Chapter 14 - Under the Stairs
Detective Jackson's team went to Victor's cabin with a warrant and a search specialist. Adrian wasn't permitted on the property. He waited miles away at a roadside diner, drinking coffee he couldn't taste while Nora remained in the hospital.
At the cabin, investigators found a locked compartment beneath a staircase. Inside were ledgers, old phones, handwritten notes, and envelopes labeled with names and dates.
One envelope contained a receipt for repairs to Victor's security SUV two days after Thomas died. Another held photographs of Thomas meeting Robert, taken from a distance.
The evidence did not by itself explain every detail of the accident. But it gave the investigators fresh leads, including records that appeared to contradict Victor's public account of where he had been that night.
At the hospital, Nora opened an email from Lily's teacher. Lily had drawn a picture of herself beside two houses. On one side stood Mommy and a baby. On the other stood Daddy, separated by a thick black line.
Below the drawing, Lily had written: I WANT US ALL TO BE SAFE.
Nora began to cry. She had worked so hard to keep Lily away from the worst of the divorce, yet their daughter had been listening to every tense phone call and every grown-up silence.
Adrian returned as she was wiping her cheeks.
“She thinks she has to choose,” Nora said.
He sat close to her. “Then we tell her she doesn't.”
“Even if we never get back together?”
“Especially then.”
They called Lily on video. Adrian told her the truth in words a five-year-old could understand: adults had made bad choices, none of it was her fault, and both parents loved her. Lily asked if Grandma Patricia would be angry.
“That's for the grown-ups to handle,” Nora said. “You only have to be a kid.”
For the first time since the wedding, Lily smiled.
Then Adrian received a call from Mrs. Larkin. Robert had remembered something important and wanted to speak with the detectives in person.
Adrian hurried to his father's house. Robert was waiting by the window, a worn leather notebook balanced on his knees.
“I kept my own records,” he said. “Thomas told me not to leave them in the office.”
Adrian opened the notebook. The last page contained one sentence dated the day of Robert's stroke:
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PATRICIA KNOWS VICTOR DID IT, AND SHE'S ASKING ME TO STAY SILENT.
