“No,” I said, my voice shaking but resolute.
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. “You think you’re so noble, protecting that little brat. I’ve hated that kid since the day I met her. Looking at me with those big, stupid eyes like she knew I didn’t belong. The insurance payout was just a bonus, honestly. Getting rid of her would have been a pleasure.”
She reached behind her back. For a second, I thought she had another weapon. But she just pulled a heavy brass paperweight from her pocket—one she must have snagged from Marcus’s desk on her way here.
“I only need to hit you once, Maya. Just hard enough to get my hands on that memory card. Then I flush it, I walk out crying, and you go to a holding cell while I console my devastated husband.”
She raised the heavy brass weight, her face twisting into an ugly sneer.
“It won’t work,” I said.
“Oh, it will,” Evelyn hissed, stepping into striking distance. “I always win.”
“No. You don’t.”
The voice didn’t come from me. It came from behind the locked door.
Evelyn froze, the paperweight hovering in the air.
A key rattled loudly in the heavy brass lock. The lock turned. The handle clicked.
The door pushed open, swinging Evelyn back with it.
Marcus stood in the hallway. Behind him stood Tom, and behind Tom were two uniformed police officers.
Marcus’s face wasn’t just angry. It was a terrifying mask of controlled, freezing wrath. He held up a small black device in his hand—a wireless baby monitor receiver.
I had bumped the transmitter on the changing table when I backed into the wall. It had been on the whole time, broadcasting every word directly into the receiver Marcus always carried in his jacket pocket.
Evelyn’s hand opened. The heavy brass paperweight hit the plush carpet with a dull thud.
“Marcus—” she started, her voice immediately pitching up into a fake, desperate quiver. “Marcus, wait, she was threatening me, I was just—”
“Shut up,” Marcus said. He didn’t yell it. He spoke it with the finality of a judge dropping a gavel.
He didn’t even look at her. He walked past Evelyn as if she were completely invisible and came straight to me.
“Maya,” he said gently, his voice softening the moment he looked at my bruised face. “Are you alright?”
“I have the card,” I whispered, opening my fist to show him the tiny black square. “Sarah’s hidden camera. In the baseboard. It caught everything. The attack. The phone call. The life insurance plan. She was going to kill Chloe today.”
Marcus closed his large hand over mine, taking the SD card. “I know,” he said softly. “I heard enough.”