than expected.
Meanwhile, Claire helped him locate records they could preserve legally.
Their apartment building retained security footage in the lobby and parking garage.
Ethan also remembered the entryway camera Maya had installed after Ava’s birth.
Gerald had ripped it from the wall three weeks earlier.
What Gerald apparently did not realize was that its footage uploaded automatically.
The recordings showed Gerald and Nathan entering with luggage.
They showed Maya repeatedly trying to leave with Ava.
They showed Nathan blocking the elevator one afternoon while Gerald took something from Maya’s hand.
They showed Maya attempting to leave again two days later without the baby, only to be followed and brought back upstairs.
And they showed Gerald carrying a small fireproof document box out of Ethan’s home office.
That last clip concerned Claire most.
“What’s inside that box?” she asked.
“Estate papers,” Ethan told her.
“Tax records.
Information about an investment account my grandfather left me.”
“Who normally has access?”
“Maya and me.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
Claire went silent.
Then she asked Ethan whether his father had ever expressed resentment about the inheritance.
Ethan remembered a dozen conversations he had dismissed over the years.
Gerald calling the arrangement unfair.
Gerald insisting Ethan’s grandfather had been manipulated.
Gerald joking that eventually Ethan would realize family money should stay under family control.
The jokes did not feel funny anymore.
By the time Ethan stepped into his apartment, Detective Ortiz had enough information to take the situation seriously.
But nobody expected to find Maya injured or Ava acutely ill.
The knock on the door came hard and fast.
Nathan moved backward.
Gerald whispered, “Ethan, you need to think very carefully.”
Ethan looked at him.
“I have.”
Detective Ortiz entered with another officer.
Two paramedics followed, along with Claire and a family-services investigator.
Ortiz saw Maya on the floor and immediately changed direction.
“Sir,” she told Gerald, “move away from that room.”
“This is a misunderstanding.”
“Move.”
He did.
The paramedics took Ava first.
One checked her temperature, breathing, heart rate, and hydration.
The second examined Maya.
Within seconds, the paramedic holding Ava became more urgent.
“We need to transport this infant immediately.”
Gerald spoke from behind him.
“She has a fever.
That’s all.”
The paramedic looked up.
“A five-week-old infant with this temperature and signs of dehydration needs emergency evaluation now.”
Gerald’s jaw tightened.
“The mother refused help earlier.”
Maya made a sound of disbelief.
Claire opened her case.
“That statement is contradicted by the attempted emergency call logged at 2:17 p.m., the pediatric nurse’s record, and audio in which Maya asks repeatedly for her keys.”
Nathan stared at her.
“What audio?”
Claire did not answer him.
Detective Ortiz did.
“We’ll discuss that separately.”
An officer began securing the apartment while the paramedics prepared Maya and Ava for transport.
Ortiz asked Gerald a simple question.
“Where is Maya’s phone?”
Gerald said nothing.
Nathan pointed toward the kitchen.
“Drawer beside the stove.”
Gerald’s head snapped toward him.
The first officer opened the drawer.
Inside were Maya’s phone, her keys, two credit cards, her passport, and several folded documents.
Claire stepped closer.
“Those weren’t in the evidence Ethan sent me.”
Wearing gloves, Ortiz lifted the papers.
One bore what appeared to be Ethan’s signature.
He looked at it once.
“That’s not mine.”
Claire examined the heading.
