Chapter 4 - THE MAID WHO VANISHED BEFORE NATALIEWORD NUMBER - 4
Natalie locked Lucas inside Daniel’s reinforced office.
Not alone.
One trusted security man sat outside.
Another monitored cameras.
Natalie hated leaving the boy even twenty feet away.
But someone had placed Maya’s hospital bracelet on her bed.
That meant the intruder wanted Natalie to find it.
Or wanted her frightened enough to leave.
The bracelet read:
BROOKS, MAYA E.
SAINT MARIBEL.
Admit date matched three days after the crash.
The hidden servants’ passage stood open behind Natalie’s closet.
She had never noticed the panel.
Evelyn had assigned her bedroom.
Now Natalie wondered why.
She called Marco again.
“We’re forty minutes out,” he said.
“Daniel?”
“Losing patience with traffic.”
Natalie almost smiled.
“Helpful.”
“Do not enter the passage.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
She was.
Marco knew.
“Natalie.”
“Yes?”
“If Daniel asks, I told you absolutely not.”
“Understood.”
She disconnected.
Then entered.
The passage was narrow.
Old brick.
Exposed pipes.
Dust except where footsteps passed frequently.
Natalie moved slowly.
The corridor split.
One direction toward the west wing.
One downward.
She chose down.
At the bottom she found a locked steel door.
Not original to the house.
New.
Electronic keypad.
Beside it, scratched into the brick:
A.C.
Natalie touched the letters.
Anna Carter.
The previous maid.
Below:
HELP L.
Lucas.
Natalie’s heart pounded.
She tried the door.
Locked.
A noise came from behind it.
She froze.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then:
“Who’s there?”
A woman.
Natalie stepped closer.
“My name is Natalie.”
A long pause.
Then:
“Are you the new maid?”
Natalie stopped breathing.
“Yes.”
The woman laughed once.
It sounded like relief and terror at the same time.
“Then Evelyn hasn’t gotten rid of you yet.”
“Anna?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
Natalie’s knees nearly gave out.
Anna Carter had not quit.
She was inside the mansion.
“How long have you been down here?”
“Three weeks.”
Natalie stared.
“Three weeks?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Did Evelyn lock you in?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I found Maya.”
Natalie’s pulse roared.
“Maya was here?”
“For two days.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
That explained the photograph.
Anna continued.
“Evelyn brought her from Oregon once before. Maya was barely conscious. I saw them through the passage.”
“What happened?”
“I confronted Evelyn.”
“And?”
“She put Maya’s necklace in my bag.”
“Lucas saw.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
Anna began crying.
“I thought nobody believed him.”
“Daniel dismissed you.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t leave.”
“No.”
Anna explained.
Evelyn had security escort her from the property.
On the road, another vehicle intercepted them.
Anna was drugged.
She woke inside the basement room.
“Why keep you alive?”
“I copied files.”
“What files?”
“Maya’s medical records.”
“Where?”
“I hid them.”
“Where?”
“In Lucas’s playhouse.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
A five-year-old’s wooden playhouse behind the garden.
The one place Evelyn apparently considered too childish to search.
“How have you survived?”
“Someone brings food.”
“Evelyn?”
“I never see the face.”
Natalie examined the keypad.
“Can you open from inside?”
“No.”
She called security.
The trusted guard arrived with tools.
Natalie did not care whether Marco had said wait.
They forced the door.
Anna Carter stepped into the light.
Thin.
Bruised.
Alive.
Natalie caught her as she nearly collapsed.
Anna grabbed her arm.
“Lucas.”
“He’s safe.”
“Don’t let Evelyn give him medicine.”
“We found it.”
Anna began sobbing.
“She makes him violent.”
“What?”
“The drops.”
Natalie stared.
“It’s not just sedative?”
“No.”
Anna shook.
“I copied Dr. Kessler’s dosing notes.”
“Where?”
“Playhouse.”
“What does it do?”
“Kessler wrote that the combination can cause agitation before sedation. Confusion. Memory gaps.”
Natalie felt physically ill.
Lucas’s “episodes.”
Created.
Or worsened deliberately.
“Why?”
Anna looked toward the ceiling.
“To make Daniel think Lucas is unstable.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if Evelyn needs control.”
“Control of what?”
“Daniel.”
Anna explained what she had pieced together.
After Maya’s supposed death, Daniel became emotionally dependent on Evelyn’s management of the household.
Lucas’s worsening behavior kept Daniel guilty, distracted, and home less often because he believed his presence sometimes triggered the child.
Evelyn controlled doctors.
Staff.
Information.
Every maid who became close to Lucas noticed inconsistencies.
They left—or were forced out.
“Why does Evelyn want Daniel dependent?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Anna said:
“But there’s something about Daniel’s father.”
“What?”
“I heard Evelyn tell Kessler that the Brooks inheritance only stays stable while Daniel remains sole guardian of Lucas.”
Natalie frowned.
“What inheritance?”
“Not money.”
Anna looked frightened.
“Control of the organization.”
The Brooks crime network had old succession rules.
Daniel’s father, Vincent Brooks, created them after surviving an internal coup.
If Daniel became incapacitated or legally unfit while Lucas was a minor, authority temporarily transferred to a designated family custodian.
Natalie knew the obvious question.
“Who?”
Anna answered.
“Evelyn.”
No.
Impossible.
Evelyn was house manager.
Not family.
Unless—
Anna continued.
“Her legal name isn’t Evelyn Hart.”
“What is it?”
“Evelyn Brooks.”
Natalie went still.
“Who is she?”
“Vincent Brooks’s sister.”
Daniel’s aunt.
The family member nobody mentioned.
The woman Vincent supposedly banished twenty-five years earlier after she tried to seize control of his businesses.
Evelyn had returned under her married surname.
She spent decades inside Daniel’s house.
Serving.
Waiting.
Nobody realized the woman running the mansion was the same aunt Daniel had been told died overseas.
Natalie felt cold.
“She wants guardianship.”
“Yes.”
“Then why keep Maya alive?”
Anna shook her head.
“That’s the part I never understood.”
A noise came from the passage.
Footsteps.
Security raised weapons.
A woman appeared.
Dirty coat.
Bare feet.
Hair tangled.
Natalie recognized her from photographs instantly.
Maya Brooks.
Alive.
She looked at Anna.
Then Natalie.
Then whispered:
“Where is my son?”
Natalie’s eyes filled.
“He’s safe.”
Maya almost collapsed.
Natalie caught her.
Maya grabbed her shoulders.
“Evelyn knows I escaped.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Maya looked terrified.
“You don’t understand.”
“She doesn’t want Daniel’s money.”
“What does she want?”
Maya’s lips trembled.
“Lucas.”
Footsteps thundered above.
Daniel had returned.
Maya heard his voice through the passage.
She froze.
Twenty-two months.
A husband who thought she was dead.
A wife who believed he abandoned her.
Daniel reached the basement.
Saw Maya.
Stopped.
Nobody moved.
Daniel’s face emptied.
“Maya.”
She stared.
“You knew?”
His expression broke.
“No.”
“You signed me away.”
“No.”
“They showed me papers.”
“Forged.”
“They said you called me dangerous.”
“I thought you were dead.”
Maya’s knees weakened.
Daniel stepped forward.
She backed away.
Pain crossed his face.
He stopped.
Exactly as Natalie had stopped with Lucas.
“I won’t come closer.”
Maya began crying.
Daniel did too.
Quietly.
“Did you know I was alive?”
“No.”
She looked at his face for a long time.
Then believed him.
Not completely.
Enough.
Lucas’s voice suddenly came through Daniel’s radio.
“Daddy?”
Daniel grabbed it.
“Yes?”
The trusted guard sounded panicked in the background.
“Sir, we have a problem.”
“What?”
“Lucas opened the safe-room door for Miss Hart.”
Daniel’s face drained.
“How?”
“She told him his mother was downstairs.”
Everyone looked at Maya.
The guard continued.
May you like
“She took him.”
And on a monitor in the basement, the front-gate camera showed Evelyn Hart driving away with Lucas in the back seat.
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