“Oh, now is exactly when. Your daughters are vulnerable, emotional, suggestible, and this woman appears out of nowhere humming your wife’s favorite song and producing dramatic results on the same day she’s hired? Noah, darling, that isn’t divine intervention. That’s theater.”
“She got them to stand.”
“Or frightened them into it.”
He stared at her. “You don’t believe that.”
Geneva crossed her arms. “I believe people learn exactly what rich men are starving to hear. Especially after tragedy.”
Noah wanted to dismiss her.
The problem was that his own mind had already spoken the same language.
Long after midnight, unable to sleep, he went downstairs to review the camera footage again.
He watched the girls stand.
He watched Amara kneel.
He watched the first step happen and felt his chest break open all over again.
Then he moved to other feeds, scanning corridors and common rooms from earlier in the evening. At 11:17 p.m., one exterior camera caught movement by the old boathouse at the edge of the property.
Noah zoomed in.
A woman slipped inside carrying a flashlight.
Amara.
His blood went cold.
Three minutes later, another camera showed her emerging from the boathouse clutching something metallic to her chest.
Noah enlarged the frame until the pixels blurred.
It was a silver compass.
Ava’s silver compass.
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