Chapter 2 - The Key in Silver.
Adrian carried Lily into the library and wrapped a wool blanket around her shoulders while Nora brought warm water and the rescue inhaler from the upstairs medicine cabinet.
Lily took two careful breaths from it and slowly stopped trembling.
Adrian remained beside her until the color returned to her cheeks.
Celeste stood in the doorway under the watch of two security men who had arrived from the gatehouse.
She had refused to leave.
Adrian had refused to let her disappear.
The brass key sat on the library table between them.
A single thread of silver fabric still clung to it.
"You want to accuse me because of a thread?" Celeste asked.
Adrian did not look at her.
"I want to know why my daughter was locked in a cellar without her medicine."
"She wasn't without it because of me."
Nora stiffened.
Celeste noticed.
"Tell him, Nora."
"Tell me what?" Adrian asked.
Nora looked at Lily before answering.
"Miss Lily's inhaler was normally in the pocket of her cardigan."
Adrian looked down.
Lily was wearing only her white dress.
"Where is the cardigan?"
No one answered.
Lily pressed the rabbit under her chin.
"She took it."
Adrian's gaze moved to Celeste.
"Who?"
Lily pointed.
Celeste closed her eyes for a moment.
"I took the cardigan because it was wet."
"Wet with what?"
"Water."
"From where?"
"The cellar."
Adrian's voice dropped.
"You just said she should not have been there."
Celeste stepped into the room despite the guards.
"Because she was not alone."
Nora's hand tightened around the water glass.
Adrian saw it again.
That same hidden fear.
"Who was with her?"
Celeste looked directly at Nora.
"Ask the woman who has been teaching your daughter how to open locked doors."
Lily shook her head so quickly that her hair swept across her face.
"Nora didn't take me."
"Then who did?" Adrian asked softly.
Lily stared at the rabbit.
"I followed the roses."
The room went quiet.
Adrian thought of the roses scattered through the grand hall.
They had been decorations from Celeste's charity gala.
Hundreds of them had arrived that afternoon from a private greenhouse on the estate.
"What roses?"
"One was by the stairs."
Lily spoke slowly, forcing herself to remember.
"Then another one was by the little door."
"What little door?"
"Behind Mommy's picture."
Adrian felt cold spread through his chest.
The portrait in the cellar corridor had hung there since before Lily was born.
It showed Evelyn Vale, Adrian's late wife, standing in the garden with red roses in her hands.
Adrian had not looked closely at it in years.
Celeste turned away.
He caught the movement.
"You know what she's talking about."
"I know your dead wife left secrets everywhere."
Adrian stood.
"Don't speak about Evelyn."
Celeste met his stare.
"Then stop pretending she was a saint."
Nora inhaled sharply.
Adrian's patience vanished.
"Take Celeste to the guest suite and lock the door from the outside."
Celeste smiled with disbelief.
"You're imprisoning me now?"
"I'm making sure you are here when I come back from the cellar."
As the guards moved toward her, Celeste pointed at the brass key.
"That key does not open the cellar."
Adrian paused.
"What does it open?"
For the first time, Celeste looked frightened rather than angry.
"Something Evelyn built into this house without telling you."
Adrian picked up the key.
"How would you know?"
Celeste's eyes shifted toward Nora.
"Because your maid showed it to me two weeks ago."
Adrian turned.
Nora went white.
May you like
And Lily whispered into the silence.
"Nora told me Mommy left something for me."
