Chapter 2
I did not ask Lily questions immediately.
That was difficult.
I wanted dates.
Names.
Locations.
Every missing hour.
Instead I carried her into a private suite upstairs and sat beside her while Cora brought water.
Lily drank too quickly.
I slowed her gently.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
She looked at me.
“That’s what she said.”
My hand stopped.
“Who?”
“Camille.”
Of course.
Cora stood near the door.
My bodyguard remained outside.
Camille was held in another room.
No one touched her.
Yet.
Lily looked toward the water.
“Did you really stop searching?”
“No.”
Immediate.
“I never stopped.”
Her eyes filled.
“She said you had.”
I closed mine for one second.
There are lies that steal facts.
Then there are lies that steal relationships.
This one had taught my daughter that her father chose grief over finding her.
“How long were you at the hotel?”
“Today.”
“Before today?”
“A house.”
“What house?”
She shrugged.
“Big trees. Green shutters.”
Child geography.
Enough later.
She told me a woman named Margaret cared for her.
Older.
Kind.
Not family.
Camille visited.
Sometimes her brother Adrian.
There.
Adrian Voss.
Camille’s older brother.
Organizer of tonight’s memorial concert.
The man downstairs currently accepting condolences on my behalf.
I felt something inside me settle.
Not rage.
Direction.
“Why were you backstage?”
Lily twisted the empty cup.
“Margaret said she wouldn’t lie anymore.”
I looked at her.
“What happened to Margaret?”
“She got sick.”
My heart tightened.
“Bad?”
Lily nodded.
“Hospital.”
Then Adrian came to the house.
Packed Lily’s things.
Told her they were moving.
She asked where.
He said somewhere her father could not confuse her again.
I stared.
Confuse.
That word had been prepared.
Then Lily whispered:
“Cora heard me because I knocked.”
I looked toward the maid.
She nodded.
“I was passing with water.”
Lily continued.
“Aunt Camille said if anyone heard me, I was supposed to say I was practicing for the tribute.”
There.
The recording story had been rehearsed before Cora ever approached me.
Camille had not improvised.
May you like
She knew Lily was behind that door.
And she had prepared my daughter to help hide herself.
