Chapter 4 - The Thing She Remembered
Ethan pulled his chair closer but didn't crowd her. Dr. Sethi reminded us that Lily could speak when she was ready and that nobody should press her for details while she was frightened and exhausted.
Lily stared at the ceiling. "After Mom and Dad died, I went looking for my yellow sketchbook. Vivienne was in Dad's office with a man. She said they had to change the numbers before Uncle Ethan found them."
"What man?" Ethan asked.
Lily closed her eyes. "He had a green coat. I don't know his name."
The room was quiet except for the monitor. I wanted to ask a dozen questions; instead I kept holding her hand.
"Then she saw me," Lily continued. "She asked what I heard. I said nothing. After that, she kept telling me I was sick and needed to rest."
Ethan went still. His sister Nora and her husband Aaron had died in a six-car pileup six months earlier. Lily survived in the back seat. Investigators found no family connection. Her grief was real; that was why nobody questioned it.
But grief had provided someone else with a hiding place.
Back in the corridor, Ethan called Leo. "Do not let anyone into Nora's old office. Preserve the camera recordings, door-access history, and whatever business files are there. Don't start searching private devices. The detectives can tell us what they need."
A uniformed officer came to take my statement. I described how I'd struck Vivienne's forearm to stop her hand approaching Lily's milk. The officer did not call me a hero. He asked where I stood, who could see me, and whether the object on the floor had been handled.
The truth didn't need a perfect performance from me. It needed accuracy.
As dawn brightened the hospital windows, Ethan returned with the phone he'd used to check the wellness invoices.
"There were charges," he said, his voice flat. "Every week. In Lily's name. Paid by the family foundation."
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He showed me the invoice header.
The billing company belonged to a man Lily might have seen in that office.
