Chapter 4
Marcus tried to explain it away.
“Everyone assumed she was moving fast.”
Grant stared at him across the study.
“No.”
Marcus shrugged.
“Then Renata guessed.”
“Two years later?”
“People remember things badly.”
Grant placed the blue key on the desk.
Marcus looked at it.
Again.
Too quickly.
“What does it open?”
“No idea.”
Grant smiled faintly.
“Everyone says that while staring at it.”
Marcus leaned back.
“You want a confession because your daughter finally formed a sentence.”
Grant remained silent.
Marcus continued.
“Kids invent things.”
“She said Renata pushed Olivia.”
“And?”
“She said it before seeing the key.”
Marcus rolled his eyes.
“She hears adults talk.”
“Which adults?”
That stopped him.
Grant leaned forward.
“Who has been talking about Olivia around Lily?”
“No one.”
“Then where did she get the story?”
Marcus laughed.
“Maybe Olivia poisoned her against Renata before she died.”
Grant became still.
Marcus’s smile faded.
Again.
A sentence too specific.
“Before she died?”
“Figure of speech.”
“No.”
Grant stood.
“What did Olivia know about Renata before she died?”
Marcus said nothing.
Grant took the key.
“Maybe this tells me.”
For the first time, Marcus looked afraid.
“You don’t even know where to use it.”
Grant walked toward the door.
Marcus called after him:
“She won’t remember.”
Grant stopped.
Not turned.
“Who?”
Marcus went silent.
Grant looked back.
“Lily?”
No answer.
“You knew she saw something.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
“Traumatized toddlers forget.”
There it was.
Grant walked back.
“What did she see?”
Marcus smiled.
“You’re hearing things now.”
Grant did not touch him.
He didn't need to.
Marcus wanted violence.
Something he could point to.
Something that made Grant emotional instead of observant.
Grant opened the study door.
“Keep him here.”
Two guards nodded.
Marcus laughed.
“What are you going to do?”
Grant looked at him.
“Listen to my daughter.”
That wiped the smile away.
Downstairs, Lily sat beneath the dining table with Olivia’s old jewelry box.
Grant crouched.
She had pulled the loose lining completely out.
Beneath it was a tiny drawing.
Crayon.
Blue rectangle.
Yellow circle.
Green lines.
Lily touched the blue rectangle.
“Mommy’s box.”
Grant looked at the key.
“Where?”
Lily pointed upward.
Not to the stairs.
Past them.
Toward the attic hatch.
Grant’s pulse slowed.
He had never searched Olivia’s attic things.
After her death, he couldn’t.
Renata volunteered to handle them.
Now he understood why.
Grant brought Lily with him.
The attic smelled of cedar and dust.
Boxes lined the wall.
Lily walked past all of them.
Straight to an old children’s wardrobe.
Blue paint faded along one side.
At the bottom was a small keyhole.
Grant inserted the blue key.
It turned.
Renata screamed from downstairs.
“Grant!”
He opened the door.
Inside sat a wooden music box.
And beneath it—
May you like
Olivia’s phone.
The one everyone had been told was destroyed the night she died.
