Chapter 8 - A House Full of Mirrors
Evan drove back to Briar House without speaking. Grace sat beside him, holding the folder of letters against her knees. Rain blurred the road into silver ribbons.
“You can stop the car,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because you are gripping the wheel like it owes you money.”
He loosened his hands.
“Vanessa betrayed Lillian,” Grace said. “But she may also be the only person who can tell us what happened in that greenhouse.”
“She gave my wife to her father.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that as if knowing makes it easier.”
“It does not make it easier. It makes it possible to see the whole danger.”
At the house, Evan ordered every mirror and framed photograph removed from the east wing. Sophie watched from the stairs.
“Why are you taking them down?” she asked.
“We are checking for cameras.”
“Vanessa said mirrors were watching us.”
Evan looked at Grace.
“That may have been a metaphor,” Grace said.
“What’s a metaphor?” Caleb asked.
“When someone says one thing to make you feel another,” Sophie replied.
“Like when Daddy says he is fine?”
Grace pressed her lips together to hide a smile. Evan did not.
“Exactly like that,” he said.
The technical sweep found seven more devices, including one inside a hollow garden statue. The system had been active for months. Someone had listened to bedtime stories, arguments, and every conversation between Grace and the children.
“Nolan could have known about the rabbit,” Ortiz said.
“He did know,” Evan replied. “The question is who told him about the greenhouse.”
Vanessa was brought to Briar House under escort so she could identify the location. She refused to enter through the front door.
“I will not go inside that house alone,” she said.
“You are not alone,” Ortiz answered.
Vanessa looked at Evan. “That never stopped anyone from being trapped there.”
The greenhouse stood beyond the rose garden, its glass roof clouded by years of neglect. Vanessa pointed to a cracked stone planter.
“Lillian was standing there.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked me to take Sophie and Caleb somewhere safe.”
“And you refused.”
“My father had men watching me. He said he would ruin me if I opposed him.”
“So you chose to endanger children.”
Vanessa flinched. “Yes.”
Inside the planter, Ortiz found a rusted metal box containing a torn piece of a vehicle inspection report. The report listed brake-line damage on Lillian’s sedan. The inspection date was the day before the crash.
Evan stared at the signature.
Nolan Price.
“He told me the car had been checked,” Evan whispered.
Vanessa turned away.
Grace noticed something beneath the planter: a small patch of blue thread caught in a nail. She pulled it free and held it beside the rabbit’s ear.
“This was not sewn by Lillian,” she said. “The thread is from a heavier spool.”
Sophie stepped forward. “Vanessa had blue thread.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
“Where?” Evan asked.
“In her office. She used it to fix a curtain.”
They searched Vanessa’s former office. Behind a loose baseboard, they found a ledger page wrapped in blue thread. It listed payments from Malcolm Vale to Nolan Price, beginning three months before Lillian’s death and continuing through the day Evan returned as Mr. Green.
Nolan had not merely betrayed Evan after Lillian died.
He had been paid to shape the entire household that followed.
That night, Sophie woke screaming. Evan reached her room first but stopped at the threshold.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Sophie nodded.
He sat on the floor while Grace checked the window. Sophie held Rook against her chest.
“I dreamed the rabbit was trying to tell me something,” she said.
“Maybe he is,” Evan replied.
She studied him. “What if the message is bad?”
Evan looked at the blue stitch.
“Then we will face it together.”
May you like
From inside the rabbit’s lining came a faint electronic chirp.
The memory card had begun to play by itself.
