Chương 10
Vanessa spoke quietly.
“It was hidden behind the furnace in the basement, and it had clothes, cash, one of your old credit cards, and a copy of Lily’s birth certificate inside.”
Daniel did not move.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“I never packed a bag.”
“I know that too.”
Mara came onto the porch.
“What are you saying?”
Vanessa looked toward the upstairs window.
“I’m saying Lily told me her father put it there.”
Daniel’s skin went cold.
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“How could you know?”
“Because the credit card expired three years ago.”
Daniel stared at her.
Vanessa’s voice dropped.
“And because Lily knew exactly where the bag was before I ever told her I found it.”
Daniel’s first impulse was to accuse Vanessa of inventing the bag.
The accusation reached his throat and stopped there, because Caroline was watching him with the patient stillness of someone accustomed to families producing three incompatible truths in the same room.
“Where is it now?”
Vanessa glanced at Caroline.
“In our bedroom closet.”
“You moved it?”
“Of course I moved it.”
“Why?”
“Because I found a bag hidden behind a furnace with your daughter’s birth certificate in it.”
“My daughter.”
Vanessa closed her eyes briefly.
“I know.”
“No, apparently you forgot.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Daniel stepped toward her.
“You found something that made you think Lily was planning to run away, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I did tell you something was wrong.”
“You told me she was acting out.”
“Because every time I tried to be more specific, you defended her before I finished the sentence.”
Mara made an incredulous sound.
“So your solution was to terrorize her until she behaved?”
Vanessa turned.
“There is no solution to what I did.”
The answer took some of the force out of Mara’s anger, though not much.
Caroline lifted a hand.
“We need to separate two issues that may or may not be connected.”
She looked at Vanessa.
“One is your treatment of Lily.”
Vanessa nodded.
“The other is the bag and any behavior that preceded or followed its discovery.”
Daniel said, “They are connected because Vanessa made them connected.”
“Possibly.”
Caroline’s tone stayed neutral.
“But right now, nobody here knows enough to say how.”
Daniel hated the sentence because it was true.
He looked through the screen door toward the staircase.
“Lily said I packed it?”
“That’s what she told me.”
Vanessa folded her arms around herself.
“I asked how she knew where it was, and she said you showed her.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“Stop saying that like it helps.”
Vanessa flinched.
Aaron came onto the porch.
“We should probably continue the interviews separately.”
Caroline nodded.
She asked Vanessa whether she would accompany Aaron to his car and speak there.
Vanessa agreed, then paused at the steps.
“Daniel.”
He did not answer.
“I won’t go back to the house tonight.”
He looked at her.
“I don’t care where you go.”
Her mouth tightened, but she nodded.
“I’ll send you the alarm code if you need to get anything.”
“I know the alarm code.”
“You know the old one.”
Daniel stared at her.
“When did you change it?”
“Last week.”
“Why?”
Vanessa glanced at Caroline.
“Because the back door opened at two in the morning while we were asleep.”
Daniel felt the porch tilt beneath him.
“What?”
“The alarm log showed the door sensor.”
“You told me the system malfunctioned.”
“I thought it had.”
“Until when?”
“Until I found Lily downstairs.”
Daniel looked toward the staircase again.
“She sleepwalks.”
“She hasn’t sleepwalked since kindergarten.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
Vanessa’s voice became tired.
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
Aaron led her toward the curb.
Daniel watched until the car door closed.
Mara leaned against the porch post.
“I still hate her.”
Caroline gave her a look.
“What?”
Mara said.
“I’m trying to be transparent.”
Daniel went inside.
He found Lily sitting on the blue bedroom floor with her knees drawn up and the locked backpack beside her.
She had arranged Mara’s decorative pillows into a wall between herself and the bed.
Daniel stopped in the doorway.
“Can I come in?”
She shrugged.
He sat on the floor several feet away.
For a while neither spoke.
Downstairs, a cabinet opened and closed.
A motorcycle went past outside.
Lily pulled a loose thread from one pillow and rolled it between her fingers.
“Is Vanessa gone?”
“She’s outside talking to Aaron.”
“Is she coming back?”
“Not tonight.”
Lily’s shoulders lowered.
Daniel wanted to leave the answer there.
Instead he said, “She told me about a bag in the basement.”
Lily’s fingers stopped.
Caroline, standing outside the doorway, said quietly, “Daniel.”
He looked back.
“I’m not interrogating her.”
“You’re asking about a subject we haven’t finished assessing.”
“It’s my house.”
“That doesn’t make every question safe to ask tonight.”
Lily said, “Dad put it there.”
Daniel looked at her.
“No, sweetheart.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
Her eyes hardened.
“Yes, you did.”
Daniel felt a terrible instinct to prove himself right.
It was the same instinct that had made him ask Vanessa for explanations whenever Lily complained, the adult hunger for a clean version of events.
He forced it down.
“When did I show it to you?”
Lily frowned.
“You know.”
“I’m asking because I don’t remember.”
“You said we might need it.”
“Where were we?”
“In the basement.”
“What was I wearing?”
Caroline stepped into the room.
“That’s enough.”
Lily answered anyway.
“Your gray work shirt.”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
He owned four gray work shirts.
“What else happened?”
“You were mad.”
“At who?”
“Vanessa.”
“What did I say?”
Lily’s certainty faltered.
“You said she couldn’t know.”
“Couldn’t know what?”
Lily looked down.
“I don’t remember.”
Caroline crouched beside the doorway.
“Lily, did you see your dad put the things inside the bag?”
A long pause followed.
“No.”
“Did you see him hide it?”
“No.”
“Did you see him holding it?”
Lily rubbed her nose.
“No.”
May you like
Caroline’s voice remained gentle.
“What do you remember seeing?”
