Chapter 2
The police took Bethany and Dad to the county station.
Mom stayed outside my house.
She stood beneath the porch light, begging me through the locked door to change my statement.
“Your father could go to prison,” she cried.
I looked down at Rosie’s bruised arm.
“He should have thought about that before throwing a glass at a child.”
“He was angry.”
“That is not an excuse.”
“And Bethany didn’t mean to hurt Rosie.”
“The camera shows exactly what she meant to do.”
Mom covered her face.
I had spent my entire life watching her excuse Dad’s cruelty.
When he screamed, she said he was under pressure.
When he broke things, she said he was tired.
When Bethany humiliated me, Mom called it sibling rivalry.
Now they had hurt my daughter.
The excuses ended there.
I closed the curtain and turned away.
Rosie sat on the couch while a paramedic examined her arm.
The bruises were deep, but nothing was broken.
The cut on my shoulder required five stitches.
Detective Maya Torres arrived after midnight.
She watched the security footage twice.
The second time, she increased the volume.
Bethany’s voice came clearly through the recording.
“Your daddy gave you a key before he died. Where is it?”
Rosie answered, “He said it was mine.”
Bethany tightened her grip.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“You’re just a baby. You don’t even know what it opens.”
“Daddy said it tells the truth.”
Detective Torres paused the video.
“What truth?”
“I don’t know.”
I showed her the bloodstained brass key.
She sealed it inside an evidence bag.
“We’ll test the blood.”
“Can I keep it?”
“It may be connected to a crime.”
“My husband’s death?”
She looked at me carefully.
“What happened to him?”
Lucas had been the safety director at Caldwell Construction, the company my grandfather founded and my father now controlled.
He died after falling from the eighth floor of an unfinished hotel.
Dad said a railing failed.
Bethany, the company’s chief financial officer, called it a terrible accident.
The investigation ended quickly.
Too quickly.
“Lucas was alone when he fell,” I said. “At least, that’s what my father told me.”
“Did the police investigate?”
“The company’s security cameras had stopped recording that night.”
Torres wrote something down.
“Who controlled those cameras?”
“Bethany.”
Rosie reached for me.
I sat beside her, and she climbed into my lap.
“Did your daddy tell you anything about the key?” Torres asked gently.
Rosie nodded.
“He said if the bad people came, I should give Bunny to Mommy.”
“What bad people?”
“The ones who made him climb.”
My body went cold.
“What do you mean, made him climb?”
Rosie began crying.
“I don’t know.”
I kissed her forehead.
“That’s okay. You’re not in trouble.”
After Torres left, I carried Rosie to bed.
She fell asleep with her hand curled around my thumb.
At three in the morning, the security alarm sounded.
I grabbed Rosie and locked us inside the bathroom.
Someone was trying to open the back door.
Police reached the house before the intruder entered.
They found my mother crouched beside the lock with Dad’s emergency key.
She claimed she had come for Bethany’s purse.
But Bethany’s purse was still at the police station.
An officer searched Mom’s coat.
He found a screwdriver, a pair of gloves, and a photograph of Rosie’s stuffed rabbit.
On the back, someone had written:
GET THE KEY BEFORE CLAIRE LEARNS ABOUT THE RED ROOM.
Mom stared at the floor.
“What is the red room?” I demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Who wrote that?”
She refused to answer.
Torres took Mom to the station for questioning.
At sunrise, she called me.
The blood on the brass key had been tested.
It belonged to Lucas.
Then another result came back.
A partial fingerprint was found beneath the dried blood.
The print belonged to Bethany.
May you like
Rosie’s toy had not merely hidden a key.
It had preserved evidence linking my sister to my husband on the night he died.
