Chapter 5
We picked Lily up from preschool the next morning.
I waited in the car while Daniel went inside, my leg bouncing so hard the whole vehicle shook. I was scared she wouldn’t want to see me. Scared Ryan had poisoned her against me so much she’d run away. Scared I’d lost her forever.
The front door opened.
Lily saw me through the windshield.
Her face lit up like the Fourth of July. She screamed “MOMMY!” so loud I could hear her through the closed windows, and ran as fast as her little legs could carry her. I jumped out of the car, dropping to my knees, and she threw herself into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck, crying so hard her whole body shook.
“I missed you!” she sobbed, her face buried in my hair. “I missed you so much, Mommy! I thought I’d never see you again!”
I held her as tight as I could, crying into her soft hair, breathing in the smell of her strawberry shampoo and the crayon wax that always seemed to stick to her clothes. I’d never felt anything as good as holding her again. Never.
Daniel stood by the door, watching us, his hand over his mouth. I could see tears in his eyes.
We drove to the small ice cream shop on the corner, the one we’d gone to every Sunday after church since Lily was a baby. The owner, Mr. Lee, knew us by name. He gave Lily a double scoop of rainbow sherbet, her favorite, with extra sprinkles, and winked at me like he knew we needed a win.
We sat in the back booth, away from the other customers. Lily sat between Daniel and me, her sherbet dripping down her wrist, her floppy rabbit tucked under her arm. We didn’t push her to talk at first. We just let her eat, telling her how much we loved her, how much we’d missed her, how no one was ever going to take her away from us again.
When she was almost done, Daniel wiped a smudge of sherbet off her cheek. His voice was soft, gentle, the way he always talked to her when she was scared.
“Baby girl,” he said. “We need to talk about what happened to Grandma. Okay? You’re not in trouble. No matter what you say, you’re not in trouble. Mommy and Daddy just need to know the truth. So we can make sure everyone is safe. Forever.”
Lily froze. Her spoon clattered into the empty bowl. She looked around the shop, her eyes wide, like she expected Ryan to jump out from behind the counter. She pulled her rabbit closer, her small fingers twisting its ear.
“Uncle Ryan said if I told,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “He’d hurt Grandma more. He said he’d make her go to sleep forever. And he’d take my rabbit. And I’d never see Mommy again.”
I squeezed her hand. “He can’t hurt anyone anymore, baby. I promise. Mommy and Daddy are here. We won’t let anything happen to you. Or Grandma. Or your rabbit.”
Lily nodded, her chin trembling. She took a deep breath, the way I’d taught her when she was scared of thunderstorms.
“Grandma and Uncle Ryan were fighting at the top of the stairs,” she said, her voice getting a little stronger. “Grandma was yelling about money. She said she wasn’t going to pay his bills anymore. She said he was a bad boy. Uncle Ryan got mad. He pushed her. Hard. She fell down the stairs and didn’t move.”
She paused, swallowing hard.
“Uncle Ryan ran down. He checked on Grandma. Then he saw me standing in the hallway. He pulled me into the pantry. He held my arm so tight it hurt. He said if I told anyone he pushed Grandma, he’d kill her. He said I had to tell everyone Mommy did it. He said if I did, everything would be okay. He said I’d get a new pony. I didn’t want a pony. I just wanted Grandma to be okay. I just wanted Mommy.”
She broke down sobbing, throwing herself into my arms. Daniel wrapped his arms around both of us, his shoulders shaking. I could feel his tears dropping into Lily’s hair.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered, over and over. “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m so sorry I let him scare you. Daddy will never let anyone hurt you again. Never.”
We sat there for twenty minutes, just holding each other, crying, until Lily’s sobs turned to hiccups, then quiet sniffles. When she was calm, Daniel pulled a small stuffed unicorn out of his jacket pocket—her second favorite toy, the one she’d left at the house the week before—and gave it to her. She smiled, a small, wobbly thing, and hugged it to her chest.
“Okay,” Daniel said, wiping his face. He looked at me, his eyes hard, determined. The old Daniel was back. The one who’d built his company from nothing, who’d fought for everything he had. “Let’s go get that hard drive. And then we’re going to end Ryan. For good.”
We dropped Lily off at Mia’s house on the way. Mia hugged her tight, promised her cookies and a movie marathon, and winked at me. “We’ve got this,” she said. “Go get the bastard.”
The mansion was quiet when we got there. Margaret was at the hospital with Grandma. The staff had the day off. It was just us, and the ghosts of everything that had happened in those halls.
We went straight to Grandma’s bedroom. It smelled like her lavender perfume and peppermints. Her closet was huge, floor to ceiling shelves of shoes and purses and silk dresses. Daniel knelt by the bottom shelf, pulling out shoe boxes until he found the one with the red laces, the one Grandma had told him about.
He opened it.
On top of a stack of old photos was a small black external hard drive, no bigger than a deck of cards.
“Got it,” he said, holding it up.
We carried it down to the study, plugging it into Grandma’s old desktop computer. The screen lit up. Folders popped up, labeled by date. We clicked on the one from Sunday.
The video started playing.
May you like
And there it was.
Every single second of what Ryan had done.
