Chapter 13 - Margaret Sends a MessageMargaret contacted me at 3:33 a.m.
Not by phone.
Through the baby monitor app.
Daniel had restored every device from the nursery under police supervision. We believed the system was secure.
We were wrong.
I was in Zion’s hospital suite, half asleep in a chair, when the tablet screen flickered on.
The nursery camera activated.
The room was empty.
Then Margaret’s voice came through the speaker.
“Mr. Whitaker.”
Emily woke instantly.
Daniel reached for his weapon.
Detective Bennett, who had been reviewing files outside, rushed in.
Margaret’s face appeared on screen.
She looked tired. No makeup. Hair loose around her face. For the first time, she did not look like a strict nanny.
She looked afraid.
“You need to listen,” she said. “They are going to kill me.”
Bennett signaled for the tech team to trace the connection.
I stepped closer to the tablet.
“Where are you?”
Margaret laughed bitterly. “You still think questions get answered because you ask them.”
“You hurt my son.”
Her face twisted.
“I followed orders.”
“That is not a defense.”
“No,” she said, voice breaking. “It is a confession.”
Emily stood beside me. “Why bathe him in poison at all?”
Margaret’s eyes shifted to her on the screen.
“You ruined everything.”
“Good,” Emily said.
Margaret’s face hardened, then collapsed again into fear.
“They told me the doses were small. They said he would only appear sick. Enough to question Marcus’s ability to manage the trust. Enough for emergency guardianship. They said no one would let him die.”
My hands curled into fists.
“You believed them?”
“I believed money,” Margaret whispered. “And fear. And the fact that Valerie Whitaker has destroyed better people than me.”
Bennett leaned forward. “Where are you, Margaret?”
Margaret ignored her.
“Grace knew,” she said.
The room froze.
I stepped closer. “What?”
“Your wife knew someone was weakening her. She tried to get proof. Dr. Vail changed her charts. Valerie paid nurses. Cyrus handled lawyers.”
My vision narrowed.
Margaret continued, rushing now.
“I was not there when Grace died. But I heard them talk. Valerie said grief would make you useful. She said if you became cold enough, you would never notice the child suffering right in front of you.”
Emily looked at me, and the pity in her eyes nearly broke me.
Margaret suddenly looked off-screen.
Her breathing changed.
“No,” she whispered.
Bennett shouted, “Margaret, where are you?”
Margaret leaned close to the camera.
“The old Whitaker boathouse,” she said. “Under the north pier. There’s a ledger—”
A loud crash cut her off.
The screen went black.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Daniel shouted orders into his radio.
Detective Bennett was already running.
I grabbed my coat.
Emily blocked the door.
“You are not leaving your son.”
“I have to—”
“No,” she said. “That is what they want. You running toward rage while Zion wakes up alone.”
Zion stirred in his crib.
May you like
I looked from the door to my son.
The hardest thing I had ever done was stay.
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