“Do you remember how you sent it?”
“Text.”
Ethan called Michael.
“Find out whether our phone provider can retrieve message records from December.”
Michael sounded confused.
“Your personal account?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll check.”
“Also get Marcus.”
Marcus Kane managed security technology for Caldwell Development and had installed the smart systems in Ethan’s home.
“What are we looking for?” Michael asked.
“Anything that tells me who was controlling my communications.”
Three hours later, Marcus called.
“There’s something strange.”
Ethan sat in his study.
“Tell me.”
“Your phone is linked to the household device-management system because you wanted calls transferred to office lines.”
“Yes.”
“There are blocked numbers.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Did I block them?”
“I can’t tell from the carrier record yet.”
“Can you tell when?”
“Yes.”
Marcus read several dates.
One matched the week Elena said she had contacted him.
“Whose numbers?”
“We’re checking.”
By evening, they had answers.
Elena’s number had been blocked.
So had the former nanny’s.
Lily’s previous piano teacher.
Caroline’s old office number.
And a number Ethan did not recognize.
Marcus traced it.
Greenwich Academy counseling office.
Ethan stared at the list.
“Who had access?”
“You and Vanessa.”
“Could Vanessa change settings from her phone?”
“Yes.”
“Can you prove she did?”
“Possibly through device logs.”
“Do it.”
The next morning brought another discovery.
Lily’s former nanny, Sarah Mitchell, had not quit.
That was what Vanessa had told Ethan eight months earlier.
Sarah had supposedly accepted a position in Boston.
When Ethan called her, she answered on the fourth ring.
“Mr. Caldwell?”
“Sarah.”
Silence.
“I didn’t expect you to call.”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Why did you leave?”
Another silence.
“I thought you knew.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“I’m discovering I didn’t know a lot of things.”
Sarah breathed in.
“Mrs. Caldwell fired me.”
“Why?”
“Because I disagreed with the way she treated Lily.”
Ethan gripped the phone.
“What did you see?”
“At first, nothing terrible.”
Sarah spoke slowly.
“She was controlling. She didn’t like Lily interrupting. She didn’t like toys downstairs. She didn’t like Lily coming into your bedroom in the morning.”
“That’s why she fired you?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“One afternoon Lily accidentally broke one of Vanessa’s perfume bottles.”
Ethan remembered.
Vanessa had told him Lily knocked it over while playing.
“I found Lily in the laundry room washing Vanessa’s clothes by hand.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“How old was she?”
“Six.”
“What did you do?”
“I stopped her.”
“And Vanessa?”
“She told me I was undermining her.”
“Then?”
“We argued.”
Sarah’s voice became quieter.
“She said Lily needed to understand that being wealthy didn’t make her special.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“And I told her making a six-year-old wash silk blouses had nothing to do with teaching humility.”
“What happened?”
“She fired me.”
“Did you contact me?”
“I called.”
Ethan looked at the blocked-number list.
Three calls.
All during a board meeting in Boston.
“Did you leave a message?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Vanessa called me that evening.”
Ethan already knew.
“She said you agreed with her?”
Sarah sounded surprised.
“Yes.”
Ethan covered his eyes with his free hand.