Chapter 2
Seraphine left the house that afternoon.
Not permanently yet.
Alaric’s attorney advised him against making dramatic legal declarations while he was still angry.
Seraphine packed essentials and went to a condominium she owned downtown.
She left under protest.
“This is my home too.”
Alaric looked at her.
“My daughter almost went down a staircase.”
“You caught her.”
The answer stunned even Seraphine’s own lawyer.
Alaric said nothing else.
After she left, he called Rebecca Sloan, his outside counsel.
“I need every document connected to Elowen’s education.”
Rebecca sounded confused.
“Public school records?”
“Everything.”
“Why?”
“There is apparently an application to a residential school with my signature on it.”
Silence.
“Did you sign one?”
“No.”
“Then nobody touches the original if we find it.”
Alaric looked toward the staircase.
“Understood.”
The school had a name.
Elowen remembered it from the folder.
Graydon House Academy.
Rebecca found it quickly.
A private residential therapeutic school two states away.
It advertised structured education for children with severe behavioral and emotional difficulties.
Alaric stared at the website.
Elowen was seven.
She had struggled after her mother’s death.
Nightmares.
Separation anxiety.
A brief period of refusing school.
Nothing remotely close to needing residential treatment.
He called Dr. Melissa Hart, Elowen’s child psychologist.
“Have you ever recommended Graydon House?”
“No.”
“Residential placement anywhere?”
“No.”
“Has Seraphine asked you?”
A pause.
That was enough.
“When?”
“About four months ago.”
Alaric felt something cold settle in his chest.
“What did she ask?”
“Whether children with persistent lying, defiance, stealing, and aggressive attachment could benefit from intensive structure.”
Alaric frowned.
“Elowen doesn’t steal.”
“I told her that.”
“She doesn’t have aggression problems.”
“I told her that too.”
“What did Seraphine say?”
“That I only saw Elowen once a week and she saw the real behavior at home.”
Alaric sat down.
Dr. Hart continued carefully.
“She asked whether I would document that residential care might eventually become necessary.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She framed it as a general question. I told her clearly that I had no basis to recommend it.”
That was the first clue.
Seraphine had been exploring the idea months before Elowen found the folder.
May you like
This was not a threat invented on the staircase.
Someone had been building toward it.
