Chapter 15 - The Rabbit’s Secret
|
When I walked into the sitting room, Rosa immediately tried to stand up out of respect, her eyes still red from the evening’s terror.
"Please, stay seated, Rosa," I said gently, waving a hand and sitting down in the leather armchair across the low marble coffee table from them. "How is she doing?"
"She drank a cup of warm milk, asked if the loud horn meant the toast was burned, and fell asleep in two minutes," Rosa said with a shaky, tearful laugh, brushing a dark curl off Lily’s forehead. "At three years old, Mr. Ellison, she still thinks tonight was a game of hide-and-seek where she won."
I looked down at the sleeping little girl in the mismatched pink socks.
Sixty adults had sat at my table tonight—bankers, lawyers, corporate directors, people with degrees from Harvard and Wharton who prided themselves on reading rooms and spotting risk. Not a single one of them had noticed the poison in my glass or the murder kit taped two feet from my knee.
It had taken a three-year-old housekeeper’s daughter who wasn't afraid of looking foolish to walk out onto that marble floor and save everything I had built.
"Starting tomorrow morning, Rosa," I said quietly, "you are no longer working laundry or housekeeping shifts. My attorneys are establishing a five-million-dollar irrevocable educational and housing trust in Lily’s name. And if you’re willing to relocate forty minutes north to my Greenwich estate in Connecticut, I need a permanent Household Director to manage the country house—complete with a private cottage on the grounds and the best preschool in New England down the road."
Rosa stared at me, her hand trembling so hard she had to set her teacup down on the marble table before she dropped it. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks.
"Mr. Ellison, I can't accept five million dollars—" she whispered, her voice breaking. "Lily just told you what she saw!"
"What she saw was worth four billion dollars and my life, Rosa," I replied firmly. "It’s non-negotiable."
As I leaned forward to hand Rosa my linen handkerchief, my eyes happened to catch the battered plush ear of Barnaby the stuffed rabbit resting against the cream velvet cushion beside Lily’s cheek.
I paused, my brow furrowing slightly.
Right along the back seam of the stuffed rabbit’s cotton torso—just beneath the faded satin bow tied around its neck—the stitching didn't match the rest of the worn grey thread. Roughly two inches of the seam had been recently opened and resewn using a neat, tight surgical lock-stitch in dark nylon thread, with a tiny fleck of matte-black adhesive residue clinging to the fur.
"Rosa," I asked quietly, keeping my voice low so I wouldn't wake Lily. "Earlier tonight, when you said you went looking for Lily near the wine cellar at six-twenty-five, you mentioned she was getting Barnaby out from behind the laundry cart. How did Barnaby get behind the laundry cart in the wine corridor if Lily was supposed to be downstairs in the staff suite all afternoon?"
May you like
Rosa blinked, wiping her eyes as she thought back.
"Oh—Lily dropped Barnaby down the service linen chute on the fourth floor around four o'clock this afternoon," Rosa explained innocently. "I thought the rabbit went all the way down to the basement laundry bins, until the new maintenance man brought him back up to our door at six-fifteen."
