Part 2:

Vance lunged for my body camera first, not Maya.

That told me what he feared most.

I shifted my shoulder back, and his fingers scraped fabric instead of the device. The trust papers slipped from his hand and scattered across the rug near Maya’s missing slipper. I saw one page facedown with her name already printed beneath a signature line. Another page named Constance as temporary guardian if Maya was declared medically unfit.

“You staged this,” Vance snapped, loud enough for the camera and quiet enough for his mother to pretend not to hear.

Constance pressed two fingers to the wall panel.

The alarm stopped.

So did every hallway camera light I could see.

“Backup is still coming,” I said.

“Your backup answers to men who play golf with my son,” she replied.

Maya made a small sound behind me. Her hand moved weakly against the rug, searching, not for me, but for the fallen silk handkerchief.

I picked it up before Constance could.

Something hard was folded inside it.

Not jewelry.

Not keys.

A tiny memory card.

Maya’s fingers closed around my sleeve, and her voice came out thinner than rain on glass.

“Nursery camera,” she whispered. “Don’t let her take it.”

Then the front gate camera, the only one still blinking on the security panel, flashed with headlights.

Vance smiled like he recognized the car.

Behind those headlights was the one person Vance had been counting on to make the night disappear.