"She made the maid kneel for a mess she never expected someone else to recognize."

CHAPTER 3 — MARTHA’S WARNING

I showed the paper to Martha the next morning.

Martha was the senior housekeeper, fifty-eight, practical, loyal, and harder to frighten than anyone I knew. She had been with the Harringtons even longer than I had. She had changed Daniel’s diapers. She had seen Eleanor cry only twice.

When I put the torn document on the pantry counter, Martha went very still.

“Where did you find this?” she asked.

“Study trash.”

She pressed her lips together. “There’s more.”

My hands went cold. “More what?”

Martha glanced toward the hallway before lowering her voice.

“Victoria asked me last week if I knew anyone who could notarize documents quietly.”

I stared at her.

“She said Eleanor was becoming unsafe,” Martha continued. “She said Daniel was too emotional to make decisions. She said the house needed to be protected from old women and sentimental employees.”

Sentimental employees.

That was what she called us.

Not the women who cooked her meals, cleaned her rooms, found her missing earrings, and covered her champagne stains before guests arrived.

Sentimental employees.

“What do we do?” I asked.

Martha folded the torn document carefully and slipped it into the pocket of her uniform.

“We keep proof.”

“Daniel won’t believe us.”

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

“And Eleanor?”

Martha’s eyes softened.

“Eleanor already knows something is wrong. But Victoria has been working on Daniel too long. If Eleanor accuses her without proof, Victoria will use it against her.”

That was the trap.

The more Eleanor resisted, the more Victoria could call her unstable.

The more I spoke, the more Victoria could call me bitter.

So we waited.

I hated waiting.

Every day, Victoria became bolder.

She told guests Eleanor was resting when Eleanor was upstairs alone.

She changed the locks on the study.

She started reviewing staff schedules herself.

Then she stopped calling me Rosa.

“Girl,” she would say.

Or worse.