Chapter 3
Nora knew more than she initially admitted.
Not because she was hiding betrayal.
Because she was afraid I would blame her for not coming sooner.
I met her in Oliver’s room after he finally fell asleep.
He kept one fist twisted in her cardigan.
Even unconscious.
I sat beside the bed.
“Tell me everything.”
Nora swallowed.
The first locked night happened three weeks earlier.
I was in Chicago.
Camille told Nora she wanted to handle bedtime herself.
Normal.
Reasonable.
Nora left.
At eleven, she heard Oliver screaming.
The nursery door was locked from outside.
Camille was gone.
Nora used an old housekeeping key.
Inside, Oliver sat behind the crib gate crying for me.
Then Nora heard voices through the service wall.
Camille.
Adrian Sterling.
And another man.
They were searching Elise’s dressing room.
“What did they say?”
Nora closed her eyes, remembering.
“Adrian said, ‘If Elise kept the token, Damian can’t know why.’”
Token.
Not money.
Not jewels.
Then Camille:
“He doesn’t even know she met him.”
I leaned forward.
“Met who?”
Nora shook her head.
“I never heard the name.”
Second night.
Again.
Camille locked Oliver in.
Nora entered afterward.
This time she stayed.
That became the pattern.
Camille would order Nora away.
Lock the outer nursery.
Then later Nora would enter through a laundry passage and remain with Oliver until the people left.
“Why didn’t Camille realize?”
“She thought his crying stopped because he eventually slept.”
My chest tightened.
No.
His crying stopped because Nora held him.
I looked at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Camille said if I interfered again, she’d send me away.”
“That wouldn’t stop you from contacting me.”
Nora looked at Oliver.
“She said she’d send him too.”
I went still.
“Where?”
“The Whitmore summer house.”
Closed for years.
She told Nora that after our marriage, Oliver would spend long periods there with tutors because Camille wanted our new household to have “space.”
Nora believed enough of it to stay.
Not because she was cowardly.
Because she feared telling me badly would accelerate the thing she was trying to prevent.
Then Nora whispered:
“Mr. Whitmore, there’s something else.”
I looked at her.
“Oliver wasn’t the reason they used the nursery.”
“What was?”
May you like
She looked toward Elise’s portrait.
“They thought your wife hid something there because she knew she might die.”
