Chapter 8 - Petals on the Road.
Ethan drove before Detective Hayes finished ordering him to stay at the estate.
The gray sedan had turned north according to a gardener at the service gate.
He followed Lake Road, the same road where Caroline's car had crossed the guardrail.
Every curve carried the memory of identifying his sister beneath a hospital sheet.
Five miles from the estate, he saw a white flower petal on the pavement.
Another appeared near the next intersection.
Lily had torn flowers from her dress and dropped them through the open edge of the window.
Ethan followed the trail to an abandoned nursery owned by a Sinclair subsidiary.
The rusted sign read EDEN GLASSWORKS, a coincidence designed to confuse anyone searching Caroline's clues.
Inside the gray sedan, Lily had counted every turn the way Caroline once taught her during road trips.
She counted four bridges, two railroad crossings, and twenty-seven seconds on gravel.
The woman in Paula's coat told her to stop whispering numbers.
Lily pretended to cry harder while loosening the flower stitched to her waist.
One petal fell through the window.
Then another.
Fear made her hands clumsy, but anger kept them moving.
When the sedan stopped, Lily hid one final flower inside the door pocket, hoping someone would search the car after she was gone.
She promised herself she would not let Vivienne turn fear into silence again.
Daniel called from the county jail.
Hayes had released him after chapel footage showed the masked attacker stealing his badge.
"Wait for me," Daniel said.
"They have Lily."
"And they want you angry enough to run blind."
Ethan parked behind a collapsed greenhouse and entered through a broken side panel.
Rows of dead plants stretched beneath dusty glass.
He heard a child cough somewhere below him.
"Lily!"
A speaker crackled overhead.
Vivienne's voice filled the greenhouse.
"You always did mistake impulse for devotion."
"Where is she?"
"Safe, for the moment."
"If you touch her—"
"There is the angry Ethan everyone saw online."
Metal shutters dropped over the exits.
A mist sprayed from pipes along the roof.
Ethan covered his mouth as a bitter smell entered the air.
He kicked through a potting bench and found a maintenance hatch beneath it.
The floor tilted while he dragged himself into the narrow tunnel.
Vivienne continued speaking through hidden speakers.
"Caroline also believed love made her brave."
"Did you kill her?"
A pause followed.
"I gave her a choice."
Ethan reached the end of the tunnel and slammed his shoulder against a wooden panel.
It opened into a storage room.
Lily's braided headband lay on the floor.
There was blood on the white ribbon.
Ethan picked it up with shaking hands.
Behind him, Daniel broke a window and crawled through the ventilation gap.
"The mist is only a sedative," Daniel said.
"Only?"
"We have minutes before you pass out."
They found a freight door at the rear of the building.
Fresh tire tracks led toward the Sinclair vineyard.
Detective Hayes arrived with paramedics and showed Ethan a live message sent from Lily's missing tablet.
The video displayed Lily sitting in a dark room.
Her dress was torn, but she was awake.
Vivienne stepped into view wearing ordinary black clothes.
"Tomorrow at noon, you will finish the ceremony."
She held Caroline's folded note between two fingers.
"If you refuse, Lily learns exactly how her mother died."
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The video ended with Lily shouting one word.
"Piano!"
