Chapter 4 - The Camera Inside the Rabbit
Cassandra’s lawyer held a press conference before noon.
That was how I learned she intended to destroy me publicly.
He stood outside the courthouse declaring his client an innocent stepmother targeted by a “vindictive former spouse exploiting a frightened child during a contentious custody dispute.”
My photograph appeared on television.
Not a current one.
A courthouse photograph from three months earlier.
My eyes were swollen from crying.
My hair looked terrible.
Perfect.
The unstable mother.
The woman Cassandra had created.
Rachel called me immediately.
“Do not respond.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“I want to.”
“Also normal.”
Daniel responded instead.
Without telling anyone.
At 2:17 p.m. he walked in front of the same courthouse cameras.
No attorney beside him.
No prepared podium.
Just Daniel.
“My wife’s attorney suggested that Elena Hart manufactured evidence against Cassandra.”
He paused.
“That allegation is false.”
Reporters shouted questions.
Daniel continued.
“I previously supported restrictions on Elena’s custody based on evidence I now have reason to believe was falsified. I was wrong.”
Every camera moved closer.
“I failed my daughter. I failed her mother. I intend to cooperate fully with law enforcement.”
I watched from my apartment.
Sophie sat beside me eating crackers.
Daniel looked directly into the cameras.
“And anyone attempting to blame Elena for my failure should blame me instead.”
I turned off the television.
Not because I was angry.
Because I was crying.
Rachel called again.
“He just made my job easier and his much harder.”
“Why?”
“Admissions.”
“He told the truth.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the black screen.
“Maybe he finally understands truth is supposed to cost something.”
The next breakthrough came from the rabbit.
The memory card contained more than nursery footage.
My mother had added her own recordings.
One was filmed inside her kitchen.
Mom sat at the table wearing the ruby necklace.
She looked thin.
Tired.
But clear-eyed.
“If Elena is watching this,” she said, “then Cassandra found out.”
I covered my mouth.
Daniel sat beside me at Officer Miller’s station.
Mom continued.
“I don’t know how she learned about Sophie’s trust. But twice she asked questions she should not know to ask.”
She described Cassandra requesting the name of Sophie’s estate guardian.
Then asking whether trust distributions changed at age three.
Mom had lied.
She told Cassandra the trust was small.
Cassandra didn’t believe her.
“I have copied recordings from the nursery camera,” Mom said. “I believe Cassandra and Victor Hale are creating evidence against Elena.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Mom looked directly into the camera.
“Daniel, if you see this, I hope you finally choose your daughter over your pride.”
He broke.
He stood and left the room.
Officer Miller paused the video.
I waited.
Five minutes later Daniel returned.
His eyes were red.
“Play it.”
Mom’s final statement was the most disturbing.
“Cassandra believes the access code is hidden in the necklace. It isn’t.”
I stared.
The numbers we found.
4-1-7-2.
Not the code?
Mom smiled faintly at the camera.
“I know she will search for it. So I gave her something to find.”
Officer Miller leaned closer.
“A decoy.”
Mom continued.
“The real safeguard is not a number. It is a person.”
The recording ended.
I stared at the blank screen.
“What person?”
Nobody knew.
Then Officer Miller received a message.
Cassandra had violated her bail conditions.
She had attempted to contact Rosa.
Not by phone.
She appeared outside Rosa’s apartment.
Rosa’s neighbor called police after hearing shouting.
Cassandra fled before officers arrived.
“What did she want?” I asked.
Miller looked grim.
“The rabbit.”
My entire body went cold.
“She knows.”
“She suspects.”
Daniel said, “Move Rosa somewhere safe.”
Miller looked at him.
“We already did.”
That evening, Sophie finally slept without crying.
I sat beside her bed until nearly midnight.
Then someone knocked.
Three soft knocks.
I froze.
Daniel was downstairs with a private security officer.
He came up immediately.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“I’m done staying behind doors while men decide what’s happening.”
He looked at me.
Then nodded.
We went downstairs together.
The security monitor showed nobody outside.
Another knock.
Not the front door.
The kitchen window.
Daniel turned.
A shadow moved across the patio.
Security ran outside.
They found nobody.
But something had been left beneath the window.
A white envelope.
Inside was a photograph of my mother.
Alive.
Taken six weeks before she died.
She was entering an office building.
A man walked beside her.
Victor Hale.
I stared.
“My mother knew him?”
Daniel took the photograph.
“Apparently.”
On the back:
ASK EVELYN WHAT SHE PROMISED HIM.
“She’s dead,” I whispered.
Daniel’s face tightened.
“That’s why whoever sent this feels safe.”
I looked again.
Something bothered me.
The office building behind Mom looked familiar.
I zoomed in on the photograph with my phone.
A brass plaque appeared beside the entrance.
WHITMORE FAMILY FOUNDATION.
Daniel stared.
“My foundation.”
“What was my mother doing there?”
“I don’t know.”
“You better start finding out.”
Daniel called his corporate administrator.
Records showed Evelyn visited the foundation six times during the year before her death.
Always privately.
Always with Daniel’s father, Charles Whitmore.
Charles had died seven months before my mother.
Another dead person.
Another missing answer.
But there was one surviving employee who had attended those meetings.
Margaret Sloan.
The Whitmore family accountant.
She had retired to Wisconsin.
We drove there the next morning.
Margaret opened the door, took one look at Daniel, and said, “Took you long enough.”
My pulse jumped.
“You knew my mother?”
“Very well.”
“Why was she meeting Charles?”
Margaret looked at Sophie sleeping in my arms.
Then she stepped aside.
“Because the twelve million dollars wasn’t Evelyn’s money.”
Daniel frowned.
“What?”
Margaret closed the door.
“It was your father’s.”
The room went silent.
“My father created Sophie’s trust?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Margaret looked directly at him.
“Because Charles believed Cassandra was dangerous before you married her.”
Daniel went pale.
May you like
Margaret continued.
“And because shortly before he died, he discovered Cassandra was not the woman she claimed to be.”
