Chapter 4 - My Children Had Been Told to Stay in the Kitchen
Noah remembered something I didn’t.
Grant had ordered both children downstairs twenty minutes before Brooke arrived.
Normally, they were watching a movie upstairs.
Grant called them down.
“Dessert in the kitchen.”
There was no dessert.
Noah thought maybe Dad had forgotten.
Then Grant positioned them near the breakfast table while he paced between the kitchen and hallway.
“Did Dad tell you to stay there?”
Noah nodded.
“He said nobody goes upstairs until Sarah calms down.”
Rebecca asked gently:
“Was Mommy upset?”
“No.”
“Did Dad say she was?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly?”
Noah looked at me.
“Dad said Mommy might get really mad tonight.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Before the lady came.”
Brooke.
Grant had told the children I might become angry before his mistress even entered the house.
That was clue number one.
Clue two came from the home-security system.
Our kitchen camera had been disconnected at 6:42 p.m.
Brooke arrived at 7:11.
The rest of the house remained online.
Grant claimed the camera “had been glitchy.”
System logs showed manual disconnection from the app.
Grant’s account.
Clue three was in Brooke’s car.
Police found no soup.
No cooking supplies.
Nothing explaining why she arrived carrying a large ladle from outside.
The ladle belonged to Hale Residential’s demonstration kitchen.
A prop kept in the company’s design showroom.
She had brought it with her.
Brooke later claimed she wanted to “scare” me.
That explanation did not improve anything.
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The confrontation had not spontaneously turned violent.
At least part of it traveled to my house already planned.
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