Chapter 2 - A Bedroom Behind the Laundry Door
Malcolm carried Naomi upstairs, ignoring Camille's insistence that the child could walk. His daughter weighed less than he remembered. When he passed the bedroom he had decorated for her with sunflower wallpaper and a window seat, he stopped. The door stood open. Inside were Camille's exercise equipment, designer handbags, and a garment rack crowded with winter coats.
“Where's your bed?” he asked.
Naomi pointed down the hallway.
At the far end, behind the laundry room, a storage closet had been emptied just enough to fit a narrow folding cot. A small lamp stood on a cardboard box. Naomi's favorite stuffed rabbit sat beneath a shelf of detergent. The window was painted shut.
Malcolm stared at the room. “How long?”
“Since Thanksgiving.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Naomi rubbed the rabbit's ear. “Camille said your company was having money trouble. She said you needed my room for important things.”
Malcolm owned a software firm employing hundreds of people. The business had problems like any other, but not the sort that required his daughter to sleep beside washing machines. He had sent money home every week. He had sent Naomi a blue bicycle, a winter coat, and three books for Christmas. None of them were here.
“Did you get my packages?”
Naomi's face changed. “I wasn't supposed to ask about those.”
Mrs. Bell entered carrying dry clothes and a bowl of chicken soup. “I found these in the back of her old closet,” she said. “Her things. The rest are gone.”
Camille appeared behind her. “I won't be interrogated by my own husband in front of the help.”
Malcolm pulled the closet door shut behind him, leaving Naomi safely with Mrs. Bell. “Then answer me in the hallway. Why is my daughter sleeping here?”
“She kept wetting the bed.”
“That's a lie,” Naomi said from inside, her voice small but clear.
Camille's eyes flashed. “You see? Always interrupting.”
Malcolm took out his phone. “I'm calling her pediatrician.”
“You're overreacting.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
He called Dr. Denise Porter, a family friend who had treated Naomi since birth. She agreed to see them that afternoon. Malcolm also asked his chief operating officer, Adrian Cole, to review the household accounts and locate the missing deliveries. He did not tell Adrian why. He didn't need to. Adrian heard his voice and said, “I'll come myself.”
Downstairs, Mrs. Bell watched Naomi finish the soup. The girl ate slowly, checking the door after every spoonful.
“Eat, honey,” Mrs. Bell said. “There's more.”
Naomi hesitated. “Will you get in trouble?”
“Not for feeding a child.”
“Camille says people lose jobs because of me.”
Mrs. Bell sat beside her. “Grown people make their own choices. You don't carry those choices for them.”
Naomi considered that. Then she whispered, “Mommy used to say that.”
Her mother, Tasha Bennett, had died in a highway collision two years earlier. Malcolm had married Camille the following spring, after she helped organize the funeral foundation and stayed close during his worst months. Naomi had tried to love her. She had even made her a Mother's Day card.
Mrs. Bell glanced toward the hallway. “What did you mean about the Christmas present under the tile?”
Naomi looked down at the rabbit. “Mommy told me a secret before she went away. She said if anything ever happened, the house would remember.”
“When did she tell you?”
“The night before she left.”
Mrs. Bell felt a chill. Tasha's death had been described as an accident. She had been driving alone to meet a lawyer in Fort Worth. A truck had crossed the median; the driver was never found.
“Did she tell you what was hidden?”
“A red envelope.” Naomi pressed the rabbit to her chest. “I thought it was a Christmas card. But Camille found me looking for it last week. That's when she moved my bed.”
Mrs. Bell looked toward the foyer. The loose tile had been there for years. She had helped Tasha choose the marble when the house was renovated. She knew exactly which contractor had installed it: Tasha's younger brother, Isaiah, a builder who had stopped speaking to Malcolm after the funeral.
The front door opened. Adrian arrived carrying a laptop and a thick envelope. He was a lean Black man with wire-frame glasses and the patient manner of someone who disliked being surprised.
“I checked the package records,” he told Malcolm. “Your daughter's bicycle was signed for. So were the coat and books. All returned for store credit under an account in Camille's name.”
Camille stood at the top of the stairs. “You had no right.”
Malcolm didn't look up. “You had no right to take gifts from a child.”
Adrian lowered his voice. “There's more. Someone used your household account to pay a private investigator. The investigator was assigned to your late wife's brother.”
“Isaiah?” Malcolm said.
May you like
“Yes. And according to the invoice, he was seen outside this house yesterday.”
Naomi appeared beside Mrs. Bell at the hallway entrance. She looked at her father and said, “Uncle Isaiah came because I called him.”
