Chapter 2 - THE RABBIT'S MEMORY
At eight the next morning, Sophie refused to let anyone take the rabbit out of her sight.
She sat at the breakfast table in pink slippers, one hand resting on its worn velvet head, while Luca spoke quietly to a lawyer near the windows. The mansion looked almost normal. Sunlight lay on the polished oak floor, the coffee smelled rich, and Mrs. Keene was arranging toast in a silver rack.
But there were no flowers from Vanessa in the hall. No wedding planner. No cheerful music coming from the ballroom.
A house could look unchanged and still feel as though its walls had moved.
I had spent the night remembering details I had spent years trying to forget. The broken bedroom window. My jacket wrapped around Sophie. A man ordering someone to keep people away from the east side of the house. Most of all, the moment I'd heard a voice on the other side of the locked bedroom door saying the child was already outside.
I didn't know whether fear had changed those memories. I knew they deserved to be examined, not simply believed because Luca wanted an answer.
The attorney, a composed woman named Claire Kaplan, introduced herself as an outside adviser. She had never worked for the Moretti businesses or the Bellini family.
“First,” she said, “nobody should question Sophie repeatedly. She needs someone trained in interviewing children, and she gets to decide when she's ready.”
Luca nodded. “Agreed.”
“Second, that memory card belongs to her. We need her permission to make a forensic copy. We won't play anything in front of her unless she wants to hear it.”
Sophie looked up. “I want Daddy to know what happened.”
“That's different from having to listen yourself,” Claire told her. “You can be brave and still ask somebody else to do the difficult part.”
Sophie considered this, then gave a small nod.
I liked Claire immediately.
A technician arrived with an evidence bag, a portable write-blocking device, and a laptop he used only for copying storage media. He photographed the rabbit, the pocket, and the card before doing anything else. Sophie insisted he return the rabbit as soon as he was finished.
While they worked, I went to the kitchen to help Mrs. Keene. She placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me instead.
“Eat,” she said.
“There's work to do.”
“The work will survive fifteen minutes without you.”
I sat reluctantly. My wrist still ached where Vanessa had gripped it, but the doctor said the swelling should settle with rest. The burns along my forearm were old, tight skin that sometimes pulled uncomfortably in dry weather. I had learned how to protect them. I had not learned how to stop feeling ashamed when people stared.
Mrs. Keene poured tea.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
I looked at her. “For what?”
“For allowing Vanessa to humiliate you yesterday. I've seen how she speaks to the staff. I should have intervened long before Luca did.”
I thought of the dinner table, the silver platter shaking in my hands, and Vanessa displaying my arm for forty strangers.
“You weren't the one holding my wrist,” I said.
“No,” Mrs. Keene replied. “But sometimes people help cruelty by pretending not to notice it.”
We ate quietly. Her words stayed with me.
Shortly before noon, Luca sent for me. The recording had been copied, and a preliminary review found three audio files. Two were simple childhood messages. In one, a much younger Sophie sang a birthday song to her father. In another, Isabel's voice spoke softly about a rabbit's missing ear and promised to repair it when they returned to the lake.
Luca listened to that second recording alone.
When I entered his study, he was standing near the fireplace, holding a handkerchief. He had loved Isabel; I could see that without him needing to explain.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
He folded the handkerchief. “I haven't heard her voice in six years.”
“Would you rather I came back another time?”
“No. Thank you for asking.”
Claire sat near the desk. “The third file is dated the evening of the fire. Its timestamp might have changed over the years, so we cannot rely on that alone. But the content appears relevant.”
She pressed play.
Static hissed. Then came the sound of a child humming, followed by a door closing.
An unfamiliar man's voice said, “You said the records would be in the office.”
A woman answered, “They are. The child isn't supposed to be upstairs.”
The man said, “Then get her out.”
“No,” the woman replied. “They told me she was already outside.”
My skin went cold.
I knew that voice. Not merely from the night of the fire. I heard it every morning in the mansion.
Vanessa.
The recording continued through footsteps and a sharp thud. A child called for her father. Something scraped across wood.
Then the man spoke again.
“Don't open it until she gives the signal.”
The audio ended with an abrupt burst of noise.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Luca gripped the edge of his desk. “Who is the man?”
Claire shook her head. “We can't identify someone responsibly from a few seconds of muffled audio. But we can seek a formal comparison and investigate who had access to the house.”
“What if it was Vanessa's father?” I asked.
Luca looked at me. “Why him?”
“Because she would listen to him. Because he worked with your security contractors. Because he had a reason to know where the files were.”
“Those are leads,” Claire said. “Not proof.”
I nodded. I wasn't offended. For the first time, someone was treating my memories seriously enough to make them stand on their own.
Daniel knocked and entered with another report.
“I checked the original security staffing list,” he said. “There were four private guards at the lake house that night. Two worked directly for Bellini Security. Their names were replaced in a revised roster filed three days after the fire.”
“Replaced by whom?” Luca asked.
“Martin Sloane signed the revision. He also approved the final incident summary.”
Luca looked out the window. “I signed that insurance settlement without asking a single question.”
“You were caring for a traumatized eight-year-old,” Claire replied. “That doesn't excuse falsified documents, if there were any. It does explain how someone might have taken advantage of you.”
He didn't look reassured.
“I was also trusting Vanessa,” he said. “She told me she carried Sophie out herself. I never asked why my daughter couldn't remember her doing it.”
I remembered the way Sophie had clung to me in the dining room. Children sometimes forgot details, but they rarely forgot how an adult made them feel.
“Luca,” I said carefully, “Sophie's safe today. That matters.”
He looked at me. “It doesn't erase the years she was afraid to tell me the truth.”
“No,” I agreed. “But you can listen now.”
A knock came at the door again. Mrs. Keene had brought Sophie and a counselor who would meet her privately later that afternoon. Sophie noticed my exposed wrist and the pale scars above it.
“May I sit by Emily?” she asked.
“Of course,” Luca said.
She climbed into the chair beside mine. Her rabbit sat in her lap, newly returned from the technician.
“Was it my mommy?” she asked quietly.
Luca knelt beside her. “One recording was. She told you she loved you.”
Sophie looked at the toy. “I knew she put something inside. I just didn't know it was her voice.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. Neither spoke for a moment.
Then Sophie did something I hadn't expected. She took my scarred hand gently between hers.
“Did you get hurt because nobody opened the door?”
I wanted to protect her from the answer. But lying had already taken so much from this family.
“I got hurt because the fire was dangerous,” I said. “The locked door made it harder to reach you. That wasn't your fault.”
She gave a tiny nod. “Can you still use your hand?”
“Yes. I cook with it. I write with it. I even make terrible pancakes.”
“My grandma makes terrible pancakes too,” she said.
“Then perhaps we should open a restaurant together.”
For the first time that morning, she smiled.
After Sophie left for her appointment, Claire explained the next steps. Investigators needed the fire-scene photographs, dispatch recordings, medical reports, and a full accounting of the insurance settlement. She would arrange for me to meet an independent victim-support advocate before I gave a recorded statement. I could have my own lawyer. Luca said he would cover the cost without requiring me to use anyone he selected.
“You can also take paid leave,” he told me.
My first instinct was to refuse. My brother was in his final year at college, and tuition didn't disappear because an employer felt guilty.
“I need my wages,” I said.
“You'll keep them.”
I searched his face. “Even if this investigation becomes embarrassing for your family?”
His answer came without hesitation. “Especially then.”
Later that afternoon, I called my younger brother, Ben. He answered between lectures, sounding cheerful until he heard my voice.
“Em? What's wrong?”
I sat on the narrow bench in the servants' garden, surrounded by late roses and wet earth.
“Something happened at work,” I said. “I'm all right. But I found the little girl from the fire.”
He went silent.
“You mean the one you still dream about?”
“Yes.”
“Is she okay?”
“She's wonderful. She's twelve now.”
I heard Ben exhale. “Mom would have cried if she'd known.”
I looked at my scars. Our mother had died a year after the fire, but she'd held my bandaged hands when I was convinced I'd never work normally again. She had insisted the marks were proof of a life saved, not something ugly.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “She would have.”
When I returned to the house, Daniel was waiting by the back entrance. His expression was troubled.
“We found something in the hospital records,” he said.
“What?”
“Someone filed a request to restrict access to the rescuer's identity after the fire.”
I stared at him. “My identity?”
“It used a privacy form. We don't yet know whether it was legally valid. But the requesting party was listed as a representative of the family.”
“Luca?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Vanessa Bellini.”
I felt anger rise through me so suddenly that I had to grip the doorframe.
For four years I'd believed I was forgotten because nobody knew who I was.
Now it appeared that someone had worked to make sure I stayed forgotten.
Daniel lowered his voice. “There's another part, Emily. The same representative requested a copy of your rehabilitation file.”
My stomach tightened.
“What would she want with that?”
He hesitated. “The request was dated three months before you applied for this job.”
I looked through the bright kitchen windows toward the mansion where I had served dinner for eight months.
May you like
Suddenly, my arrival here no longer felt like a coincidence.
Someone had known exactly who I was before I ever put on the Moretti uniform.
