Chapter 5
Janice denied everything until I played her own messages.
Rafe pulled them from the old phone she carried.
Not sophisticated.
She had grown careless because the system worked too long.
One message from Vincent, two years earlier:
KEEP HER WORKING. TIRED PEOPLE DON’T RUN.
My jaw tightened.
Another:
THE OLDER GIRL CAN HELP. CALL IT FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY.
Ella.
Three years old then?
No.
Younger.
Too young.
Janice had been building toward it.
I looked at her across the basement interview room.
“You put a four-year-old on a vacuum.”
“She wanted to help her mother.”
“No.”
My voice stayed quiet.
“You needed the floor finished.”
Janice rolled her eyes.
“Claire missed work.”
“She had a fever.”
“She always has an excuse.”
There.
The worldview.
People below you do not have circumstances.
Only failures.
“What happened if Claire refused shifts?”
Janice smirked.
“She needed the room.”
Housing.
Of course.
Claire’s small apartment belonged to the cleaning contractor.
Miss work.
Lose hours.
Lose room.
Lose stability.
Janice had weaponized every basic need without ever needing chains.
I looked at the envelope.
“How did this get into my office?”
Her face changed.
Finally.
“Vincent.”
“Vincent is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then explain.”
She looked toward the wall.
He placed envelopes in multiple locations before he died.
Insurance.
Against who?
Maybe me.
Maybe Janice.
Maybe himself.
“Why this office?”
“He said if anything happened to him, someone would eventually move the vase.”
I almost laughed.
That was Vincent.
Paranoid enough to trust furniture more than people.
“What was inside originally?”
Janice said nothing.
I leaned forward.
“The envelope contains photographs, a wristband, and a note about Sophie.”
Her expression tightened.
“There was more.”
I knew.
“What?”
“A memory card.”
My body went still.
“Where is it?”
“I took it.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
“How did you know the envelope was here?”
Vincent told her.
He instructed her to retrieve it only if Claire came close to me again.
And she had.
By accident.
My company hired her cleaning contractor for this building.
Janice could have reassigned Claire.
Instead she kept her here.
Why?
Money.
Control.
And maybe something else.
“Why let her work in my building?”
Janice smiled faintly.
“Because you never notice cleaners.”
That sentence landed harder than she expected.
Because she was right.
I walked through polished rooms.
Clean offices.
Empty halls.
Never asked who made them that way at 1:00 A.M.
My blindness had become part of their security system.
I looked at her.
“Where’s the card?”
She laughed.
“You think I’d tell you?”
“No.”
I stood.
“I think Claire will.”
Janice’s smile vanished.
May you like
Because she had just revealed something without realizing it.
Claire had seen the card too.
