Chapter 7: The Woman Who Sent the Text
The doctor's name was Elaine Marsh — the same physician Dominic had used for the household for eleven years.
She met him in the corridor outside the guest room where Mia had been moved.
"She's stable," Elaine said.
"Dehydrated, some soft tissue damage to the wrists, mild hypothermia.
She needs rest and fluids and time.
Nothing that won't heal."
"Can she talk?"
"She's been asking to."
Dominic went in.
Mia was propped against two pillows, an IV line in her left arm, Harper asleep across her lap with a blanket tucked around both of them.
The silver bird pendant was still at her throat.
Someone had washed her face and combed her hair, and she looked — not well, not yet, but present.
Returned.
She looked at him when he came in and didn't look away.
"Harper told me she found you," Mia said.
Her voice was rough but steady.
"On the steps."
"She did."
"She's been telling me that for the last hour.
She's very proud of herself."
Dominic sat in the chair beside the bed.
"She should be."
A silence.
Not uncomfortable.
The kind that exists between people who have been through something together and don't need to fill it immediately.
"I need to ask you something," Dominic said.
"I know."
"The text.
Four words.
Check Claire's travel bag." He watched her face.
"That was you."
Mia looked down at Harper's sleeping head.
Her free hand moved to the child's hair, smoothing it without thinking.
"My phone was in my uniform pocket when they brought me down," she said.
"Claire didn't check.
She was — she was angry and she wasn't thinking clearly.
Nathan might have remembered, but he didn't go through my pockets either."
"You had it the whole time."
"The battery was at six percent when they locked the door.
I turned it off to save it.
I waited." She paused.
"I knew you were coming back.
I knew the date.
I just had to wait until you were close enough that the text would matter."
Dominic was quiet for a moment.
"You could have called the police."
"I did.
The first night.
The signal was almost nothing down there — the call dropped twice.
The third time it connected I got through to a dispatcher.
She said she'd send someone to check.
Nobody came." Mia's voice didn't carry bitterness.
Just fact.
"I didn't have enough battery left to try again.
So I waited for you."
"Why the bag specifically?"
"Because I'd seen Claire put the drive in there.
Two weeks ago.
She didn't know I was in the hall.
She was moving fast and she didn't look up." Mia's eyes came back to his.
"I didn't know what was on it.
I just knew she wanted it hidden, and I knew where it was.
That was enough."
Dominic nodded slowly.
"There's something else," Mia said.
"Something I didn't say in the cellar because Harper was there."
He waited.
"The man in the photograph.
The one outside your attorney's office." She shifted slightly against the pillow.
"His name is Warren Gould.
He's Claire's brother.
He changed his surname years ago — I don't know why.
But I've seen him at the house twice in the past year.
Claire introduced him as a friend of a friend.
I didn't think anything of it at the time."
Dominic went still.
"Her brother," he said.
"He was the one who took the photographs of me.
Through the office window.
I didn't know that then.
I figured it out later, in the cellar, going back through everything I could remember." She looked at him steadily.
"I think he was watching me for months.
Building whatever they needed to use against me if I talked."
Dominic stood.
"Rest," he said.
May you like
"Both of you."
He was already reaching for his phone before he reached the door.
