PART 3 — THE WOMAN WHO WATCHED
She told the cooks not to indulge “the little guest” with desserts. Most dangerously, she convinced Christopher that Emma needed firmer emotional boundaries because “confused attachment” was making the child anxious. Christopher, loving but inattentive, mistook compliance for healing. He worked long hours, returned with gifts, and believed the house was holding together because the adults around him knew more than he did about domestic life. The only person who kept a close eye on Emma was Mrs. Yvette Sloan, the old head housekeeper who had served Christopher’s mother and now served mostly by habit and moral stubbornness. It was Yvette who noticed Emma flinching whenever Juliette’s heels crossed the hall. It was Yvette who quietly installed a baby monitor-style audio recorder inside the pool cabana after overhearing Juliette tell someone on the phone that “a child only needs one unattended accident.”
That recorder was why Christopher happened to be near the glass doors when Emma screamed. Yvette had approached him minutes earlier during the luncheon setup and insisted he listen to something from the cabana recorder.
