Chapter 4 - WHAT LILY FOUND IN THE GARDEN
Lily looked frightened by the sudden attention.
I knelt beside her.
“You are not in trouble.”
“Tell us only what you remember.”
She stared at the carpet.
“Last summer, Daddy’s birdhouse fell.”
Daniel had built a wooden birdhouse with Lily before his final business trip.
After his death, she refused to let anyone remove it from the garden.
A storm broke the roof months later.
Inside, Lily found a tiny black card wrapped in blue cloth.
“What did you do with it?” Naomi asked.
“I put it in Bunny.”
Bunny was Lily’s stuffed rabbit.
Daniel gave it to her on the day she was born.
One ear had been repaired so many times that three different fabrics covered the original seam.
“Where is Bunny?” I asked.
“At home.”
Eleanor’s eyes moved toward Julian.
Officer Brooks saw it.
“Does anyone else know about the rabbit?”
Julian answered too casually.
“Every child has toys.”
Lily shook her head.
“Uncle Julian asked about Bunny.”
“When?”
“Today.”
The ballroom staff had prepared a children’s sitting room upstairs.
Julian visited before the gala.
He asked Lily whether she still carried the rabbit everywhere.
She told him Bunny remained at home because Eleanor said stuffed animals looked childish in formal photographs.
Officer Brooks called officers stationed near my house.
No one answered the first call.
The second went directly to voicemail.
My stomach tightened.
Naomi grabbed her phone.
“I have a private security contact two blocks away.”
She called him.
Three minutes later, he reached my property.
The back door was open.
A kitchen window had been broken.
The living room had been searched.
Lily’s bedroom was destroyed.
Bunny was gone.
My daughter began crying.
“They took him.”
I pulled her against me.
“It’s a toy,” Julian said.
I looked at him.
“It contained the card you removed from the brooch.”
“I did not remove anything.”
“Then why was my house searched during your gala?”
Eleanor’s voice became cold.
“Control yourself.”
That sentence had followed me through every Hart gathering.
When Julian mocked my work.
When the board excluded me.
When Eleanor removed Daniel’s photographs from the foundation.
Control yourself meant remain useful and quiet.
I stood slowly.
“No.”
Eleanor looked surprised.
“No what?”
“No more controlling my response so everyone else can avoid looking at what caused it.”
Officer Brooks ordered Julian’s phone seized temporarily pending a warrant.
His attorney objected.
Julian reached into his pocket.
Then he froze.
A notification had illuminated the screen.
The preview displayed a message from a contact saved as P.S.
Rabbit secured.
No card inside.
Officer Brooks read it before the screen went dark.
Julian tried to lock the phone.
She took it from him.
“Who is P.S.?”
He said nothing.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Naomi looked toward me.
“Patrick Sloan.”
Julian’s head turned.
Patrick Sloan had served as Daniel’s driver.
He was driving the night Daniel died.
He survived the crash with minor injuries.
Then he disappeared from Hart employment with a generous severance package.
May you like
I had not heard his name in two years.
Until his message appeared on Julian’s phone.
