Chapter 3
Danielle told me the rabbit had been repaired the morning Relle disappeared.
“She stitched the stomach herself.”
I looked at the torn seam.
Old thread outside.
Newer thread underneath.
Relle had hidden the key deliberately.
Amara reached for the rabbit.
I handed it back.
She hugged it immediately.
Vanessa watched the movement.
Too carefully.
“You knew something was inside it.”
“No.”
“You tried to burn it.”
“I was angry.”
“At a stuffed rabbit?”
She glared.
“At being accused by a child in front of everyone.”
I leaned closer.
“Then you should’ve argued.”
Her face tightened.
“You didn’t.”
I held up the key.
“You tried to destroy this before you even saw what it was.”
Silence.
Danielle looked at Vanessa.
“Relle said something strange before she left that night.”
I turned.
“What?”
“She told me if anything happened, not to throw away Amara’s rabbit.”
My breathing slowed.
“Why didn’t you open it?”
“She disappeared that night. I thought the rabbit was the last thing Amara had that still smelled like her.”
Danielle’s voice broke.
“I couldn’t cut it apart.”
Fair.
Human.
Devastating.
I studied the engraving.
H-17.
The Hale estate was old enough to have rooms nobody used anymore.
My security chief searched archived maintenance plans.
He found seventeen stamped brass service locks still registered under the original mansion numbering.
Only one matched the shape of the key.
Lower cellar.
Storage compartment H-17.
The room had been sealed before my father died.
Vanessa stood abruptly.
“We are not going into some rotting cellar because a toddler recognized jewelry.”
I looked at her.
That was the second time she had reacted to information before I explained why it mattered.
May you like
I had never told her what H-17 opened.
Yet she already knew it was below the house.
