Chapter 2 - The Rabbit
Grace took the worn gray rabbit from Emma.
Her hands shook as she felt along its stitched belly.
“I didn’t know she still had it.”
Adrian watched her carefully.
“Explain.”
“Thomas came to me once.”
Grace’s voice dropped.
“About three weeks after the crash.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“You saw him alive?”
“He appeared behind my apartment building after midnight.”
“He was badly burned.”
“He could barely walk.”
“He told me not to contact you.”
“He said Marcus had already announced that Thomas’s body had been identified.”
Adrian remembered the sealed casket.
Marcus had handled the identification.
Marcus had told him there was nothing left worth seeing.
Grace pulled loose several stitches beneath the rabbit’s arm.
A tiny brass key fell into her palm.
There was also a folded strip of paper.
Adrian opened it.
Three words were written in Thomas’s handwriting.
UNION STATION 214.
Locker 214.
Adrian stared at the message.
“Why didn’t Thomas take Lily himself?”
“He said he was being hunted.”
“He believed keeping her with him would lead Marcus directly to her.”
Grace looked toward the yellow room.
“He asked me to raise her as my niece.”
“He promised he would return when it was safe.”
“He never did.”
Adrian folded the paper.
His phone vibrated.
MARCUS REED.
Grace looked terrified.
Adrian answered.
“Where the hell are you?”
Marcus sounded irritated.
“The memorial ended twenty minutes ago.”
“Half the city watched you walk out carrying a housekeeper’s child.”
Adrian’s face remained emotionless.
“She was sick.”
“Since when do you drive sick children home yourself?”
Adrian looked through the doorway at Lily.
The baby was pulling herself upright inside the crib.
“Since today.”
Marcus went quiet.
Then he laughed softly.
“You sound strange.”
“I buried Evelyn again today.”
“That tends to change a man’s mood.”
Marcus exhaled.
“I’m coming over.”
“No.”
Another silence.
“Why not?”
Adrian lowered his voice.
“Because tonight I want to be alone.”
Marcus had known him long enough to recognize when the conversation was over.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow.”
Adrian hung up.
Grace whispered, “He knows something.”
“Not yet.”
Adrian looked at the brass key.
“But he knows I left for a reason.”
He called a number he had not used in years.
A woman answered after four rings.
“Dr. Ortiz.”
“Lena.”
There was a pause.
“Adrian?”
“I need a DNA test.”
“Private.”
“No records.”
“No staff.”
“And I need it tonight.”
He looked at Lily again.
“I need to know whether a dead child just came back into my life.”
An hour later, Grace and Emma remained inside the locked house while two men Adrian trusted from before Marcus joined the organization guarded the street.
Adrian drove alone to Union Station.
Locker 214 stood at the far end of a quiet corridor.
The brass key turned.
Inside was a black envelope.
A damaged phone.
And Evelyn’s wedding ring.
Adrian stared at the ring for a long time.
May you like
Then he noticed something written across the envelope.
IF ADRIAN FINDS THIS, MARCUS ALREADY KNOWS.
