Chapter 8 - WHAT LILY SAW
No one pressed Lily to explain in front of a room full of adults. Her therapist came to the hospital the next morning and spoke with her while Leo waited outside.
Afterward, Lily chose to tell him herself.
She had seen Owen hand a brown envelope to a man beside the shed. Victoria had been there too. The man dropped a paper. Lily picked it up, but she could not read most of it. It had a picture of a truck on the top.
Victoria took the paper from her.
“She said it was grown-up business,” Lily told Leo. “I said I’d ask you about the truck. She got mad.”
That conversation happened four days before the cellar.
Dana showed Lily several photographs without suggesting an answer. Lily pointed to Graham Kensington.
“He was wearing a gray hat that day,” she said.
Graham’s attorney called the identification unreliable. Dana agreed Lily’s memory would need careful handling. The investigators had gate records, the photograph, and Owen’s notebook page to examine as well.
At noon, the hospital discharged Lily. Leo took her to a small guesthouse on a property only a few close friends knew about. Beatrice came because Lily asked her to. A doctor cleared Beatrice to rest and return for follow-up care.
On the drive, Leo told Beatrice he would pay for her medical treatment and lost work. She stared out the window.
“You don’t have to figure out my life today,” she said.
“I know. I should have offered help sooner.”
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At the guesthouse, Lily fell asleep on the couch with her rabbit. Beatrice found a stack of folded blankets and carried one over to her. Something slid from the rabbit’s torn seam and landed on the floor.
It was a small memory card.
