Chapter 7 - What Noah Overheard By the Stairs
I moved Noah to Elena’s old chaise while Maria brought him water.
Then I asked him to tell me everything he remembered from the afternoon, no matter how small.
Children don’t organize memories the way adults do. They don’t know which sentence will rip a secret open. They just remember what frightened them.
Noah stared down at the old photograph in my hand.
“I was by the stairs,” he said. “I was looking at Mom’s picture.”
“Then what?”
“Alina was in the hall talking on the phone.”
“What did she say?”
He closed his eyes, working hard to remember. “She said, ‘Once Reed signs, the boy goes by Monday. Then his mother’s percentage becomes available.’”
Maria and I looked at each other.
“His mother’s percentage?” I repeated carefully.
Noah nodded. “And then she said… ‘The old picture still has to disappear.’”
My grip tightened around the edges of the photograph.
So she had not wanted it merely hidden.
She wanted it gone.
“Did she see you listening?”
“She saw the picture.”
Noah looked sick with the memory.
“She got mad right away. She asked where I found it. I said it was in my room. Then she said it belonged to her house now.”
Maria looked stricken.
“Elena used to keep that photo in the west study,” she murmured. “After she died, it disappeared.”
I stared at her. “You think Alina took it years ago?”
“No.” Maria shook her head. “I think someone took it years ago—and Noah somehow found it again.”
That possibility hit me hard.
If the photograph had been missing since shortly after Elena’s death, then Alina’s reaction today wasn’t about discovering a dangerous object for the first time.
It was about realizing a buried one had resurfaced.
I looked down at the image.
Elena sat smiling in a white summer dress, Noah on her lap, one hand around his tiny waist. The scene looked harmless, ordinary, even warm.
But Alina was prepared to terrorize a disabled six-year-old just to get this picture back.
Meaning the real threat wasn’t visible yet.
May you like
Which meant I hadn’t finished looking.
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