Chapter 21 - Margaret’s Last Bargain
Margaret looked older than she had on the pier.
Her hair had gone gray along the part. She held a paper cup in both hands, though the coffee inside had stopped steaming.
Her attorney sat beside her.
A prosecutor and Hayes occupied the other side of the table.
Emily and I were permitted to attend part of the meeting after our attorneys worked through the arrangements.
Nothing Margaret said to us could erase what she had done.
I needed her to understand that.
She seemed to.
Before anyone asked a question, she looked at me.
“How is Zion?”
I felt my body tighten.
“Alive.”
Her eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
Emily sat beside me, hands folded in her lap.
The prosecutor began.
“Mrs. Vance, you previously described threats involving your son. Today, we’re discussing the household staffing.”
Margaret nodded.
“Richard told me someone new was coming.”
“Emily Harrison?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said she had caused trouble at a hospital. That she needed money. That she would be grateful for any job.”
Emily’s expression did not move.
Margaret’s voice shook.
“He told me not to mention she had been a nurse.”
“Did you know about Lily?” Emily asked.
Margaret looked at her.
“Not at first.”
“Did you know later?”
“Yes.”
Emily inhaled slowly.
I watched her fight to keep the question steady.
“And you still let them put me in that house?”
Margaret began crying.
“I thought if I did what they wanted, Tommy would be safe.”
“You keep saying that,” I said.
Her attorney shifted, but Margaret raised a hand.
“He’s right.”
She wiped her face.
“They gave me something to be afraid of, and I let that become permission.”
For the first time, she had said something that sounded like responsibility.
The prosecutor asked who else had contacted her.
Margaret named Adrian Vale.
Then Martin Shaw.
My hands curled beneath the table.
“What did Martin say?”
“He told me your security team worried about unauthorized recording. He gave me a tablet for the nursery schedule. Said it would help coordinate staff.”
The household tablet.
The same system Owen had traced.
“Did you know it could access cameras?” Hayes asked.
“No.”
“Did you use it to photograph anyone?”
“Sometimes. Zion sleeping. Staff cleaning. Whatever Mr. Shaw requested.”
Emily looked at me.
They had not merely planted a device.
They had made surveillance sound like household management.
Margaret reached for an envelope her attorney held.
“I wrote down dates. After Richard’s arrest, I tried to remember every conversation.”
“Why wait?” I asked.
Her face crumpled.
“Because Vale told my lawyer that Tommy could still be charged with things he’d done for the men holding his debt.”
“Your lawyer?” the prosecutor asked sharply.
“My former lawyer.”
The room went quiet.
Margaret continued.
“I don’t know which threats were real anymore. That’s why I asked for someone new.”
Her new attorney nodded.
The prosecutor took the envelope.
Then Margaret looked at Emily.
“There was one thing I never understood.”
“What?”
“Vale asked whether you still had Lily’s bracelet.”
Emily’s hand moved automatically toward the pendant beneath her sweater.
She kept a small photograph of Lily inside it.
The hospital bracelet was somewhere else.
A keepsake box.
At the house.
“What did you tell him?” she asked.
“That I didn’t know.”
Emily went pale.
Hayes leaned forward.
“Why would he ask about a bracelet?”
Margaret shook her head.
“He said hospitals changed identification systems. That old numbers caused confusion.”
Emily rose.
I stood with her.
Outside the room, she gripped my arm.
“The bracelet they gave me after Lily died,” she whispered.
May you like
“What about it?”
“It didn’t match the number on her admission paperwork.”
