Chapter 2 - The Mother Lily Was Told to Hate
Police arrived twenty minutes later.
Ethan did not tell them everything.
Claire noticed.
He reported the fire.
The hidden room.
The restraint.
The anonymous messages.
He did not mention Anna.
He did not mention Rachel’s conviction.
He did not show them Rachel’s video.
Another omission.
Another reason for Claire to distrust him.
Detective Mara Collins examined the hatch.
“The accelerant?”
Ethan looked at Lily.
She sat beneath a blanket across the room, staring at the floor.
“I don’t know where she got it.”
Mara did.
The gasoline can belonged in the detached generator shed.
Someone had moved it into the mansion before Lily found Claire.
That mattered.
Lily had not gone outside during the video sequence.
The can had already been nearby.
Prepared.
Mara crouched in front of her.
“Did someone tell you to use it?”
Lily said nothing.
“Did someone give it to you?”
Silence.
Ethan stepped forward.
“Enough.”
Mara stood.
“She nearly trapped two people beneath a fire.”
“She’s eight.”
“Exactly.”
The detective lowered her voice.
“Which is why I’m asking who taught her to do that.”
Ethan had no answer.
Claire did.
“Her mother.”
Everyone looked at her.
Claire showed Mara the video.
Ethan’s expression hardened.
“I didn’t give you permission.”
Claire stared.
“You don’t own evidence.”
That sentence landed harder than she intended.
Mara watched the clip twice.
Then asked Ethan:
“Who is Claire?”
Ethan answered:
“My former fiancée.”
Claire turned sharply.
Lily looked up.
There it was.
Another truth Ethan had withheld.
Claire and Ethan had been engaged eleven years earlier.
Claire disappeared three weeks before their wedding.
Ethan later married Rachel.
Claire had not seen him since.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Claire asked.
“You didn’t remember?”
“No.”
That stopped everyone.
Claire remembered Ethan.
But not the engagement.
She knew they had dated.
She remembered loving him.
Then her memory fractured around one specific year.
She had always believed the gap resulted from the car crash that nearly killed her eleven years earlier.
Ethan stared.
“You disappeared after that crash.”
“I woke up in a hospital in Oregon.”
“You were in Virginia.”
“I know that now.”
Someone had moved her.
Someone had allowed Ethan to believe Claire abandoned him.
And someone had allowed Claire to believe Ethan never came looking.
Lily listened.
Her certainty began to wobble.
If Ethan had loved Claire before Rachel, Claire’s presence beneath the floor meant something.
But not necessarily what Lily had been told.
Mara searched the mansion.
In the generator shed, officers found a cardboard box.
Inside:
matches.
The gasoline can’s cap.
A photograph of Rachel.
And a handwritten note addressed to Lily.
HE PUT MOMMY IN THE GROUND.
HE PUT CLAIRE UNDER THE FLOOR.
IF HE OPENS THE HATCH, THEY BOTH LIE.
Lily finally spoke.
“The lady gave me that.”
Ethan crouched.
“What lady?”
“The one who talks through Mommy’s phone.”
“You saw her?”
Lily shook her head.
“Only her hand.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where?”
“School.”
Someone had approached Lily at school.
Ethan looked at Mara.
The situation changed instantly.
Lily was no longer simply a frightening child who had decided to hurt her father.
She had been prepared.
But manipulation alone did not explain everything.
“Why did you believe her?” Ethan asked gently.
Lily stared at him.
“Because she knew about the red room.”
Ethan’s expression changed.
Claire saw it.
“What red room?”
“Nothing.”
Lily became furious.
“SEE?”
She threw off the blanket.
“He always says nothing!”
Ethan’s secrecy was feeding whoever manipulated her.
Lily ran upstairs again.
Mara turned to him.
“What is the red room?”
Ethan resisted.
Then surrendered.
“A room Rachel kept locked.”
“Where?”
“This house.”
Claire frowned.
“You lived here with Rachel?”
“For two years.”
“Then why is there a woman-sized hidden chamber beneath your living room?”
“I didn’t know it existed.”
Mara stared.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Ethan sounded exhausted.
“But it’s true.”
The red room was upstairs behind Rachel’s former office.
Ethan had never been allowed inside.
Rachel claimed it contained confidential legal work.
After her death, Ethan found it empty.
They went there.
Mara examined the walls.
Fresh paint.
Then Lily appeared in the doorway.
“She hid it.”
Ethan turned.
“Who?”
“Mommy.”
Lily pointed at a bookcase.
“Behind there.”
They moved it.
A section of wall had been cut and repaired.
Mara opened it.
Inside were dozens of photographs.
Claire.
Ethan.
Rachel.
Anna.
And Lily.
Claire stared.
Rachel had been watching her for years.
One photograph showed Claire leaving a hospital in Oregon.
Another showed her asleep through a window.
Another showed her standing beside a grave.
Ethan looked at the grave marker.
CLAIRE BENNETT.
Claire was staring at her own grave.
“What the hell?”
Mara pulled out another photograph.
Rachel and Claire together.
Dated eleven years earlier.
The night Claire supposedly disappeared.
On the back Rachel had written:
SHE AGREED.
Ethan looked at Claire.
Claire whispered:
“I don’t remember this.”
Then Mara found a sealed envelope.
ETHAN — IF LILY EVER FINDS THE FLOOR.
Ethan’s hands shook as he opened it.
Inside was one sentence.
YOU WILL THINK SOMEONE TURNED HER AGAINST YOU.
May you like
THE TRUTH IS WORSE.
LILY REMEMBERED WHAT YOU MADE HER FORGET.
