Chapter 16 - The Last Visit to Whitmore Estate
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The investigators had finished with most of Whitmore estate.
Evidence rooms remained sealed.
The rest was empty.
Lily wanted her gray stuffed rabbit.
Ethan thought it had been packed with her belongings.
She shook her head.
"I hid him downstairs."
Elena looked at her.
"Under the floor?"
Lily nodded.
So they returned.
Not alone.
A property officer accompanied them.
No Victor.
No security staff.
No buyers.
The marble hall felt smaller without people performing importance inside it.
Lily found the seam immediately.
The brass key still worked.
Ethan opened the panel.
Lily hesitated at the stairs.
"Do you want me to get it?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"I can."
Elena went with her.
Ethan followed last.
The hidden room had been stripped of servers and recorders.
Only the bed remained.
A kettle.
Tape marks where Elena's photographs of Ethan had covered the wall.
Lily crawled beneath the bed and pulled out a gray rabbit with one missing ear.
"Found him."
She hugged it.
Then looked at the room.
"Mommy lived here."
Elena nodded.
"For a little while."
"Were you scared?"
"Yes."
"Of Uncle Victor?"
Elena considered.
"Of a lot of things."
Lily looked at Ethan.
"Were you scared?"
"Yes."
"Of Uncle Victor?"
"Sometimes. Mostly I was scared I'd never see you again."
Lily held the rabbit tighter.
Then said, "I was scared you were mad at me."
Ethan knelt.
"Never."
He stopped.
Absolute words can become pressure too.
He corrected himself.
"I might get mad about things someday. That's normal. But I was never angry that you stayed here. None of this was your job to fix."
Lily nodded.
That answer seemed to fit better.
Before leaving, Elena opened a desk drawer.
Inside was one envelope investigators had missed because it was taped beneath the wood.
Her handwriting.
Ethan stared.
"Another letter?"
Elena looked confused.
"I don't remember writing this."
She opened it.
One page.
Written during her first week in the hidden room.
Ethan,
If I get out and you still want me, please do not let us call survival a marriage. Make me tell you where I failed you too.
Elena stopped reading.
Ethan looked away.
Lily asked, "What does it say?"
Elena folded the page.
"Grown-up stuff."
"Boring?"
"Very."
They left the room.
At the top of the stairs, Lily handed Ethan the brass key.
"You keep it."
He shook his head.
"Why me?"
"Because you came when I opened it."
Ethan closed his hand around the key.
Then Elena said, "Maybe nobody keeps it."
They looked at her.
She smiled.
"Maybe it's just a key."
For the first time, that felt possible.
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