Chapter 2 - The Echo in the Walls
The Maro estate on Prytania Street did not look like a house built for children. It looked like a marble fortress wrapped in wrought-iron wrought with black roses, shaded by towering live oaks draped in Spanish moss. The air smelled of expensive polish, old brass, and cold air conditioning.
My suite sat directly connected to the nursery on the second floor. It was larger than the entire shotgun double I’d rented in Mid-City, complete with a private balcony, a clawfoot tub, and a bed draped in cream silk. But I didn’t care about the silk. I cared about the three cribs lining the nursery wall, crafted from white ash and fitted with organic cotton sheets.
For the first forty-eight hours, I barely slept.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the faint, desperate hiccup Camille had made at the diner. But whenever I stepped into the nursery, the atmosphere shifted. Elias, the eldest by three minutes, would instantly pull himself up on the wooden rails, his dark eyes—so much like his father’s—tracking my every move. Theo would babble a soft string of nonsense syllables, and Camille would stretch her tiny arms toward my chest until I scooped her up.
They didn't call me "Mama" again right away, but they didn't have to. The quiet understanding between us was absolute.
"You're feeding them off-schedule," a sharp voice snapped from the threshold.
I turned, holding Theo while balancing a warm bottle against my hip.
Standing in the doorway was Mrs. Vance, the head housekeeper. She was a woman in her late fifties with hair pulled so tightly into a bun it made her eyebrows flare upward. She wore dark navy wool despite the humid New Orleans heat outside, and her eyes swept over my wide hips and stained linen shirt with unvarnished disdain.
"They were hungry," I said calmly, adjusting Theo against my shoulder. "Elias was rubbing his ears, and Camille was rooting. I don't wait for a clock when a baby's stomach is empty."
"Mr. Maro hired three different nanny agencies before you," Mrs. Vance said, stepping into the room. Her shoes clicked sharply against the heart-pine floorboards. "Women with degrees from Vanderbilt and European certifications. None of them survived two weeks because they couldn't control the chaos. Do not think a lucky moment at a greasy diner makes you indispensable, Miss Marsh."
"I don't think I'm indispensable, Mrs. Vance," I replied, meeting her glare without flinching. "I think I'm here because three grieving children needed someone who knows how to hold them without looking at a timer."
Her lips pressed into a thin, white line. "We have high standards in this house. Do not mar the rugs, and do not encourage Mr. Maro’s sentimentality. He has a empire to run."
She turned on her heel and swept out of the room.
That night, after the triplets were sound asleep and the house settled into a heavy, suffocating silence, I sat in the antique velvet rocking chair near the north window. Rain tapped softly against the tall glass.
I leaned down to adjust a fallen blanket near Camille's crib, and my foot caught on the edge of the hand-woven rug. It shifted, exposing a loose pine floorboard near the rocking chair's base.
It wasn't just loose. It was notched.
I froze. I looked toward the nursery door. The hall light was dim, and the house was silent save for the hum of the central air.
Carefully, I pulled back the rug. I slipped my fingers under the notched pine board and lifted.
Inside the narrow joist cavity lay a small, velvet-wrapped object tucked alongside a slim metal key.
My heart did a double-thump against my ribs. I picked up the package and untied the silk ribbon. Inside was an encrypted micro-SD card taped to a sheet of heavy stationary.
Written in precise, elegant fountain-pen ink were four lines:
To whoever finds this before Victor does: The crash on the causeway wasn't steering failure. The offshore accounts in the Cayman logs are forged under Antoine's signature. Look at the nursery camera log for March 14th. Don't let them take my babies.
May you like
The signature at the bottom was unmistakable: Isabella Maro.
My hands trembled so violently the paper rattled. Isabella hadn't slipped off the wet highway by accident. She had been murdered. And she had known it was coming.
