Chapter 2 - Forty-Three Files
Daniel moved faster.
He closed his fist around the recorder and stepped backward.
“Don’t.”
Vanessa stopped.
Margaret gripped the back of her chair.
“Daniel, you’re making a spectacle.”
He almost laughed.
“A spectacle?”
Lily whimpered behind him.
That sound brought his attention back where it belonged.
Daniel lifted her again.
“Peter.”
His brother looked up.
“Take my phone.”
Peter hesitated.
“Call lodge security. Then call the sheriff.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You’re calling the police on your wife?”
Daniel handed the phone to Peter.
“I’m calling them because someone terrorized my two-year-old daughter.”
“I didn’t touch her.”
“You think that makes it better?”
Vanessa glanced around the table as if seeking witnesses.
What she found were people looking away.
Daniel saw it.
So did she.
Peter took the phone.
Margaret slammed her palm against the table.
“No police.”
Daniel faced her.
“Why?”
“This is a family matter.”
“No. It stopped being a family matter when an adult used a weapon to frighten a toddler.”
“It wasn’t a weapon.”
Daniel pointed toward the pan on the floor.
“Then you stand where Lily was standing and let Vanessa swing it beside your head.”
Margaret said nothing.
Daniel carried Lily toward the fireplace seating area and wrapped a wool throw around her.
Her breathing had become shallow little hiccups.
“Daddy stay?”
“I’m staying.”
“You go car?”
“No.”
He kissed her hair.
“I’m not leaving you tonight.”
Vanessa’s mouth tightened at the promise.
Daniel saw that too.
The lodge’s security director, Ben Cho, arrived minutes later with two staff members.
Daniel had known Ben for seven years.
Ben took one look at Lily and stopped asking unnecessary questions.
“What do you need?”
“Keep Vanessa and my mother in this room until deputies arrive. Nobody touches anything under this table.”
Margaret was outraged.
“You work for me.”
Ben looked at Daniel.
Daniel was majority owner of Mercer Ridge Hospitality.
Margaret still held twenty percent.
Ben answered carefully.
“I work for the company, Mrs. Mercer. Right now Mr. Mercer has given a lawful security instruction concerning a child-safety incident.”
Peter returned Daniel’s phone.
“The sheriff’s office is sending deputies.”
Vanessa moved toward Daniel.
He lifted one hand.
“No closer.”
Her expression cracked.
“Daniel, please.”
“Not one step.”
“I love you.”
Lily flinched at Vanessa’s voice.
Daniel felt it through the blanket.
Something inside him hardened.
“You don’t come near her.”
He took Lily upstairs to his private suite.
Halfway down the corridor, Rosa Alvarez, one of the senior housekeepers, appeared carrying folded towels.
When she saw Lily’s red face, she froze.
Then she looked at Daniel.
“Mr. Mercer…”
“What?”
Rosa hesitated.
Daniel recognized fear.
“Tell me.”
Her eyes filled.
“I should have told you earlier.”
The words struck him harder than Margaret’s insult.
“Told me what?”
Rosa set the towels down.
“Sometimes when you were away, Miss Lily cried when Mrs. Mercer came into the nursery.”
“Vanessa?”
Rosa nodded.
“And your mother.”
Daniel leaned against the wall.
“You saw them hurt her?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“What did you see?”
“Miss Lily hiding.”
Rosa looked ashamed.
“She would crawl behind the rocking chair when she heard Mrs. Vanessa’s shoes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
He remembered returning from Chicago three weeks earlier.
Lily had run to him laughing.
Vanessa had said, She’s finally getting over the clingy phase.
Clingy.
Daniel opened his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rosa’s answer was quiet.
“Because Mrs. Vanessa said you knew.”
Daniel stared at her.
“She told the staff that Lily’s pediatrician had advised ‘firm separation training.’ She said we weren’t to interfere.”
“I never said that.”
“I know that now.”
In the suite, Daniel locked the door.
He called Emily’s sister Elise.
Emily Shaw had been Lily’s mother.
She had died eighteen months earlier after her car slid through a mountain guardrail during an ice storm.
Daniel and Emily had never married.
They had been planning a small ceremony for spring.
Margaret had never forgiven either of them for Lily arriving first.
Elise answered on the third ring.
“Daniel?”
He struggled to speak.
“I need you.”
There was a pause.
“What happened to Lily?”
He told her enough.
Not everything.
He couldn’t yet.
Elise’s breathing changed.
“I’m coming.”
“The roads are bad.”
“I’m coming.”
After Lily finally fell asleep against his chest, Daniel placed the recorder on the desk.
His laptop had no direct card slot, but he found an adapter in his camera bag.
He copied all forty-three files before touching the originals.
Then he clicked the oldest recording.
For twelve seconds there was only room noise.
A chair scraping.
Lily babbling.
Then Vanessa’s voice.
“She cries faster when you take the rabbit.”
Margaret answered.
“Then take it.”
Daniel stared at the screen.
Vanessa again.
“What if she tells him?”
Margaret gave a short laugh.
“She’s two.”
A small child began crying through the laptop speakers.
Daniel’s hands turned cold.
Then Margaret said something that made him stop the recording.
“By the time Daniel understands what’s happening, he’ll already have signed everything.”
Daniel looked at the closed bedroom door.
May you like
Signed what?
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