Callum turned the phone back toward Dessa before she could settle into the chair. His reply sat beneath Gideon’s account of their conversation, thanking the manager for handling the difficulty and agreeing that Blythe should establish Maisie’s routine. Dessa read it with the child asleep against her shoulder. When she finished, she looked at him rather than the screen, and he found himself wanting to explain the meeting he had been in when the message arrived.
“I agreed to this without speaking to you,” he said. “You were asking for help, and I answered a different question because Gideon made it sound like something he could manage. I should have asked what you’d actually seen. I’m going to give them the whole exchange, including my reply.”
Dessa adjusted the pillow beneath her arm. Her expression held exhaustion and something more guarded, as though she was waiting to see what his admission would require of her. Callum put the phone away without asking whether she understood. A nurse came through the curtain, and he stood to make room, grateful for a task he could perform without expecting forgiveness.
They returned to the estate later that night. Blythe had left with Merritt, and Callum asked the house staff to direct any request concerning Maisie to him. He slept in the chair beside his daughter’s bed while Dessa rested in the adjoining room. Whenever Maisie stirred, he stayed where she could see him, waiting until she settled before closing his eyes again.
In the morning, Dessa offered to sit with Maisie while he spoke to Wade Hollis. Callum accepted for an hour and asked her to call him if the child needed him sooner. He left his phone’s sound on as he crossed the terrace. The garden had been cleared of tables, but the stone bench still held a faint ring where a wet glass had stood.
Wade was beside the potting shed, coiling a length of twine around his palm. He put it down when Callum approached and wiped his hands on his trousers, though there was little dirt on them. Callum had known him since childhood and could remember being scolded for pulling unripe peaches from a tree Wade had spent a season tending. This morning the older man looked past him toward the house before speaking.
“I told the officer what I saw. There’s a part before Dessa came out that I don’t think anybody has asked about yet. I wasn’t there for the hose, so I can’t tell you how that started.”
Callum pulled a chair away from the shed wall and sat. Wade remained standing until Callum moved a second chair closer, leaving enough space between them for the open door. Inside, seed trays rested beneath handwritten labels. A small paper plate lay on the workbench, its edge marked with icing.
Maisie had brought Wade a piece of cake while he was replacing a damaged plant near the service path. She carried it carefully in both hands, following him into the shade where he kept his water bottle. Blythe found them before he had eaten it. Wade had already described this to the officer, and he repeated it slowly now, pausing whenever he seemed uncertain of the exact words.
“She said the cake was for the guests and told Maisie to take it back. The little one started crying because she’d already given it to me. I said I’d leave it, that there was no harm done, but Mrs. Rourke told her to sit on the grass until she could behave. Then Gideon came and said I was needed at the shed.”
Callum looked at the plate again. He remembered Maisie standing on tiptoe at the kitchen counter that morning, watching the cakes being arranged. He had kissed her head on his way to the reception room and promised they would choose one together later. The memory had seemed ordinary until Wade gave him the missing part of the afternoon.
Wade had obeyed Gideon because a delivery was expected near the rear gate. He stayed by the shed until he heard raised voices, then came around the house as Dessa carried Maisie inside. By then Blythe was on the lawn, and people were gathering near Ronan. Wade could describe the cake and the instruction to sit outside; everything after that had reached him through other people.
“I should have stayed,” he said, looking down at his hands. “I keep thinking she came out to do something nice for me, and I let her get in trouble for it.”
Callum felt an urge to reassure him quickly, to make the conversation easier for both of them. Instead, he asked whether Gideon had spoken to him since the party. Wade said the manager had reminded him that people were upset and might remember things incorrectly. He had also asked Wade to send any further questions from the police through the office.
“Please answer them yourself,” Callum said. “Tell them what you saw, including being asked to leave. If you don’t remember something, say that. You don’t need to make your account easier for anybody in this family.”
Celia Navarro met him at the service entrance later that morning, accompanied by Ellis Boone. They had come to collect equipment left behind when the party ended, and Callum asked whether they would speak with him before leaving. Celia checked that Ellis was willing, then gave Callum both their contact details for the officers. She kept her clipboard under one arm while her crew worked farther down the corridor.
Her account began after Maisie was already on the grass. Celia had been supervising the dining tables and heard Blythe tell Ellis to put the towel back. She saw Dessa move between the hose and the child, then saw Blythe redirect the water toward the housekeeper. The faucet had been turned off by the time Celia reached the edge of the lawn.
