Chapter 2 - The Secret Inside Bunny
Victor placed the gray rabbit on the walnut table.
Maisie immediately protested.
“Bunny doesn’t like tables.”
Under any other circumstances, Victor might have smiled.
He didn’t.
Clare held her daughter tightly.
“Mr. Calder, please give it back.”
“Not until you tell me what’s happening.”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“Your dead husband’s security credentials were used in my house last night.”
Victor pointed toward the rabbit.
“And he hid something inside your daughter’s toy before he died.”
Clare looked trapped.
Victor recognized that expression too.
“Vincent.”
His security chief stepped closer.
“Take everyone off the east corridor. Quietly. Nobody leaves the property until we know who used that card.”
Clare shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me.”
She stared at him.
Victor lowered his voice.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You don’t know what Daniel was involved in.”
“Neither do you, apparently.”
“That’s exactly why I’m afraid.”
Maisie tugged her mother’s sleeve.
“Can I have Bunny?”
Clare kissed her forehead.
“In a minute, baby.”
Victor examined the stitching.
“May I open it?”
Clare looked surprised.
“You’re asking?”
“It belongs to your daughter.”
Maisie answered for her.
“Okay. But don’t hurt him.”
Victor found a letter opener on the desk.
He carefully separated three stitches.
His fingers reached inside.
He pulled out a small black flash drive.
Nobody spoke.
Maisie looked disappointed.
“That’s not Bunny’s heart.”
Victor stared at the drive.
“No.”
He handed the rabbit back.
“His heart is fine.”
Maisie hugged it immediately.
Victor looked at Vincent.
“Offline computer.”
Ten minutes later they were in Victor’s private office.
Vincent placed an isolated laptop on the desk and inserted the drive.
One folder appeared.
CALDER.
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
Clare stepped backward.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Victor opened it.
Password required.
There was only a hint.
300.
Victor looked at Maisie.
“One Mississippi,” he murmured.
Clare covered her mouth.
Victor typed 300.
The folder opened.
Inside were dozens of documents.
Bank transfers.
Security schedules.
Photographs.
Names.
And a video file.
Victor clicked it.
Daniel Nolan appeared on-screen.
Clare gasped.
Maisie ran toward the computer.
“Daddy!”
Clare caught her.
The man on-screen looked exhausted.
“If Victor Calder is watching this, I’m probably dead.”
Victor leaned closer.
Daniel continued.
“I worked electrical maintenance at Calder House for six years. Mr. Calder probably never knew my name.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Daniel was right.
“I found something I wasn’t supposed to find.”
A photograph appeared.
Victor recognized one of his senior financial managers.
Elliot Crane.
Daniel continued.
“Someone inside Calder’s organization is moving money through shell companies and selling private security information. I copied everything I could.”
Vincent swore under his breath.
“Why didn’t he bring it to us?”
Clare whispered, “Because he didn’t know who he could trust.”
Daniel seemed almost to answer.
“If I went directly to Calder and the wrong person intercepted me, my family would be exposed.”
More files appeared.
Access codes.
Vehicle schedules.
Private addresses.
Victor’s stomach turned.
Then Daniel said the sentence that changed everything.
“They know about Elena.”
Victor stopped breathing.
Vincent looked at him.
Clare did not understand.
“Who’s Elena?”
Victor said nothing.
The video continued.
“I found archived payments connected to the crash seven years ago.”
Victor stood so suddenly his chair rolled backward.
“No.”
Daniel’s face remained on the screen.
“The police called it an accident. I don’t think it was.”
Victor reached for the laptop.
Vincent caught his wrist.
“Boss.”
“Play it.”
“Victor—”
“Play it.”
Daniel continued.
“The records suggest someone paid to alter maintenance documentation on the vehicle. I couldn’t identify who authorized it. But the money came from an account connected to someone still inside Calder House.”
Victor stared at the screen.
Seven years.
For seven years he had believed a mechanical failure caused the crash that killed his wife, Sophia, and their six-year-old daughter Elena.
He had buried them on the same rainy Tuesday.
He had blamed himself because he was supposed to drive them that morning.
A meeting had delayed him.
Sophia took the car.
The brakes failed.
Victor had spent seven years believing chance had chosen the wrong two people.
Now a dead maintenance worker was telling him chance might have had nothing to do with it.
The video continued.
“If something happens to me, protect Clare and Maisie. They know nothing. I made sure of that.”
Clare began sobbing silently.
Daniel looked straight into the camera.
“And Mr. Calder, if you’re hearing this, there’s one person you absolutely cannot trust.”
The video froze.
Victor waited.
Nothing.
“Why did it stop?”
Vincent checked the file.
“Corrupted.”
“Fix it.”
“I’ll try.”
“Now.”
Maisie suddenly spoke.
“Daddy said another name.”
Everyone looked at her.
Clare crouched.
“What?”
“When?”
“The last night.”
Victor moved closer.
“What name, Maisie?”
She frowned, searching her memory.
“Daddy was talking to Bunny.”
Clare’s face crumpled.
“He recorded the video while she was in the room.”
Maisie nodded.
“He said Mr. Crane.”
Victor looked at Vincent.
Elliot Crane.
The man in the photograph.
But Maisie continued.
“And then Daddy said Mr. Hale.”
Silence.
Victor slowly turned toward Vincent Hale.
His security chief did not move.
Clare pulled Maisie behind her.
Victor stared at the man who had protected him for nineteen years.
Vincent’s expression remained controlled.
“Victor.”
“Don’t.”
“You need to hear me.”
“My daughter’s death is on that drive, and a dead man apparently spoke your name the night before he died.”
“Yes.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“Give me your weapon.”
Vincent did not argue.
He removed it and placed it on the desk.
Then he removed his earpiece.
“You should also know something else.”
“What?”
“I knew Daniel Nolan.”
Clare stared at him.
“You what?”
Vincent looked at her.
“He came to me three weeks before he died.”
Clare’s face twisted.
“You told me nobody here knew him.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel asked me to.”
Victor stepped forward.
“Start talking.”
Vincent looked toward the laptop.
“Daniel believed Elliot Crane was stealing from you. But Crane wasn’t what scared him.”
“What was?”
“Daniel believed Crane was working for somebody else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Victor’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. But I can prove Daniel trusted me.”
Vincent reached slowly into his jacket.
Victor tensed.
Vincent removed an old brass key.
Clare gasped.
“I know that key.”
“From where?”
“Daniel wore it around his neck.”
Vincent placed it beside the laptop.
“He gave it to me two days before his death.”
“What does it open?”
Vincent looked at Clare.
“Daniel said his wife would know.”
Clare shook her head.
“I don’t.”
Maisie peeked around her mother.
“I do.”
Every adult looked down.
Maisie pointed at the key.
“That opens Daddy’s blue box.”
Clare frowned.
“What blue box?”
“The one at Grandma’s house.”
Clare went completely still.
“My mother’s house?”
Maisie nodded.
“Daddy put it under the floor.”
Victor looked at Vincent.
“When?”
Maisie answered.
“The night he cried.”
Victor felt something cold settle inside him.
Someone had used Daniel’s credentials inside Calder House less than twelve hours ago.
Someone knew about the evidence.
And if Maisie remembered the blue box, there was a chance somebody else did too.
Victor grabbed his coat.
“We’re going to your mother’s house.”
Clare stared at him.
“All of us?”
Victor looked at Maisie clutching Bunny.
“Yes.”
Because somewhere under the floor of a quiet suburban home was a box a dead man had hidden before his death.
May you like
And Victor had the terrible feeling it contained the name of the person who had destroyed both their families.
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