Chapter 6 - A Door Opened Twice
The entry happened at 7:14, forty minutes before the engagement toast. Vivienne's card had opened Nora's office, and the door had remained unlocked for eight minutes. Leo showed Ethan the access report, but he wouldn't let anyone wipe or alter it.
"Her name on a log doesn't prove what she did inside," Leo said. "We have to let the investigators look."
"Then why was she there?" Ethan asked.
"That's the question."
At the hospital I watched Lily color small blue circles on a napkin. She'd been speaking in short sentences, then resting. Dr. Sethi wanted her recovery to move at her own pace, not ours.
"Did you know I could talk?" she asked me.
"I knew you had thoughts. Talking and having thoughts aren't the same thing."
"Sometimes I tried." She pressed the crayon hard. "Then I'd get so sleepy I forgot what I wanted to say."
I thought of all the nights I'd found her sitting upright in bed with her eyes open, unable to finish a sentence. I'd blamed myself for not finding the right game or story.
Detective Mara Chen told Ethan officers were examining the syringe and interviewing witnesses. Its contents and the duration of any exposure were still unknown. Ethan gave her the invoices and Nora's concerns.
"One thing at a time," Detective Chen told him. "Your niece's safety comes first. Financial misconduct is a separate allegation."
Lily was dozing when Rosa called me from the estate. "I cleaned Nora's office after the funeral," she said. "There used to be two shelves of binders. Now one's empty."
"Do you remember which?"
"The shelf with the yellow labels. Nora called those her questions."
I passed the information to Chen, who wrote it down without promising it would solve anything. Then Ethan asked me something I hadn't expected.
"Grace, if Lily wants you near her when she comes home, will you stay?"
May you like
Before I answered, Lily opened her eyes.
"Only if Vivienne doesn't come back," she said.
