Chapter 2
What Grace Heard Behind The Door
Grace Cole was sitting beneath fluorescent lights with an ice pack against her temple when Victor entered the security office carrying Lily.
The moment Lily saw her, she reached out so quickly that Victor almost lost his grip.
"Gracie!"
Grace's face collapsed.
She took Lily carefully, pressing her cheek to the child's hair while trying not to cry.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry."
Victor closed the office door.
"Tell me everything."
Grace looked toward Clara first.
"Is Victoria here?"
"Not in this room," Clara said. "Mall police are interviewing her separately."
Grace swallowed.
"She texted me from your number."
Victor stared at her.
Grace reached for her damaged phone, which sat inside a clear evidence bag on the desk.
"At 11:07, I got a message that said you were upstairs at the private concierge suite and needed to speak to me alone. It said Victoria would watch Lily for five minutes."
"I never sent that."
"I know that now."
Grace looked down at Lily, who had begun playing with the zipper on her coat.
"When I got to the staff hallway, nobody was there. Then I heard Victoria talking around the corner."
Victor did not move.
"She was talking to a man."
"Brutus?"
"I didn't see his face at first. I heard her say, 'Once she's through the red door, we have ten minutes before anyone asks questions.'"
The room became very still.
Grace continued.
"Then the man said, 'And if she screams?'"
Victor's jaw tightened.
"Victoria said, 'She's two. People will think she's having a tantrum.'"
Lily suddenly stopped touching the zipper.
Her small hand found Grace's collar.
Victor saw it.
So did Clara.
The child understood more than anyone had wanted to believe.
"What happened next?" Clara asked.
"I stepped around the corner and asked what they were doing. Victoria looked shocked. The man grabbed my phone. I tried to get past him, and he shoved me backward. I hit the metal doorframe."
Grace touched the bandage on her forehead.
"Then they locked me in the restroom."
Victor looked at Clara.
"There should be cameras."
"There are," Clara said. "Except the service hallway feed went offline at 10:58."
Grace's eyes widened.
"That's nine minutes before the text."
"Exactly."
Victor turned toward the one-way glass looking into the adjacent interview room.
Victoria sat at a table with perfect posture, one ankle crossed over the other, as though she were waiting for an unpleasant lunch meeting to end.
She looked nothing like a woman who had just been caught in chaos.
That bothered him.
"Where was Lily when you went upstairs?" Victor asked.
Grace hesitated.
"At the children's boutique with Victoria."
"And then?"
"I don't know."
Lily lifted her head.
"Vicky took bunny."
Victor looked at her.
"What bunny, sweetheart?"
Lily pointed to her wrist.
Victor's stomach dropped.
The silver rabbit bracelet Amelia had given Lily before she died was gone.
It was the one possession Victor never allowed anyone to remove from his daughter.
Victoria had always hated it.
She once called it "a little shrine to a dead woman."
Victor walked to the interview room door.
Clara caught his arm.
"Don't go in angry."
"I'm not angry."
He looked through the glass at his wife.
"I'm counting."
"Counting what?"
"Every lie."
Before Clara could answer, one of the mall investigators entered carrying a tablet.
"Mr. Morgan, you need to see this."
He placed the tablet on the desk.
A still image filled the screen.
It had been captured by a parking-garage camera twenty-three minutes before Lily ran into the atrium.
Victoria was holding Lily's hand.
Brutus stood beside them.
May you like
And a black SUV waited at the loading dock behind the red door.
The license plate had been deliberately covered.
