was what I remembered.
Emily continued.
“We were roommates for one semester.”
“You’re younger.”
“Catherine was twenty-four. I was eighteen.”
“How did I never meet you?”
“She transferred.”
“Why?”
Emily hesitated.
“Because of you.”
I frowned.
“That sounds dramatic.”
“She had started dating a Harrington.”
I understood.
“My family scared you.”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
Emily almost smiled.
Then the smile vanished.
“We lost contact for years.”
“Then?”
“She found me again after Noah was born.”
“Why?”
Emily looked toward my desk.
“She needed someone outside your world.”
The phrase irritated me.
“What world?”
She looked directly at me.
“Do you really want me to answer?”
No.
Probably not.
I leaned back.
“What did she tell you three days before she died?”
Emily inhaled.
“She called me from a number I didn’t recognize.”
“Where were you?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Doing what?”
“Working nights at a rehabilitation hospital.”
“She asked you to come to Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said someone had been following her.”
My jaw tightened.
“Who?”
“She didn’t know.”
“Then why suspect my family?”
“Because the person knew your security schedule.”
That mattered.
Catherine knew how tightly my movements were controlled.
If someone tracked her despite that—
Inside access.
“Did she name anyone?”
“No.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
“My mother?”
“No.”
“My uncle?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“She gave me the medal.”
Emily opened her palm.
“She said if anything happened to her, I should protect Noah.”
I laughed once.
Not humor.
“You?”
Pain crossed Emily’s face.
“I know.”
“A woman I didn’t know.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She trusted me.”
“Enough to put my son in your hands?”
“She didn’t say take him.”
“What did she say?”
Emily closed her eyes.
“Stay close enough to see who comes near him after I’m gone.”
My blood went cold.
“You came to work here because Catherine told you to?”
“Not immediately.”
“When?”
“Three years later.”
“Why wait?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
Honest.
Good.
“And then?”
“Your old housekeeper, Maribel, became a patient at the rehabilitation center where I worked. She mentioned the estate needed staff.”
“So you applied.”
“Yes.”
“And spent three years watching my son.”
“Yes.”
“You lied on your résumé.”
“No. I really had housekeeping experience.”
“How?”
“I worked hotel cleaning after I left nursing.”
“Why leave nursing?”
Emily’s mouth tightened.
“That’s separate.”
“Nothing is separate anymore.”
She looked at me.
Then:
“I was accused of stealing medication.”
I waited.
“I didn’t.”
“Prove it.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“The supervisor altered records.”
“Who?”
She laughed bitterly.
“You really do solve everything like a deposition.”
“Usually works.”
“It ruined my career.”
“Name.”
“Michael.”
“Name.”
She stared.
“Dr. Owen Mercer.”
Something in my memory shifted.
Mercer.
Where had I—
Then I knew.
Owen Mercer had been Catherine’s physician after Noah’s birth.
Later, he became medical director for Harrington Community Foundation clinics.
My foundation.
I felt cold.
“Did Catherine know?”
“Yes.”
“Was Mercer connected to her fear?”
Emily’s face changed.
“I don’t know.”
“That means maybe.”
“She asked me whether I still had the disciplinary records.”
“Why?”
“Because the medication listed in my case matched something she found.”
“What?”
Emily reached into her apron pocket again.
A small folded paper.
Old.
Worn.
She handed it to me.
Catherine’s handwriting.
Three drug names.
One circled.
Midazolam.
I frowned.
“What is this?”
“Hospital sedative.”
“I know what it is.”
“Then you know it shouldn’t have been in a private driver’s medical bag.”
I went still.
“What driver?”
“Your family’s.”
We had several.
“Which?”
“Leonard Pike.”
My father’s former driver.
Retired after Catherine’s death.
Died two years later.
Emily continued.
“Catherine found an empty vial in his vehicle.”
“How?”
“She dropped her earring under the rear seat.”
“Maybe he had a prescription.”
“Not for that.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.”
“But she thought it mattered.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because weeks earlier she overheard Daniel arguing with someone about ‘keeping Michael asleep until the vote.’”
I stood.
“What vote?”
“She didn’t know.”
I did.
Six years ago.
The Harbor Board vote.
The moment I consolidated control of Harrington Logistics away from my uncle Raymond.
If I had been medically incapacitated, proxy authority would have passed temporarily to Daniel.
My brother.
I sat again.
No.
Daniel had stood beside me at Catherine’s funeral.
Held Noah while I identified her body.
He had been twenty-eight.
Terrified.
Broken.
Could he have—
No.
I looked at Emily.
“What else?”
“Catherine believed someone was preparing to drug you.”
“Why kill her?”
“She found out.”
“Found out what?”
Emily shook her head.
“She never told me.”
“You expect me to believe she called you, gave you her medal, asked you to watch my son, and never explained?”
“She said she had proof hidden somewhere you would eventually find.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve been in my house three years.”
“Yes.”
“You never searched?”
Emily became angry for the first time.
“I came here to protect Noah, not dig through your wife’s belongings like a thief.”
The sentence stopped me.
She continued.
“I watched who he trusted. Who frightened him. Which adults asked him questions about your schedule.”
“Did anyone?”
Her eyes moved away.
There.
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
My throat tightened.
“What questions?”
“Small things.”
“Emily.”
“When you would be home. Which nights you had meetings. Whether you still kept the old lake house.”
“That could be normal.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think it was.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Noah started having nightmares after Daniel questioned him.”
My anger rose.
“What nightmares?”
Emily hesitated.
“He dreamed his mother was trapped in a car.”
I froze.
Noah had been two when Catherine died.
He should barely remember.
“What did he say?”
“That Uncle Daniel told him Mommy died because Daddy made dangerous people angry.”
I stood so fast the chair struck the wall.
Emily flinched.
Not because I touched her.
Because my reputation entered the room before I did.
I forced myself to breathe.
“Daniel said that?”
“That’s what Noah told me.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“You were barely speaking to him outside meals.”
That hurt.
She saw it.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
I looked toward the family photograph on the shelf.
Me.
Catherine.
Baby Noah.
Daniel beside us.
My mother.
Uncle Raymond.
A family built on secrets pretending to be loyalty.
I asked:
“Why did Noah choose you today?”
Emily shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“He trusts me.”
“More than me?”
Her silence answered.
That was worse than accusation.
Before I could speak, someone knocked.
Daniel entered.
No invitation.
My brother wore a navy suit and a smile.
Then he saw Emily.
Saw the medal.
His face changed.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But I knew Daniel.
I had known every version of him since he was born.
That was fear.
He covered it.
“Am I interrupting?”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Need me later?”
“No.”
He turned.
Then stopped at the door.
“Emily.”
She looked up.
Daniel’s voice softened.
“I didn’t realize you knew Catherine.”
The room became silent.
Emily stared.
“I never told you I did.”
Daniel froze.
My blood turned cold.
Neither of us had mentioned what we were discussing.
Neither of us had said Catherine’s name after he entered.
Daniel slowly looked at me.
“Michael.”
May you like
I stood.
“How did you know?”
