Chapter 4 - THE ROOM WITH NO CHILD
Grant reached the second floor before the rest of us.
Lily's bedroom door stood open. The curtains moved in the night wind. One window had been forced upward, and muddy marks crossed the pale carpet.
The bed was empty.
"Lily!" Grant shouted.
Dr. Morris ran in behind us. "She was in the small sitting room with a nurse."
The nurse lay unconscious near the connecting door. She was breathing, but a red mark covered one side of her forehead.
I heard a faint tapping.
Three taps. A pause. Three more.
It came from the wardrobe.
I opened it and found Lily curled behind a row of dresses, holding her stuffed rabbit against her chest. Grant dropped to his knees.
"I am here," he said. "You are safe."
Lily did not go to him. She reached for me.
The hurt on Grant's face lasted less than a second, but I saw it.
Caleb searched the room. The intruder had not tried to take Lily. Instead, someone had opened drawers, emptied toy boxes, and cut the lining from her old travel bag.
"They were looking for something," I said.
Lily pointed at the stuffed rabbit.
Its name was Blue, although its fur had faded almost gray. One ear had been repaired with uneven yellow thread.
"Did your mother give you that?" I asked.
Lily nodded.
I pressed the rabbit gently. Something hard shifted inside its stomach.
Grant brought a sewing kit. I opened the old repair seam and found a tiny plastic voice recorder wrapped in a handkerchief.
The battery was dead, but Caleb connected it to a computer.
A file appeared with a date from the night of the crash.
Grant's hand tightened around the desk.
"Play it."
Rain hissed through the speaker. Margaret's voice came first.
"Renata, get away from my car."
Then Renata answered, clear and cold.
"You should have signed the shares over when I asked."
A door slammed. Lily cried in the background.
Margaret said, "If anything happens to us, Grant will know it was you."
Renata laughed.
"Not if the child never speaks again."
The recording ended with the sound of an engine starting.
May you like
Then a second file appeared.
It had been recorded three days after Margaret's funeral.
