Page 3 of Vengeful Lies

You’ll never see her again

What happens next is up to you

Your daughter can either be killed

quickly and painlessly if you stop looking

for answers, or she can be sold and you’ll

wish you stopped while you had the chance

A second after the message came through there was a photo of Essie’s nanny Gabriella Sadler’s vehicle. It was sitting at a red light, surrounded on all sides by other vehicles.

Cade didn't need to see what was about to happen next, he already knew.

Essie was about to be abducted, Gabriella would likely be killed, and there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening.

September 1st

9:00 A.M.

Gabriella Sadler hesitated as she left the house where she lived with her boss, Cade Charleston, and his four-year-old daughter, Esther.

Something felt wrong.

Only she couldn’t put her finger on what exactly it was.

Some might find the choices she’d made for her life unusual, given her age and the vast resources at her disposal. Growing up in the foster system after being taken away from her biological mom, who was an abusive druggie, she’d always wanted a family of her own. While foster care was tough and she’d been bounced around a lot, only adding to her desire to find a place to belong, she had an advantage a lot of other kids in her situation didn't have.

An IQ that tested off the charts.

Something she’d used to her advantage because she firmly believed that in life you had to take what you were given and find a way to work with it.

So she had.

After graduating high school at thirteen, she jumped into college and wound up designing a program that was now part of every major cell phone company in the world. Her program allowed anyone, whether they were the owner of the phone or not, in the vicinity of a phone to call out for help, and her voice-activated program would allow the phone, so long as it was turned on, to automatically send an alert along with a location to the closest emergency services dispatcher.

Of course, some people had abused the system, shouting for help just to see if it would work, but that was to be expected. Her system had also saved thousands of lives, and she was proud of it.

The millions she made selling it had also helped.

Well, helped her financially, but it hadn't given her what she really wanted. Her ex-husband had dumped her after several miscarriages when it started to become clear she probably couldn’t give him the heir he so desperately craved.

Alone, still longing for a place to belong, she’d decided to do something completely different with her life and, at twenty-one, had answered an ad to become a nanny for a one-year-old girl whose mom had died from cancer and whose dad needed someone to care for her full-time.

Finally, there she’d found her place.

With Cade and Essie, and the entire Charleston Holloway family. Their fights, struggles, and goals had become her own, and she would always support them any way she could.

Just because her feelings for Cade weren't reciprocated didn't mean she didn't love him, gruff and standoffish though he could be. He loved his baby girl fiercely, and his love for his wife hadn't diminished in the four years since she’d been gone.

She hesitated because she loved this family like they were her own.

If there was one thing she’d learned from being part of this family it was to always trust your gut. Right now, her gut was telling her she should go back inside, lock the doors, and skip the visit to the indoor pool that she’d had to work to convince Cade to let her take Essie to so the little girl didn't have to skip the swimming lesson that she loved.

“Come on, Gabby,” Essie complained, tugging at her hand.

“Hold on a minute, cuddle bug,” she said, scanning the street.

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