HE CHOSE HIS WIFE OVER HIS MOTHER - THEN THE BABY MONITOR EXPOSED THE SECRET SHE WOULD KILL TO BURY

Keller was gone by the time security reached the lobby.

The cameras showed him wearing a baseball cap, carrying flowers, and using a visitor badge registered to a man who had died six months earlier.

"That is not normal doctor behavior," Ortiz said.

Daniel called Keller anyway.

Straight to voicemail.

He called again.

Nothing.

Emily watched him pace. "Your mother trusted him. Maybe more than anyone."

"He was at every Christmas dinner until Dad died. Then suddenly he stopped coming around."

"Why?"

"Mom said grief made things awkward."

Ortiz gave him a dry look. "Your mother's explanations are having a bad week."

By afternoon, Emily was discharged with strict instructions not to be left alone. Daniel refused to return home until the nursery had been cleared, so Ortiz arranged for an officer to escort them to a small hotel near the station.

They had barely checked in when Claire called.

Daniel answered on speaker.

"Where are you?" he demanded.

Silence.

Then: "You already think I stole it."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Why were you in my house at one in the morning?"

"Mom called me screaming. She said Emily had attacked her and you were trying to have her committed."

Emily's mouth tightened.

Claire continued, "When I got there, cops were everywhere. I didn't even make it upstairs."

"Then why did you leave without calling me?"

Another silence.

"Because I saw something in the driveway."

Daniel stopped pacing. "What?"

"Evan Pike."

The name landed hard.

Evan was Hayes Construction's security director. Former military police. Quiet. Efficient. Loyal to Margaret for twenty years.

"What was he doing?"

"Sitting in a black SUV across the street. When he saw me notice him, he drove off."

Ortiz wrote the name down.

Claire's voice lowered. "Daniel, I need to show you something. Dad gave it to me a week before he died. He made me promise I would only open it if Mom ever went after you."

"Where are you?"

"At the old marina. Come alone."

"Absolutely not."

"Then don't come. But I'm not taking this to the police until I know who took the drive."

She hung up.

Ortiz said, "You are not going alone."

Daniel looked at Emily.

She nodded once. "Go. I'll stay with the officer and Mia."

Forty minutes later, Daniel and Ortiz parked one block from the marina. Daniel walked the rest of the way while Ortiz followed at a distance.

Claire stood beside her car, pale and shaking, holding a small black memory card between two fingers.

"Dad's dashcam," she said. "From the car he died in."

Daniel's throat closed.