Chapter 9 - TWENTY-ONE SECONDS
The video began with Lily’s foot hitting Vanessa’s leg.
It showed Vanessa stumbling.
The fall.
The splash.
Then it ended.
Twenty-one seconds.
No cake.
No slap.
No hand reaching toward a frightened child.
Daniel watched it once.
Then again with the sound turned up.
Vanessa’s voice came through clearly.
“Look what you did!”
Evelyn listened while he described the missing beginning.
“Don’t respond online,” she said. “Save everything you receive. Send it to me and the investigator.”
“Who has it?”
“Her sister sent it to your office manager. We don’t know how far it’s gone.”
By noon, Daniel’s business partner had called.
Then his mother.
Then a neighbor who began with, “I’m sure there are two sides.”
Daniel ended that call.
He stood in Kate’s back yard, staring at the fence.
Inside, Lily was helping her aunt water a plant.
She looked up whenever his voice grew loud.
He lowered it.
“Find the original,” he told Evelyn.
“We’re working on that.”
At the mansion, Vanessa had collected clothing with an officer present. Daniel had arranged not to be there.
She left a note on his desk.
You wanted me to be her mother until I tried.
He photographed it, sent it to Evelyn, and put it in an envelope.
That evening, Mrs. Brooks called.
“I need to tell you something about the cake.”
“What?”
“Lily used a recipe from Emily’s box.”
Daniel sat down.
“She asked me how to spell something.”
His throat tightened.
“What did she write?”
Mrs. Brooks began to cry.
“She wanted the frosting to say, ‘Thank you for being my second mom.’ We couldn’t fit it. So we put it on a little card.”
Daniel closed his fist against his mouth.
“Where’s the card?”
“I don’t know. I looked after the police left.”
Outside Kate’s kitchen window, Lily was drawing circles in the condensation with one finger.
Daniel couldn’t bear to look at her.
Mrs. Brooks took a shaky breath.
“But I remember something else.”
He waited.
“Before she went outside, Lily asked Rosa to take a picture.”
“Of the cake?”
“Of her giving it to Vanessa.”
Daniel stood.
“On whose phone?”
May you like
“Rosa’s.”
And Rosa had stopped answering calls.
