Chapter 4 - The Quiet Room
Brookside was the name of a residential treatment program two counties away. Daniel had never contacted it.
By morning he'd learned that a preliminary intake had been submitted for Lily anyway.
Mara watched the garden videos in her office above a bookstore. When they ended, she removed her glasses.
"First we protect Lily. Then we find out what they filed and who signed it."
"Someone tried to send my kid away without telling me."
"An intake isn't an admission," Mara said. "But it tells us where they're trying to go."
She recommended a child therapist unaffiliated with Mercer, a formal report to Lily's school, and changing the house access codes. Daniel agreed. He also canceled the wedding.
Back home, he found Lily drawing a garden. Most of the page was green, but in one corner she'd colored a small room entirely black.
"What's that?"
"The quiet room," Lily said. "Vanessa said good girls stay there until they stop being difficult."
"Where is it?"
"Behind the shed."
Daniel went outside with June. Behind stacked flowerpots was a windowless storage closet, barely large enough for a rake and two chairs. Its latch had been fitted from the outside.
On the floor lay a pink hair ribbon and a paper cup. Daniel recognized the ribbon from Lily's school picture.
He took photographs without moving anything and called the officer who had taken the previous night's report. The officer asked him to keep Lily away from the area while it was documented.
When Daniel returned to the kitchen, Lily held up her drawing.
"Am I in trouble?"
"No, sweetheart. The person who put you there is."
His phone rang. Vanessa.
He let it go to voicemail.
Her message was calm, almost bored. "You can cancel a wedding, Daniel. You can't cancel paperwork that's already in motion. Ask Mara who owns your house."
May you like
Daniel looked out at the meadow Claire had left for their daughter.
And for the first time, he was afraid the attack in the garden had been a business decision.
