Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WITH A KEY
Caroline froze when she saw the broken garden-room door.
Then she smiled.
“What happened?”
I held Sophie tighter.
“How did you get in?”
She lifted a silver key.
“Emergency copy.”
“I never gave you one.”
“You did after Grace died.”
“No.”
Allison interrupted. “Michael, stop. Caroline was helping me.”
“With what?”
Neither answered.
Sophie buried her face against my shoulder.
I looked at Allison.
“Why was my daughter locked in that room?”
“She had a meltdown.”
“Over a music box?”
“Over refusing to accept reality.”
I stared at her.
“What reality?”
Allison’s eyes filled with frustration.
“That Grace is dead.”
Sophie made a small sound against my neck.
I felt rage rise, then forced it down.
Not in front of her.
“Caroline. Leave.”
My sister’s smile vanished.
“You’re exhausted. You just got home.”
“Leave.”
“Michael—”
“Now.”
Caroline looked at Allison.
That glance lasted half a second.
Too long.
They had been discussing me.
Sophie noticed too.
Caroline finally left.
I carried Sophie upstairs.
Her room looked wrong.
Grace’s photograph was missing from the nightstand.
So were two framed pictures from the dresser.
“Where are Mommy’s pictures?”
Sophie pointed under the bed.
I pulled out a plastic storage box.
Inside were every photograph of Grace that used to be in Sophie’s room.
Wrapped in newspaper.
On top was a handwritten note.
NO MORE SHRINES.
I recognized the handwriting.
Allison’s.
My chest tightened.
Then Sophie pulled something else from under the mattress.
A white envelope.
“Mommy gave me this.”
I stared at her.
“Mommy?”
“Before she went to the hospital.”
Grace had died eighteen months earlier after a sudden brain aneurysm.
Sophie had been four.
I had never seen the envelope.
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On the front, in Grace’s handwriting, were five words:
FOR MICHAEL — WHEN SOPHIE IS AFRAID.
