Chapter 8 - The Housekeeper's Secret
Sloan followed Elena for two days.
Nothing.
She cleaned.
Prepared meals.
Checked schedules.
Spoke to servants.
Then, on the third night, Elena entered the old greenhouse.
Sloan followed.
Elena was not alone.
Margarite was waiting.
Sloan listened from outside.
“I told you to stop,” Margarite whispered.
“I can't.”
“You're putting Rafe in danger.”
“He is already in danger.”
Margarite sounded furious.
“You promised me.”
Elena began to cry.
“I promised to protect him.”
Sloan's pulse quickened.
Margarite wasn't ordering Elena to poison Rafe.
She was confronting her.
Then Elena said something that changed everything.
“Your husband is still alive.”
Sloan froze.
Margarite turned pale.
“That is impossible.”
“He contacted me last month.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because he said if I did, Rafe would die.”
Sloan stepped inside.
Both women turned.
Margarite looked stunned.
Elena looked terrified.
Sloan said quietly:
“Start talking.”
Elena collapsed into a chair.
Rafe's father had not died twelve years earlier.
He had disappeared.
The family had been told he was dead.
But someone had been sending Elena instructions from him.
Someone had been using Rafe's illness to force Margarite into obeying.
Sloan looked at Margarite.
“You knew he might be alive.”
Margarite whispered:
“I prayed he wasn't.”
Then the greenhouse door opened.
May you like
Rafe stood there.
He had heard everything.
