Chapter 2 - THE TWELVE MINUTES THAT DISAPPEARED
The erased footage changed everything.
Until then, I could tell myself Grant had been selfish.
Careless.
Unfaithful.
Now I had to consider something darker.
Daniel called our cybersecurity director.
“Can the footage be recovered?”
“Possibly.”
“Do it.”
I turned toward the ICU doors.
“What exactly happened between 10:53 and 11:05?”
Nobody knew.
Rosa arrived thirty minutes later, pale and shaking.
The moment she saw me, she burst into tears.
“I should have been there.”
“No.”
I took her hands.
“Tell me everything.”
Grant had given Rosa the morning off.
That was unusual.
He told her he wanted a private Christmas lunch with Chloe.
At 10:20, Rosa left.
At 11:07, Chloe called her.
“She couldn’t speak properly,” Rosa whispered. “She just kept saying, ‘I can’t breathe.’”
“Did she say anything else?”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“She said, ‘Dad said it was safe.’”
My stomach dropped.
I sat down slowly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The words repeated inside my head.
Dad said it was safe.
Daniel looked away.
I called Grant.
For the first time, I wanted him to answer.
He picked up instantly.
“Evelyn!”
“What did Chloe eat?”
Silence.
Then:
“What?”
“What did you feed her before you left?”
“I didn’t feed her anything.”
“There was cashew sauce in my kitchen.”
“I ordered lunch.”
“For who?”
“For myself.”
“And you left it there?”
“I threw it away.”
“Why did you delete the kitchen footage?”
Another silence.
Longer.
“I didn’t.”
“The system says your phone did.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Chloe said you told her something was safe.”
“What?”
His voice changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“Evelyn, put Chloe on.”
“She’s intubated.”
Nothing.
Then I heard something crash on his end.
“What?”
“She’s what?”
“In the ICU.”
For the first time all day, Grant stopped talking.
Then he whispered:
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
I believed that part.
He hadn’t known Chloe was dying while drinking champagne on my yacht.
That did not absolve him.
It made his negligence uglier.
“I’m coming back.”
“No.”
“Evelyn—”
“Stay where you are.”
“My daughter is in the ICU!”
“She was your daughter this morning too.”
He stopped.
Then Miranda’s voice came faintly through the phone.
“Grant, ask her if she found the envelope.”
I heard it.
So did Daniel.
Grant turned away from the phone.
“Miranda, shut up.”
Too late.
“What envelope?”
Silence.
“Grant.”
His voice dropped.
“Evelyn, don’t go home.”
My skin went cold.
“Why?”
“Because whoever deleted that footage may still have access to the house.”
I looked at Daniel.
Then Grant said something that changed the entire story.
“The cashew sauce wasn’t mine.”
“What?”
“I never ordered from Santorini today.”
Daniel and I stared at each other.
Grant continued.
“Someone used my account.”
Then I looked back at the receipt.
Customer name: GRANT VANCE.
But the payment method wasn’t one of the cards I had frozen.
May you like
It was a card I had never seen before.
And it ended in the same four digits as an account Grant had opened in Miranda Cole’s name.
