Chapter 2 - The Girl in Yellow Sandals
Vincent did not move when Daniel entered the room.
That was the only reason Daniel did not immediately understand what had changed.
The attorney stepped through the doorway holding two coffees and a leather folder.
“Detective,” he said, seeing Vega. “Still working?”
Then he noticed Ana.
Then Daisy.
The coffees stopped moving.
For less than a second, the paper cups tilted in his hands.
Vincent saw it.
Detective Vega saw it too.
Daisy tightened her grip on her mother.
“That’s the man.”
Daniel smiled.
It was the wrong smile.
Not because it looked guilty.
Because it looked practiced.
“Hello, Daisy.”
Ana stiffened.
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
Daniel seemed to realize his mistake.
“You’ve seen her at the estate,” he added.
“I don’t believe I introduced her,” Ana said.
Daniel placed the coffees on the counter.
“Children are hard to miss.”
Vega stood.
“Mr. Merrick, I need you to come with me.”
“For what?”
“To answer some questions.”
Daniel gave Vincent a look that seemed designed to remind him of old loyalties.
“This is absurd.”
Vincent said nothing.
“Vincent.”
Still nothing.
Daniel’s voice lowered.
“A four-year-old child is not a reliable witness.”
Daisy’s lower lip trembled.
Vincent stood.
“You will not say that in front of her again.”
Daniel blinked.
There were few people in Vincent’s world who heard that tone and misunderstood it.
Vega stepped between them.
“No threats.”
“I didn’t make one.”
“No. You made a promise with your face. Save it.”
Under different circumstances Vincent might have respected her enough to smile.
Instead he looked at Daisy.
“I believe you.”
The girl nodded.
Just once.
It was enough.
Daniel left with Vega.
He was not arrested.
There was not yet enough.
That fact made Vincent furious in a clean, useful way.
Anger usually wanted movement.
This anger wanted answers.
After Ana took Daisy home, Vincent called his head of security, Owen Pike.
Owen arrived at the hospital just before midnight.
He had been with Vincent for nine years and had never once asked for details about the Caruso family business beyond what he needed to know to keep people alive.
He was former Coast Guard, broad-shouldered, prematurely gray, and incapable of pretending a bad situation was better than it was.
“The reboot was manual,” Owen said.
Vincent sat beside Leo’s crib.
“From where?”
“Security office.”
“Who has access?”
“Me. Two supervisors. You.”
“Daniel?”
“Not officially.”
“Unofficially?”
Owen hesitated.
“Daniel has had temporary access codes during legal audits.”
Vincent’s head turned.
“When?”
“Last month. When the insurance company requested documentation after the gate incident.”
“What gate incident?”
“The delivery truck that clipped the south pillar.”
Vincent stared at him.
Owen’s face hardened.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Daniel handled it.”
Of course he had.
Daniel handled everything Vincent did not want to handle.
Insurance.
Estate liability.
Trust amendments.
Household employment contracts.
Julia’s probate filing.
The custody petition.
For twelve years, Vincent had praised Daniel for being useful.
Now usefulness looked different.
“How long does the reboot erase?”
“Usually nothing. The system buffers.”
“Usually.”
“Someone removed the backup segment.”
“So they knew the system.”
“Yes.”
“Can it be recovered?”
“Maybe.”
“That means no.”
“That means maybe.”
Vincent looked through the glass wall of the room toward the dark hallway.
“Find me the backup.”
Owen nodded.
“And check every access log Daniel ever touched.”
“You think he did this?”
“I think my son was put in a car, a camera went blind, and a child recognized my attorney’s voice.”
Owen looked at Leo.
“That’s enough to start.”
The next morning, Vincent woke with his head resting against the side of the hospital crib.
Leo was awake.
The baby stared at him with Julia’s dark eyes.
Vincent lifted his head.
“Morning.”
Leo kicked once.
Vincent did not call the nurse.
He checked the chart clipped at the end of the crib.
Four ounces at five thirty.
Temperature normal.
He knew none of this naturally.
He read.
That was a beginning.
When the nurse entered, Vincent was changing Leo’s diaper with the focus of a man defusing an explosive.
She smiled.
He glared.
“Not a word.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“Probably.”
By nine, Rebecca arrived.
She looked as though she had not slept.
Daniel was not with her.
Vincent noticed immediately.
“Where is he?”
“I fired him.”
Vincent stared.
Rebecca crossed her arms.
“Don’t look so shocked. Detective Vega called me at six. She asked whether I’d given Daniel permission to remove my car keys.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did he ever have them?”
Rebecca sat in the chair opposite him.
“My purse was in your study. I went upstairs for maybe five minutes.”
“You told Vega the powder room.”
“I lied.”
Vincent’s face went flat.
Rebecca looked at Leo before continuing.
“I went to Julia’s room.”
The words struck harder than Vincent expected.
“What for?”
“To get the silver frame from her bedside table.”
“Why?”
“Because it was our mother’s.”
“You could have asked.”
“I did. Three times.”
Vincent remembered none of them.
Rebecca laughed once without humor.
“Exactly.”
He looked away.
“What happened upstairs?”
“Nothing. I took the frame. I cried. I came back down. My purse had been moved from the chair to the table.”
“By whom?”
“I assumed June.”
“Did Daniel know you were going upstairs?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He told me the frame was still there.”
Vincent slowly looked at her.
Rebecca’s face changed.
“You think he wanted me out of the room.”
“I think we don’t assume anything anymore.”
Rebecca stood and paced.
“I brought him into this.”
“You hired him for the custody case.”
“He said you were unstable.”
“You agreed.”
“You were unstable.”
The words landed cleanly.
Vincent did not defend himself.
Rebecca’s voice cracked.
“You wouldn’t hold Leo. You wouldn’t go into the nursery. You replaced one nurse with three because you didn’t want anyone getting too close. You buried yourself in work and security and every old Caruso habit Julia hated.”
“I know.”
Rebecca stopped.
That answer disarmed her more than anger would have.
Vincent continued.
“You were right about some of it.”
“Some?”
“Enough.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled, but she blinked the tears away.
“I wanted custody because I thought he needed someone who could love him without being afraid.”
Vincent looked at his son.
“That sentence would have made me hate you yesterday.”
“And today?”
“Today I hate that you had evidence.”
Silence.
Rebecca sat again.
“Daniel said the emergency petition would scare you into changing before the hearing.”
“Did he say anything about removing Leo from the estate?”
“No.”
“Anything about the trust?”
Her expression shifted.
“What trust?”
Vincent studied her.
“Julia’s estate trust.”
“She left everything to Leo.”
“Yes.”
“Managed by you until he’s twenty-five.”
Vincent nodded.
“And if I lose guardianship?”
Rebecca frowned.
“I become guardian if the court names me.”
“That’s custody. I’m asking about the trust.”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent reached for his phone.
He called the family accountant, Leonard Shaw.
Leonard answered on the second ring.
“Vincent.”
“I need Julia’s trust documents.”
“I can send the copies.”
“Originals.”
A pause.
“They’re with Merrick’s office.”
Vincent looked at Rebecca.
“Why?”
“He drafted the amendments.”
“What amendments?”
Another pause.
Longer.
“Vincent, Daniel told me you authorized them.”
“I asked what amendments.”
Leonard exhaled.
“Two months before Julia died, an addendum was prepared creating a temporary voting proxy if you became unable to serve as Leo’s legal guardian.”
Vincent stood slowly.
“Proxy to whom?”
“I never saw the executed version.”
“Who drafted it?”
“You know who.”
Daniel.
Vincent ended the call.
Rebecca had gone pale.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the custody case may be about more than Leo.”
She stared at him.
“That is an ugly thing to say.”
“It’s an ugly day.”
At eleven, Detective Vega returned with news.
Daniel had provided an alibi for the critical window.
According to his phone records, he had been on a six-minute call with a New York client beginning at one forty.
“That doesn’t clear him,” Vincent said.
“No. It complicates it.”
“Was the call real?”
“The client confirms speaking to him.”
“Video?”
“No.”
“Could Daniel have walked from the nursery to the car while talking?”
Vega’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
Rebecca whispered, “My God.”
Vega continued.
“But Daisy didn’t see his face clearly. She heard his voice today and identified it. That matters, but defense counsel will attack it.”
“She also saw the blue watch,” Vincent said.
Vega nodded.
“Daniel wears a blue-faced watch. So do about ten thousand men.”
“Mine was a gift from Julia,” Daniel said from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
Vincent’s entire body went cold.
Two uniformed officers stood behind Daniel.
Vega’s eyes sharpened.
“You were told not to return to this floor without calling me.”
“I’m here voluntarily. And I’m here to correct a misunderstanding.”
He held up both hands.
His blue-faced watch gleamed in the hospital light.
Daisy’s description.
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
“You fired me based on a child’s guess?”
Rebecca said nothing.
Daniel turned to Vincent.
“I know you’re angry.”
“You do not know what I am.”
“Then listen. Yes, I was near the nursery yesterday. Yes, I spoke to Leo. I say ‘little man’ to every baby boy I meet. It’s not evidence.”
“What about the cameras?”
“I have no access to your security office.”
Owen, standing near the window, said, “You had an access code.”
“For an insurance audit.”
“That code was never disabled,” Owen replied.
Daniel’s eyes flicked toward him.
A mistake.
Small.
Visible.
Vega noticed.
“So you knew the code might still work?” she asked.
Daniel recovered.
“I assumed professional security staff terminated temporary credentials.”
“Not what I asked.”
Daniel ignored her and looked at Vincent.
“You are about to destroy long relationships because you are terrified.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Yes.”
Daniel waited.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“I am terrified. My son almost died. And for the first time in five months, terror is making me look at the right things.”
Daniel’s face changed.
There was the man beneath the attorney.
Not guilt.
Not yet.
But anger at losing control.
Vincent saw it and knew.
He did not know every fact.
He did not know the exact plan.
But he knew Daniel had hidden something.
Later that afternoon, the hospital discharged Leo.
Vincent carried him out personally.
No nurse.
No assistant.
No security man.
Rebecca walked beside him.
At the curb, Ana and Daisy were waiting.
Daisy held a sheet of paper covered in crayon.
She gave it to Vincent.
It showed a gray rectangle, a red sun, a small blue figure, and a yellow shape beside a tree.
“What’s this?” Vincent asked.
“The car.”
He pointed to the blue figure.
“Who is that?”
“The man.”
“And this?”
Daisy pointed to the yellow shape.
“That’s me.”
Then Vincent noticed something else.
A black line in the man’s hand.
“What is he holding?”
Daisy frowned, searching for the word.
“A square.”
“A phone?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“A little black square. He put it on the wall box.”
Owen stepped forward.
“What wall box?”
Daisy pointed vaguely toward the direction of the estate.
“The one with the red blink.”
Owen and Vincent looked at each other.
The camera junction box.
The physical exterior relay for the front drive cameras.
If Daisy had seen Daniel put something against it, the missing footage had not been erased remotely from an office.
Someone had tampered with the camera at the wall.
Owen crouched.
“Daisy, did the black square make a sound?”
She nodded.
“Beep.”
Owen stood.
“A maintenance override fob.”
Vincent stared toward the road.
Only three companies serviced his camera system.
One of them had delivered replacement parts the previous month.
The invoice had been approved by Daniel Merrick.
Vincent handed the drawing carefully back to Daisy.
“Can I keep this?”
She smiled.
“I made another one for Leo.”
For the first time in days, something almost human passed through Vincent’s face.
Then Owen’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression hardened.
“What?”
Vincent waited.
Owen lowered the phone.
“The backup server wasn’t empty.”
“Meaning?”
“There’s a twelve-second fragment.”
Rebecca stood.
“Does it show Daniel?”
Owen looked at Vincent.
“No.”
“What does it show?”
“A man carrying Leo toward the station wagon.”
Vincent’s heart pounded.
“And?”
Owen swallowed.
“The man’s wearing a Caruso security jacket.”
Vincent turned very slowly toward the line of black SUVs waiting at the curb.
May you like
The danger was not only in his legal files.
It was inside his guard detail.
