Chapter 2 - THE NOTEBOOK
Daniel locked the front door after Rachel left.
Daniel watched her car disappear, then slid the deadbolt into place.
When he turned around, Noah was still standing at the stairs.
“The notebook,” Daniel said.
Noah nodded.
Lily would not let go of Daniel’s neck, so he carried her upstairs. Noah led them into his bedroom and shut the door.
He pulled a blue plastic storage bin from under his bed. Beneath comic books and a broken remote-control car sat a black composition notebook.
Daniel opened it.
The first page contained dates.
MARCH 8 — Lily cried because Aunt Rachel locked the pantry.
MARCH 12 — She said Dad would send us away if we made him mad.
MARCH 19 — She took Lily’s stuffed rabbit and put it in the trash.
APRIL 2 — She made me stand in the laundry room for one hour.
Daniel stopped breathing normally.
He turned another page.
APRIL 11 — Lily tried to tell Dad at dinner. Aunt Rachel kicked my foot under the table.
APRIL 16 — Camera in hall had red light. Aunt Rachel covered it with tape.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Daniel asked.
Noah’s mouth tightened.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“A lot.”
Daniel stared at him.
Noah pointed toward Daniel’s phone on the dresser.
“I sent you messages from my tablet. She said you read them and told her I was being dramatic.”
“I never got messages like that.”
Noah’s face crumpled.
“She showed me your answer.”
“What answer?”
Noah opened the notebook to a page where he had copied a sentence in careful block letters.
STOP MAKING THINGS UP. LISTEN TO YOUR AUNT. I’M BUSY.
Daniel read it twice.
“I never wrote that.”
Noah looked at him as if the floor had moved.
Lily lifted her head from Daniel’s shoulder.
“Aunt Rachel writes like Daddy,” she whispered.
Daniel turned another page.
At the bottom, Noah had written one sentence three times.
SHE KNOWS DAD’S PHONE CODE.
Then Daniel noticed a folded piece of paper taped inside the back cover.
May you like
Across the front, in Rachel’s handwriting, were three words:
FOR THE HEARING.
