Chapter 4 - Lily’s Birthday Room
Child Protective Services issued an emergency safety plan.
Lily would remain with me.
Grant would have no unsupervised contact until investigation.
Vanessa was ordered to stay away completely.
I booked a secure apartment under my agency’s emergency program.
Lily slept for fourteen hours.
I did not sleep at all.
The next morning, Marcus arrived with two agents.
One was Priya Shah from financial crimes.
The other was Caleb Brooks, digital forensics.
Marcus placed a folder on the kitchen table.
“We need to separate two investigations.”
I understood.
Child abuse.
North Star.
But they were already touching.
Priya showed me the transfers.
Carlisle Holdings paid Vale Meridian Freight three hundred thousand dollars twice.
The invoices claimed transportation consulting.
Grant’s company did not transport anything.
Neither payment had a legitimate business explanation.
Then Caleb opened a map.
“One of North Star’s storage facilities was leased through a Carlisle subsidiary.”
I stared at him.
“Grant owns hundreds of properties.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t prove knowledge.”
“No.”
Marcus looked at me carefully.
“We need you not to investigate your own husband.”
That irritated me because he was right.
“I’m not.”
“You’re thinking like you are.”
I looked toward Lily’s bedroom.
Her fifth birthday was tomorrow.
My pink-wrapped gift still sat inside my duffel.
Everything I planned was gone.
Marcus softened.
“Be her mother.”
“Let us do the rest.”
I nodded.
Then Lily appeared in the doorway.
She held a drawing.
A pink cake.
A woman in black.
A little girl in yellow.
And a gray square.
She handed it to me.
“What is this, baby?”
I pointed toward the square.
She took my pen.
Wrote one letter.
B.
Then another.
O.
X.
BOX.
Marcus crouched nearby.
“Is there a box at home?”
Lily nodded.
“Where?”
She drew stairs.
Then a bed.
Her room.
Something was hidden in Lily’s bedroom.
I looked at Marcus.
He immediately understood.
We could not legally search Grant’s home based only on my curiosity.
But it was also my legal residence.
And Lily’s personal belongings remained there.
I could retrieve necessary items with police presence.
Two hours later, we returned.
Grant was gone.
Vanessa was gone.
A patrol officer accompanied me upstairs.
Lily’s bedroom looked wrong.
Half the toys were missing.
Birthday decorations sat unopened.
Her yellow dress hung in the closet.
Then I saw the bed.
Lily had drawn something under it.
I knelt.
There was a small locked metal box attached beneath the frame.
It was not mine.
I called Marcus.
He told me not to touch it.
Police obtained consent from Grant by phone to retrieve Lily’s belongings.
He specifically said.
“Anything that belongs to Lily.”
The box had her name written on masking tape.
LILY.
That was enough.
Inside were photographs.
Documents.
And a tiny camera.
One photograph showed Vanessa standing beside Lily.
The child was crying.
Vanessa was smiling.
On the back, someone had written.
May you like
EPISODE 4.
My blood turned cold.
