Chapter 3 - The Maid Who Had Nothing to Gain
Grace turned slowly.
Victor stood in the laundry-room doorway.
Teresa immediately picked up a folded tablecloth.
“We were checking linen inventory.”
Victor's attention stayed on Grace.
“Were you?”
Grace forced her expression to remain neutral.
“Yes.”
Victor stepped into the room.
“You've become very interested in inventories today.”
Grace's pulse quickened.
“I was asked to check supplies last week.”
“By whom?”
“Mrs. Pierce.”
That was true.
Technically.
Mrs. Pierce had asked her to verify guest-room linen counts.
She had not asked her to compare liquor invoices.
Victor looked toward the paperwork on the counter.
Grace moved first and closed the folder.
He noticed.
“What's that?”
“Laundry records.”
“Let me see.”
Grace's fingers remained on the folder.
Victor's eyes narrowed.
“Grace.”
Teresa intervened.
“She has work to do.”
Victor looked at her.
“I wasn't speaking to you.”
A cold silence spread across the room.
From the corridor, hidden behind a recessed doorway leading toward the old service staircase, Adrian watched everything.
His hands curled slightly.
In business meetings he had destroyed men for using less disrespectful tones than Victor had just used with Teresa.
But revealing himself now would end the experiment.
More importantly, it would warn Victor.
Adrian wanted to know what the man was hiding.
Grace slowly moved her hand.
Victor opened the folder.
Most pages were harmless.
Laundry counts.
Cleaning supplies.
Room schedules.
Grace had slipped the delivery sheet beneath the bottom stack.
Victor flipped through several pages.
Then closed it.
“Stay out of security matters.”
Grace met his eyes.
“I wasn't in security matters.”
“Good.”
Victor leaned closer.
“Keep it that way.”
He left.
Teresa exhaled.
“You see?”
Grace stared at the doorway.
“Yes.”
“No, you don't. Grace, listen to me. Men like Victor don't need a reason to hurt your job.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
Grace looked down at the folder.
Because something was wrong.
The answer had been growing inside her for months.
Small inconsistencies.
A case of expensive champagne listed as delivered but never entering the cellar.
Cleaning products ordered twice.
Contractors supposedly arriving on days when Grace knew no one had come.
Victor approving deliveries that Mrs. Pierce never saw.
Grace had ignored everything because none of it was her responsibility.
Until the cuff link.
Something about watching Victor pocket property belonging to a helpless stranger had turned suspicion into certainty.
If he would steal from a homeless man standing directly in front of him, what would he do when no one watched?
Grace pulled the delivery invoice out again.
Teresa shook her head.
“You are impossible.”
“Probably.”
“You're going to get fired.”
“Also probably.”
Teresa stared at her for a long moment.
Then sighed.
“Three cases of wine?”
Grace nodded.
“Maybe four.”
Teresa came closer.
“Show me.”
Outside the room, Adrian almost smiled.
Courage appeared to be contagious.
That afternoon Adrian returned to the abandoned greenhouse and removed part of his disguise.
He washed his hands at an old utility sink but left enough dirt around his nails to maintain the appearance.
He retrieved a hidden phone from the bottom of his canvas sack.
Only one person had the number.
Malcolm answered on the second ring.
“Tell me you're alive.”
“I'm alive.”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
A pause.
“At Whitmore House?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“Because I'm dressed like a homeless man in my greenhouse.”
Silence.
Then Malcolm said, “I don't get paid enough.”
“You get paid extremely well.”
“Not for this.”
Adrian ignored him.
“I need financial records.”
“What records?”
“Household deliveries for the last eighteen months. Security invoices. Vendor payments. Maintenance expenses.”
Malcolm's tone changed.
“What happened?”
“Something may be wrong.”
“How wrong?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Do you want me to send auditors?”
“No.”
“Adrian—”
“No one knows I'm here.”
“That sentence worries me more every time you say it.”
“Send the documents to my private encrypted account.”
“Fine.”
“And Malcolm?”
“Yes?”
“Check Victor Haines.”
“The security guard?”
“Everything.”
“Understood.”
Adrian disconnected.
For the next several hours he continued moving quietly through the estate.
He learned more in one afternoon as an invisible man than he had learned in years as the owner.
Employees were different when they did not know he was watching.
Some impressed him.
Teresa saved leftover food rather than discarding it and sent packages home with staff.
Daniel quietly helped an older groundskeeper carry boxes.
Mrs. Pierce, stern as she was, covered the cost of a dishwasher's prescription medicine out of her own pocket.
Others disappointed him.
A supervisor insulted workers.
Victor treated everyone below his rank with casual cruelty.
And Grace?
Grace kept looking for the beggar.
Adrian noticed her checking through windows.
At four-thirty she left a wrapped sandwich near the wall.
No audience.
No credit.
Nothing to gain.
Adrian found it twenty minutes later.
Beside it was a note written on a napkin.
I hope you're safe. I'm sorry about the guard.
Adrian stared at the words longer than he expected.
That evening he sat in the old greenhouse eating the sandwich.
He was suddenly uncomfortable with himself.
Not with the disguise.
With the reason he had begun wearing it.
He had wanted to test other people.
What arrogance.
As though he were the judge of human decency.
As though his own character required no examination.
Grace had risked her employment to help a stranger.
What had Adrian risked for anyone lately?
A memory surfaced.
Evelyn Ross.
The employee whose son had suffered an asthma attack.
Adrian had fired her for a late report.
Twelve minutes.
He had considered the delay evidence of unreliability.
Now he wondered whether she had sat beside her frightened child in an emergency room while worrying about losing her job.
He disliked the question because he disliked the answer.
His phone vibrated.
A message from Malcolm.
Call me now.
Adrian did.
“What did you find?”
Malcolm sounded serious.
“Enough that I stopped assuming this was ordinary bookkeeping.”
Adrian stood.
“Talk.”
“Victor Haines has personal debt. Significant debt.”
“How significant?”
“Two hundred eighty thousand dollars that we can identify.”
“For what?”
“Gambling, mostly.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“And the house?”
“I pulled eighteen months of vendor records. There are payments to three companies that don't appear to exist.”
“How much?”
“Just over four hundred thousand dollars.”
Adrian went still.
“Four hundred thousand?”
“Possibly more.”
“Who approved them?”
“That's the problem.”
Adrian already knew.
“Victor.”
“Victor approved some. Others have electronic authorization from the household manager.”
“Eleanor Pierce?”
“Yes.”
“She wouldn't steal from me.”
“I agree.”
“So her credentials were used.”
“Likely.”
Adrian looked toward the mansion through dusty greenhouse glass.
“Anything else?”
“One company is registered to a mailbox in Stamford. Another links indirectly to Victor's brother-in-law.”
Adrian's face turned cold.
“Prepare everything.”
“You're coming back?”
“Not yet.”
“Adrian, this is fraud.”
“Yes.”
“Call the police.”
“Not until I know who else is involved.”
Malcolm exhaled.
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
“You're wearing torn pants and hiding in shrubbery at your own mansion.”
“Thank you, Malcolm.”
“I don't think careful means what you think it means.”
Adrian ended the call.
At seven that evening Grace finished her shift.
She changed from her maid uniform into jeans and a navy sweater.
She should have gone home.
Instead she walked toward the service office.
The household delivery records were kept there overnight.
She told herself she only wanted one number.
The vendor name associated with the missing wine.
She unlocked the office using the staff key.
The room was dark.
Grace switched on a desk lamp.
Folders lined the shelves.
She found the monthly invoice binder.
March.
April.
May.
There.
Northfield Estate Logistics.
Grace frowned.
She had never heard of the company.
Yet the mansion had paid it $18,700 three weeks earlier.
For “specialty imports.”
She photographed the page with her phone.
Then another.
And another.
Behind her, a floorboard creaked.
Grace turned.
Victor stood in the doorway.
Her breath caught.
“You work late,” he said.
Grace slowly lowered her phone.
“I forgot something.”
Victor stepped inside.
“The exit is the other direction.”
Grace tried to smile.
“I got confused.”
“No, you didn't.”
He shut the door.
Click.
The sound of the latch seemed impossibly loud.
Grace's fingers tightened around her phone.
Victor walked toward the desk.
“What did you photograph?”
“Nothing.”
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
His eyes changed.
The arrogance remained.
But beneath it was fear.
And fear made dangerous people unpredictable.
“Give me the phone, Grace.”
She backed away.
Victor reached for her.
Grace moved around the desk.
“You're stealing from this house.”
Victor stopped.
“You have no idea what you're talking about.”
“The deliveries don't exist.”
“You should've minded your business.”
“That cuff link belonged to that man too.”
Victor laughed.
“You're risking everything over a filthy stranger?”
Grace looked toward the door.
Victor noticed.
He moved between her and the exit.
“You know what your problem is?” he said. “You think being good makes you safe.”
Grace's throat tightened.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Victor.”
“Give me your phone.”
Outside the office window, something moved in the darkness.
Neither of them saw it.
Adrian had been returning from the greenhouse when he noticed light in the service office.
He approached quietly.
Now he stood behind the hedge, listening.
Victor's voice came through the partially open window.
“You should've minded your business.”
Adrian's entire expression changed.
He moved toward the side door.
Inside, Victor reached across the desk.
Grace stepped back.
Then her phone vibrated.
She looked down reflexively.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
Don't give him anything. You're not alone.
Grace stared at the screen.
Victor saw her reaction.
“Who is that?”
She looked toward the window.
No one.
But somewhere in the darkness outside Whitmore House, the beggar she had fed that morning was watching.
May you like
And this time Adrian Whitmore had no intention of letting Victor touch her.
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