Chapter 2 - The Notebook
Robert took the notebook from Joey’s small, dirty hand. The cover was worn at the edges, adorned with silver glitter stickers of stars and moon crescents that Lily had bought at a corner bodega months ago.
He opened it. Lily’s neat, slanted handwriting filled the pages.
April 12: Head hurts again after dinner. Rebecca brought the chamomile tea. Tastes bitter today. Like copper. April 15: I couldn't keep my eyes open in math class. My hands felt cold. Rebecca told Dad I was just stressed about exams. I told her I wanted my real mom. She got angry. April 18: I saw Rebecca in Dad's home office. She was looking at the safe behind the painting. She didn't see me. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me I was imagining things again. Am I crazy?
Robert’s heart slammed against his ribs like a sledgehammer hitting iron. He raised his eyes to look at Rebecca.
His second wife—a woman he had married three years after his first wife, Eleanor, had succumbed to a rapid, unexplained illness—stood frozen beside the bed. The polished elegance she wore like armor seemed to fracture, exposing something cold, calculating, and desperate beneath.
"Robert," Rebecca whispered, taking a step back. "You can't honestly believe the ramblings of a sick child written in a diary! She was depressed, Robert! She was having hallucinations before the accident—"
"She didn't fall from the terrace, did she?" Robert said, his voice dropping into a register that made Dr. Richardson back toward the door. "Joey... what did you see?"
Joey stepped closer to the bed, looking down at Lily's pale, motionless face with a tenderness that tore at Robert's soul. "I was in the alley behind the Beacon Hill house that afternoon, picking up scrap metal for my uncle's shop. I heard screaming from the third-floor balcony. I looked up. Lily was leaning over the stone railing, trying to climb down to the fire escape. A woman in a cream coat was grabbing her wrists."
Rebecca let out a sharp, hysterical gasp. "He's lying! He's a dirty little street thief trying to extort us!"
"The cream coat," Robert said, his eyes dropping to the silk blouse Rebecca wore, then to the coat hanging on the rack near the door—a custom cashmere coat, cream-colored, stained near the cuffs with dark oil.
Robert didn't shout. He didn't slam his fist against the wall. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his private encrypted phone.
"Marcus," Robert said into the speaker.
"Sir?" the voice of his chief of private security answered instantly.
"Lock down the eleventh floor of Mass General. Bring six armed operators up here right now. No one enters this room. No one leaves. And call the District Attorney's office. Tell them I am filing an attempted murder charge against my wife."
"Robert, no!" Rebecca screamed, lunging toward the door, but the security guard at the threshold—seeing the absolute authority shift in the room—stepped into her path, blocking the exit with his broad frame.
Dr. Richardson panicked, reaching toward the silver IV pump. "Mr. Blackwood, you cannot interfere with medical equipment without a formal legal order!"
Joey moved faster than anyone in the room expected. The small boy darted between the doctor and the pole, placing his thin body directly over the pump.
"Don't touch it!" Joey yelled, his green eyes flashing with wild, ferocious protectiveness. "Mr. Blackwood, look at her hand!"
Robert looked down at the bed.
Lily's left hand, pale and thin, was twining its fingers into the white cotton sheet. The index finger tapped three times against the mattress—a rhythmic, deliberate pattern.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
May you like
It was the secret Morse code signal Robert had taught her when she was six years old during their weekend camping trips in Maine.
Three taps meant: I hear you.
