Chapter 4 - THE LETTER AMELIA DIDN'T WANT TO WRITE
The science notebook was covered in silver stars and a sticker that said FUTURE ASTRONAUT.
I knew it because I'd bought the sticker myself at a drugstore when Amelia passed her fifth-grade science test. I'd also seen her use the notebook as a hiding place. On particularly bad nights, she'd written messages to her mother between pages about rocks and weather. Sometimes I found one left open on her desk and quietly closed it, pretending I hadn't read a word.
Now one of those pages might keep her from being sent away.
Enzo called June and arranged to pick up the notebook with Amelia present. He didn't send a guard to search the bedroom. He asked his daughter whether she wanted to go and, when she said no, brought the desk drawer to June's house in a padded moving box. The absurd image made Amelia laugh for the first time since dinner.
“He brought the whole drawer,” she told me on a video call. “Dad doesn't know which notebook is which.”
“That's because you have seventeen,” I said.
“Eighteen. I found a new one under my bed.”
June Mercer appeared behind her, silver-streaked hair pinned up with a pencil. She had Sofia's gray eyes and a teacher's habit of waiting until children had finished speaking before she answered. I'd always liked her. She was the only relative who visited the house without bringing an agenda.
“Amelia wants you on the call while we read it,” June said.
“I can do that.”
Enzo sat beside his daughter at the kitchen table, wearing jeans and a dark sweater. He looked less like a man who ran businesses across the Midwest and more like a father who had forgotten to shave. The difference mattered. Amelia settled against him and slid the notebook into view.
On the first practice page, she had written: I HAVE BEEN UNHAPPY IN MY FATHER'S HOME. On the second: I DO NOT FEEL SAFE WHEN DAD IS BUSY. On the third, in handwriting grown small and uncertain: I WOULD PREFER TO LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Amelia's face went red. “I didn't mean it.”
Enzo didn't look away from her. “I believe you.”
“She said a judge needed the truth, but it wasn't the truth. Then she told me you would be disappointed if I didn't help you fix your problems.”
“What problems?” he asked softly.
“She said everybody knows your job is dangerous. And she said if I loved you, I'd go somewhere people couldn't use me against you.”
Enzo rubbed his eyes once. “I am sorry she made you responsible for my safety. That's not your job. It's mine to keep you safe.”
Amelia studied him. “What if I tell a judge I want to stay with you and they don't believe me?”
“Then we'll ask for help showing them the truth. And if you need to speak to someone without me there, that's okay too.”
I wanted to remember the way he said it, because I knew how much it must have hurt. Powerful men were not always good at letting the people they loved speak freely. He was trying.
June took photographs of the notebook pages and contacted Simone, who insisted that the originals be kept secure. Then Amelia closed the book and said she wanted to make waffles. The adults let her. It felt like a small victory to watch her argue about strawberries instead of custody papers.
At four that afternoon, Detective Rachel Navarro arrived at my apartment. She had dark hair pulled into a low ponytail, a notebook, and the sort of patient expression that didn't soften when a person lied. My mother settled into her recliner while I told the story again, from the jewelry drawer to the scissors at dinner.
“Do you know who could access the security recordings?” Navarro asked.
“Marco. The control-room staff. Maybe Enzo's operations manager.”
“Name?”
“Victor Renn. He handles scheduling, payroll, and property logistics. He's been there a long time.”
“Did you see him on the night of the dinner?”
“He was near the dining room doors when I cut the necklace.”
“Anything else?”
I tried to remember details instead of impressions. The smell of roasted rosemary. The sound of a broken chain striking china. Victor, in his charcoal suit, bending to pick up a sapphire. He had handed it to Marco, but first he'd held it up to the light for a second too long.
“He picked up one of the stones,” I said. “He told Marco he was helping.”
“Did Marco place it with the others?”
“I think so. Amelia counted everything afterward.”
Navarro made a note. “What about your injuries? Any witnesses?”
“Amelia heard Alessia yell. She came into the doorway after the mirror broke.”
“We're going to be careful about how we talk with her. A trained interviewer will speak with her if needed. Children shouldn't have to repeat a story to every adult who asks.”
I was relieved somebody had finally said it.
After the detective left, my mother made us tea. She set my cup on the table and sat across from me with both hands around hers.
“You like those people,” she said.
“I like Amelia. I think I might finally understand Enzo.”
“Those aren't the same as being safe.”
“I know.”
“Will you go back?”
I looked at the bandages around my hand. “Not while Alessia has people inside the house helping her. I don't want Amelia wondering whether every camera is watching her for the wrong reason.”
My mother reached over and squeezed my uninjured fingers. “That's a sensible answer.”
At six, a delivery van stopped outside our apartment building. I noticed it through the window because our street usually got deliveries in the morning. A man in a knit cap carried a florist's box to our door, handed it over without a signature, and left before I could ask his name.
Inside were white lilies. Beneath them was a small envelope addressed in careful block letters to MISS NORA ELLIS.
My mother saw the color leave my face. “Don't touch anything else.”
I called Navarro. Following her instructions, I left the arrangement alone and read only what was visible through the open envelope flap. The note contained seven words.
LET LITTLE GIRLS KEEP THEIR FAMILY SECRETS.
No signature. No phone number. Just the smell of crushed lilies filling our tiny living room.
I was still standing there when Enzo called.
“Marco found the employee who accessed the dinner footage,” he said. “We traced a download made fourteen minutes after the necklace broke.”
“Who?”
“Victor Renn's administrative account. He's denying it. He says somebody used his password.”
I looked again at the lilies. “I just received a threat at my home.”
His voice changed. “Are you alone?”
“Mom's here. Detective Navarro is coming.”
“I can send security outside.”
“Ask the detective first,” I said. “I don't want strangers in black cars frightening the neighbors. Or my mother.”
He was quiet for a moment. “All right. I'll call Navarro through Simone.”
That was when I knew he was listening. He could have given an order. Instead, he had accepted a boundary.
Later, June sent me a picture of Amelia sitting on the sofa, a plate of waffles on her knees, her science notebook tucked safely beside her. Under the picture she wrote: SHE ASKED IF THE FLOWERS AT YOUR HOUSE WERE FROM US. PLEASE TELL HER THEY WERE NOT.
I stared at the message. How had Amelia heard about the flowers? I hadn't told her. June hadn't. Enzo said he hadn't discussed the threat with his daughter.
I called June immediately.
“Who told her?” I asked.
June's voice was low. “Someone sent a text to Amelia's tablet. It said, 'Ask Nora if she likes white lilies.' The number was blocked.”
My mouth went dry.
Amelia wasn't even at the mansion anymore. Yet someone had found a way to follow her into the safest room we had.
“Turn the tablet off,” I said. “And tell Enzo we need to look at who set it up.”
June inhaled sharply. “Victor Renn bought it for her birthday last year.”
I looked at the lilies on the table, then at my mother's frightened face.
And I understood that this wasn't only a fight over a necklace or a piece of land.
Someone had been studying an eleven-year-old girl's habits long before anyone tried to send her away.
My mother went into the kitchen and returned with an old cookie tin. Inside were birthday cards she had saved since I was small, along with photographs of my brother before he moved west. She laid one on the table. I was eight, missing two front teeth, trying to blow out candles. Behind me stood my father, healthy then, his hands braced on the back of my chair.
“Look at how much room a child is supposed to have to be ordinary,” she said. “Bad haircuts. Awful parties. A person who remembers the dumb things you said when you were little.”
I watched the detective's headlights approach through the rain. “Amelia thinks being ordinary is something she has to earn.”
May you like
“Then don't make her earn it with another secret,” Mom answered. “Tell her the grown-ups are fixing this. Tell her she can be eleven.”
Navarro knocked a moment later. I opened the door with my good hand, suddenly grateful that my mother had kept a shoebox full of ordinary memories. Whatever the people behind those messages wanted, I would not let them make Amelia ashamed of being a child.
