Chapter 5 - THE DRIVE INSIDE LILY’S RABBIT
The USB drive contained enough information to ruin men I had never heard of.
Adrian knew most.
Mason knew some.
Federal investigators knew fewer.
I knew none.
Shipping manifests.
Encrypted payment records.
Photographs.
Names.
Customs officers.
Private security contractors.
Dock managers.
Politicians.
Smuggling routes.
Medical-supply theft.
Weapons.
Cash.
Marcus had copied everything.
Not because he became a hero.
Because he became afraid.
That mattered.
People tried to rewrite dead men after they died.
I wouldn’t.
Marcus had lied to me.
Used my identity.
Abandoned Lily.
Committed crimes.
Then apparently realized he had become disposable to dangerous people and built insurance.
Lily’s rabbit.
A hiding place nobody would suspect.
I sat inside Adrian’s hospital conference room while FBI Agent Samuel Grant studied the files.
“This is substantial.”
I laughed.
“Everyone keeps saying things like that.”
He looked apologetic.
“What happens now?”
“We verify. Build cases. Protect witnesses.”
“Us.”
“Yes.”
I looked at Lily asleep on the couch.
Rabbit back in her arms.
The drive removed.
Ear repaired by a nurse who apparently had sewing skills.
“She’s three.”
“I know.”
“She goes to preschool.”
“I know.”
“She likes blueberry waffles and hates socks.”
Agent Grant waited.
“She doesn’t become evidence.”
“No.”
“She doesn’t become bait.”
“Absolutely not.”
“She doesn’t become a story you leak because it helps a case.”
“No.”
I stared.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
Adrian, sitting in a wheelchair because Dr. Brooks had finally allowed him out of bed for fifteen minutes, watched me.
Something like pride in his face.
I hated noticing.
“You agree?” I asked.
“With you?”
“Yes.”
“Completely.”
“That’s new.”
His mouth moved slightly.
“Near-death growth.”
“Convenient.”
Mason interrupted.
“The drive includes Eva.”
I stiffened.
“What?”
“She received payments.”
“For what?”
“Medical supplies.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
Agent Grant scrolled.
“Three years ago. Several transactions from Providence intermediaries.”
My stomach twisted.
“She was part of Marcus’s network.”
“Possibly.”
“Then why avenge him?”
Mason answered.
“Maybe she isn’t.”
We turned.
“What?”
“What if killing Adrian isn’t revenge?”
“Then what?”
“Containment.”
Cold moved through me.
Eva might not care who killed Marcus.
She might care what his drive could expose.
“And she knew about the rabbit?”
“Maybe not exactly,” Mason said. “But Marcus might have told her he hid something with Lily.”
I thought of the voicemail.
Ask him why your life needed saving.
She wanted me suspicious.
Separated from Adrian.
Easier to reach.
Agent Grant’s phone rang.
He stepped away.
Then returned.
“We identified the woman who used Rebecca Lane’s badge.”
“Eva?”
“Facial match eighty-six percent.”
“Where is she?”
“Still searching.”
“Apartment?”
“Cleared.”
“Car?”
“Recovered abandoned.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“She’s planning another move.”
Probably.
I looked at Lily.
Fear became rage.
“She has already come near my child once.”
“When?”
Everyone turned.
The memory surfaced.
A month after Adrian found us.
Hotel lobby.
A woman bumped my stroller.
Dark eyes.
She apologized.
Touched Lily’s rabbit.
I had forgotten.
No.
My skin went cold.
“She knew.”
“What?” Adrian asked.
“Eva saw the rabbit.”
“When?”
I explained.
Mason cursed.
“She may have been checking whether Marcus hid something inside.”
“But why not take it?”
“Too public.”
Adrian looked at me.
“She’s been watching longer than we thought.”
I felt sick.
Three years.
How many playgrounds?
How many sidewalks?
How many times had Lily said someone smelled strange and I dismissed it as perfume or smoke?
“Claire.”
Adrian’s voice softened.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Blame yourself.”
I laughed.
“You don’t get to say that after surveilling me for a year.”
Fair.
He accepted it.
“Then blame me too.”
“I do.”
“Good.”
I looked at him.
Something between us had changed.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Trust had cracked open and shown something uglier underneath.
But maybe ugly truth was safer than beautiful ignorance.
Agent Grant returned to the drive.
“There’s one file we can’t open.”
“What?”
“Password-protected archive. Label says LILY14.”
My heart stopped.
July 14.
Lily’s birthday.
“What password?”
“Unknown.”
I thought.
Marcus loved numbers.
Used dates.
Then Lily shifted in her sleep.
She murmured:
“Bunny blue.”
I looked over.
“What?”
She opened her eyes.
“Bunny blue.”
Her rabbit was brown.
“What do you mean?”
She frowned sleepily.
“Daddy say blue bunny.”
My chest tightened.
“Daddy?”
She had never met him consciously.
Only newborn.
Maybe videos?
No.
She meant something else.
“Who told you that?”
“Man phone.”
The room froze.
“What man?”
She sat up.
“Phone man.”
“When?”
“At home.”
My blood went cold.
“Did somebody call you?”
She nodded.
I crouched.
“When?”
“Before Mr. Vale hospital.”
My stomach dropped.
“Did he talk to you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Asked Bunny color.”
Every adult in the room went silent.
“What did you say?”
“Brown.”
“And?”
“He say blue.”
My hands shook.
“Did you tell me?”
“You busy vacuum.”
God.
A call.
Maybe through the tablet?
“Which phone?”
“Tablet.”
Lily used a children’s tablet for cartoons.
I had parental controls.
Or thought I did.
Mason immediately called digital forensics.
The tablet had received a video-call request through a hidden messaging function inside a game.
Unrecognized account.
Audio recovered partly.
A distorted voice:
What color is Bunny’s heart?
Lily:
Bunny brown.
Voice:
Daddy said blue. Remember?
Then disconnection.
Marcus had apparently used some phrase.
Blue bunny.
Maybe password hint.
Agent Grant tried:
BLUEBUNNY.
Denied.
BLUEBUNNY0714.
Denied.
LILYBLUE.
Denied.
I closed my eyes.
Marcus once called Lily his “blue miracle.”
Because when she was born, she briefly had breathing trouble.
No.
Another memory.
Hospital nursery.
Marcus holding her once.
The only photo I had.
He whispered:
“My little blue sky.”
I opened my eyes.
“Try BLUESKY0714.”
Agent Grant typed.
The archive opened.
Inside was one video.
Marcus.
Alive.
Terrified.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If Claire sees this, I’m probably dead.”
My heart stopped.
He continued.
“I’m sorry.”
I hated that the words still affected me.
“I used your name because I thought nobody would touch a woman with a baby.”
Tears burned.
“I was wrong.”
He swallowed.
“Adrian Vale didn’t ruin me. I did.”
Adrian looked away.
Marcus continued.
“Eva is involved. She thinks she’s smarter than everyone. She isn’t.”
Mason muttered:
“Good.”
“She and a man named Daniel Kovic run the medical side.”
Agent Grant started writing.
“They’re using stolen hospital shipments to move fentanyl precursors and counterfeit injectables.”
My stomach turned.
“Eva knows I copied everything.”
Marcus looked exhausted.
“If I disappear, do not trust her.”
Then:
“Adrian is dangerous.”
Adrian almost smiled humorlessly.
“But he kept me alive longer than I deserved.”
The video shifted.
Marcus leaned closer.
“Claire, I’m sorry I left you.”
My breath caught.
“I thought leaving would make them follow me instead of you.”
Tears spilled.
“It probably won’t matter.”
He looked broken.
“Tell Lily I wasn’t good enough to be her father.”
I closed my eyes.
No.
Dead men love turning shame into destiny.
Marcus continued.
“But I did love her.”
I cried anyway.
Then the final line:
“And if Adrian finds this first, tell him the person betraying him is already inside his house.”
The room went silent.
Adrian looked at Mason.
Mason looked at Adrian.
My skin turned cold.
Inside his house.
Adrian’s penthouse?
His organization?
His closest people?
Agent Grant asked:
“Who had access to your home?”
Mason answered slowly.
“Dozens.”
Staff.
Security.
Drivers.
Housekeepers.
Me.
Then Adrian’s face changed.
“No.”
“What?”
“The hospital.”
He looked at Mason.
“How did Eva know which hospital?”
Mason frowned.
“It wasn’t public.”
“How did she know my surgical room?”
Mason went pale.
“She needed internal itinerary.”
Adrian’s voice hardened.
“Who had it?”
Mason’s expression collapsed.
Only a few.
Then he whispered:
“My brother.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Caleb Reed.”
His younger brother.
Adrian’s personal security scheduler.
The man who knew every hospital transfer.
Every room.
Every emergency protocol.
Mason closed his eyes.
And I realized Lily had been right the first night.
Mason did smell scared.
May you like
Not because he knew Adrian was dying.
Because somewhere inside him, he already knew who might have helped make it happen.
