Chapter 4 - The Rabbit Key
Gavin Ross answered on the third call.
He sounded sleepy.
“Daniel? It’s after nine. What happened?”
Daniel put the phone on speaker while Mara listened.
“There was an incident at the house.”
“What kind of incident?”
“Someone poisoned my tea.”
Silence.
Then Gavin swore. “Are you okay?”
“I didn’t drink it.”
“Thank God. Is Lily okay?”
Daniel looked at Mara.
He had not mentioned Lily.
“Why are you asking about her?”
Another pause. Smaller this time.
“Because she lives with you, Dan. Because I’m not an idiot.”
Gavin quickly recovered. He said he had been home all evening. He offered to come over. Mara told Daniel to say no.
When the call ended, neither man’s voice felt like it belonged to the friend Daniel had known since college.
Upstairs, Lily refused to sleep until Daniel checked every closet and opened every bathroom door.
Then she crawled beneath her blanket, reached under the mattress, and pulled out a purple notebook.
“I wrote things down,” she said.
Daniel sat beside her. “What things?”
“The things Nora said I dreamed.”
Page after page held a child’s uneven handwriting and pictures drawn in crayon. A silver bottle. A teacup. Grandma Evelyn lying in bed. Nora at a door with one finger over her lips.
One drawing showed a young woman with red hair standing in the driveway with a suitcase.
“Miss Jenna,” Lily said.
Jenna Cole had been Lily’s nanny for almost two years. Six weeks after Evelyn died, Jenna resigned without warning. Nora said Jenna had stolen jewelry and left before Daniel could confront her.
Lily shook her head.
“She didn’t steal anything.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she was crying. She told me she had to go because she saw something bad.”
Daniel leaned closer. “What did she see?”
Lily swallowed.
“Nora and Uncle Gavin yelling in Grandma’s room.”
Daniel felt the floor shift beneath him.
Gavin was not Lily’s uncle, but she had called him that since she could speak.
“Did Jenna tell you anything else?”
Lily nodded.
“She gave me a key.”
Daniel stared at her.
“What key?”
Lily climbed out of bed and pulled her stuffed rabbit from the shelf. The toy had a crooked ear and a faded pink bow. Claire, Lily’s mother, had given it to her before she died.
Lily squeezed the rabbit’s belly.
Something clicked inside.
Daniel found a tiny slit in the seam beneath the bow. He reached in and pulled out a brass key attached to a plastic tag.
A number was printed on it.
317.
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On the back, in Jenna’s handwriting, were four words:
CENTRAL STATION. LOWER LOCKERS.
