Chapter 3 - Lily's Drawing
Nolan left the Vale residence at four in the morning.
Grant offered a car.
Nolan refused.
He drove home in the sedan that screamed whenever he turned left.
Lily was asleep on the couch beneath a blanket.
He stood over her longer than usual.
Then he noticed the sketchbook under her hand.
Nolan opened it.
The first pages were ordinary.
Cats.
School friends.
A ridiculous purple dragon.
Then the drawings changed.
A black car outside their apartment.
A woman with dark hair.
A red door.
A diamond bracelet.
And a balcony.
Nolan sat down hard.
Lily woke.
"Dad?"
"Hey."
She saw the sketchbook.
Her face changed.
"You weren't supposed to look."
"I know."
"I shouldn't have."
"Are you mad?"
"No."
That answer mattered.
Lily sat up.
Nolan asked.
"Do you know Avery Vale?"
Silence.
Then Lily nodded.
"How?"
"Mom knew her mom."
Nolan's chest tightened.
His wife, Elena Mercer, had died two years earlier from what doctors called a sudden aneurysm.
She worked nights as a home health nurse.
Nolan knew little about her private clients because confidentiality mattered to her.
"Did Mom work for Catherine Vale?"
"Sometimes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Mom said it was dangerous."
Nolan stopped breathing.
"What was dangerous?"
Lily began crying.
"The man with the silver watch."
She described a tall man who visited Catherine at the red-door apartment.
Catherine had rented it secretly.
Elena treated injuries there.
Bruises.
A cut lip.
Once, a broken finger.
Catherine told Elena her husband could never know.
Nolan's stomach turned.
"Grant hurt her?"
Lily shook her head quickly.
"No."
"Then who?"
"I don't know."
"But Mom called him Mr. Vale."
Grant had a brother.
Darius Vale.
Chief operating officer of Vale Holdings.
Always photographed wearing a silver watch.
Nolan felt the room tilt.
Then Lily handed him a folded drawing.
On the back, Elena had written one sentence.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, FIND CATHERINE'S SAFE.
Nolan stared.
His dead wife had left a warning hidden in their daughter's sketchbook.
May you like
And he had never known it existed.
