Chapter 2 - Rachel’s Last Night
Police had examined the house after Rachel’s death.
They had examined the staircase.
The railing.
The landing.
Rachel’s clothes.
Even the shattered drinking glass found downstairs.
But nobody had examined the toy box.
Because nobody knew it mattered.
Daniel hadn't even known Rachel’s stuffed rabbit was inside.
According to Vanessa, the box had remained untouched since Rachel died.
Daniel no longer believed her.
He remembered that night too clearly.
Rachel had been upstairs.
Daniel had been attending a charity dinner downtown.
Vanessa—Rachel’s younger cousin and, later, Daniel’s live-in partner—had come over to help with Noah and Maisie.
At 9:42 p.m., Vanessa called Daniel.
Rachel had fallen.
Daniel reached hospital twenty-seven minutes later.
Rachel never regained consciousness.
She died before sunrise.
The medical examiner found injuries consistent with falling down fourteen hardwood steps.
No evidence conclusively established another person pushed her.
Daniel had spent months blaming himself for being away.
Now the red glass changed everything.
Rachel’s vintage perfume bottle had disappeared.
Vanessa told police Rachel must have thrown it away weeks earlier.
Yet a shard had been wrapped carefully and hidden inside the children’s toy box.
Someone wanted it preserved.
Or concealed.
The human hair was tested.
It belonged to Rachel.
That should have simplified things.
It did not.
The strands had been cut cleanly.
Not torn from her head during fall.
Someone had deliberately placed Rachel’s hair inside childhood rabbit.
Daniel confronted Vanessa.
“Why?”
“I didn't do it.”
“You knew it was there.”
“No.”
“You nearly lost your mind when I touched the rabbit.”
Vanessa began trembling.
“Because Rachel told me never to open it.”
Daniel stared.
“When?”
“Two days before she died.”
There it was.
Vanessa had withheld another conversation.
Rachel had approached her in kitchen.
She handed Vanessa rabbit and said:
“If anything happens to me, put this where children can find it someday.”
Vanessa claimed she thought Rachel was being dramatic.
“Why hide it in toy box?”
“Because she told me to.”
“And perfume glass?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I never saw it.”
Daniel didn't believe that part.
Then police examined tissue around shard.
Inside one fold was dried brown residue.
Not blood.
Wax.
Deep green sealing wax.
Stamped faintly with two letters:
R.C.
Rachel Carter?
Possibly.
Daniel searched Rachel’s belongings.
No sealing wax.
No stamp.
Then family attorney called.
Rachel had once asked him about a company Daniel had never heard of.
Red Cedar Holdings.
R.C.
Daniel’s pulse changed.
“What is Red Cedar?”
Attorney hesitated.
“According to Rachel, it owned something your father never told you about.”
Daniel’s late father, William Carter, had died six years earlier.
“What?”
“A portion of your house.”
Daniel looked around living room.
“This house?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don't know.”
Then attorney added:
“Rachel believed the answer was somewhere inside a locked room.”
Daniel looked toward staircase.
There was only one room upstairs nobody used anymore.
Rachel’s old dressing room.
May you like
Its door had been locked since her death.
And Vanessa had insisted for eleven months that nobody could find the key.
