Chapter 3 - THE RABBIT WITH THE OPENED SEAM.Adrian took the rabbit down himself.
He recognized it immediately. Lily had slept with it almost every night since she was four. Evelyn bought it for her at a seaside gift shop during their last family trip together.
The back seam had been sliced carefully and then clumsily stitched shut again with white thread.
Lily made a small sound when she saw it.
“She took Mr. Patches.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lily looked away.
“She said you’d think I lost him.”
Adrian sat on the laundry-room bench and placed the rabbit gently across his knees. Nathan knelt beside him with a small pocketknife and cut the messy stitches.
Inside the stuffing there was nothing.
But there was something else.
A faint rectangular outline, as though something thin had once been hidden there and removed.
Nathan touched the empty space.
“She already found whatever was in here.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
“I told Mommy I’d keep him safe.”
Adrian pulled her close with one arm.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The house manager returned with records and a frightened expression. He also brought someone Adrian had not asked for.
Mrs. Alvarez.
The senior housekeeper.
She was in her late fifties, usually composed, and looked as though she had not slept properly in weeks.
When she saw the rabbit in Adrian’s lap and Lily wrapped in his arm, she began crying at once.
“I’m sorry.”
Adrian rose slowly.
“For what?”
She clasped both hands together.
“I should have spoken sooner.”
Every nerve in his body tightened.
“What did you know?”
Mrs. Alvarez looked at Lily, then away.
“Miss Vanessa dismissed the nanny three months ago.”
Adrian frowned.
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
“I was told Claire resigned to care for her mother.”
Mrs. Alvarez shook her head.
“She was told to leave.”
“Why?”
“She confronted Miss Vanessa after hearing Lily crying in the pantry.”
Adrian felt heat rise through his chest.
“Where is Claire now?”
“I don’t know, sir. But she tried to speak to you before she left.”
“How?”
“Through the house office.”
He looked at the manager.
The manager turned pale.
Mrs. Alvarez answered before he could.
“Miss Vanessa handled all outgoing staff concerns personally.”
Nathan’s expression went flat.
Convenient.
Adrian asked, “Did anyone else know?”
Mrs. Alvarez wiped at her face.
“Some of us suspected. We heard things. We saw Lily scared. But Miss Vanessa always said the child was unstable and grieving and that you preferred strict boundaries.”
Lily flinched at the word unstable.
Adrian noticed.
He crouched slightly.
“Has Vanessa called you that?”
Lily nodded.
“She says I make things up because I miss Mommy.”
Nathan glanced at Adrian.
There it was.
A pattern.
Discredit the child.
Isolate the child.
Punish the child.
Search the house for something hidden.
Adrian looked back at Mrs. Alvarez.
“Tell me everything.”
So she did.
Vanessa had restricted staff access to the east wing.
She often kept Lily with her when Adrian was out.
She dismissed Claire, reduced housekeeping hours around Lily’s room, and installed “private monitoring devices” in the name of child safety.
Adrian went still.
“Monitoring devices?”
Mrs. Alvarez looked toward the ceiling.
Nathan followed her gaze first.
A smoke detector above the laundry-room door sat at an odd angle.
He dragged over a chair, climbed, and twisted the outer cover loose.
A pinhole lens stared down at them.
Adrian closed his eyes once.
When he opened them, he was colder.
“How many?” he asked.
Mrs. Alvarez whispered, “I don’t know.”
Nathan said, “We’ll find out.”
Adrian carried Lily back upstairs while Nathan and the manager began sweeping the house for hidden cameras. In Lily’s bedroom, sunlight still fell across the pale pink rug and white canopy bed. Everything looked innocent.
Adrian sat beside her.
“Tell me about the moon song.”
Lily drew her knees up.
“Mommy used to sing it.”
“Do you remember the words?”
“A little.”
“Can you tell me?”
She thought very hard.
“When the music stops,
and the moon looks down,
the place she loved
is where it’s found.”
Adrian repeated it silently.
The place she loved.
Evelyn loved many things.
The garden.
The beach house they sold.
The upstairs piano room.
Lily’s nursery when she was small.
“The music stops,” Nathan muttered from the doorway.
Adrian turned. Nathan held two small cameras and a grim expression.
“We found four so far.”
“Anywhere interesting?”
“Lily’s hallway. Playroom. Service hall. Outside the laundry room.”
Adrian nodded once.
“The music stops,” he repeated.
Then it clicked.
Evelyn’s old music box.
He stood immediately.
Lily grabbed his sleeve.
“Daddy?”
“Come with me.”
He took her to the former nursery—now mostly used for storage of Evelyn’s things Adrian had never been ready to sort. On the mantel sat a porcelain music box shaped like a crescent moon with a little dancing ballerina inside.
Evelyn used to wind it for Lily every night.
Adrian lifted it.
The base felt wrong.
Lighter.
He turned it over and found fresh scratch marks near a tiny hidden panel at the bottom.
Nathan knelt beside him.
“Someone opened this.”
Adrian slid the panel aside.
Empty.
But tucked into the corner was a sliver of folded paper so small it almost escaped notice.
He pulled it out carefully and unfolded it.
Three handwritten words in Evelyn’s unmistakable script stared back at him.
She knows already.
Lily leaned closer.
“That’s Mommy’s writing.”
Adrian’s heart pounded.
Nathan took the note and looked at the back.
“There’s more.”
Adrian turned it over.
On the reverse side, in the same hurried handwriting, was half an address and a number:
Hawthorne Safe — Box 27—
The final digit had been torn away.
Before Adrian could speak, his phone buzzed.
It was the attorney he had called earlier.
He answered.
“Adrian, you need to know this now,” the man said. “Vanessa didn’t go home after you threw her out.”
Adrian’s grip tightened around the phone.
“Where is she?”
May you like
A pause.
“She’s at your daughter’s school.”
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