Chapter 2 - The Red Rocket
Lucas had changed bedrooms after Rachel died.
Michael had forgotten that.
The old nursery remained at the west end of the third floor, converted gradually into storage because nobody had possessed the courage to decide what should be thrown away.
Michael unlocked the room himself.
Police had arrived downstairs.
Victoria was still in the mansion, separated from the children and speaking with an attorney by telephone.
Michael had told security that she was not to leave until officers decided whether they needed a statement regarding the threat against Lucas and Sophie.
Emily waited in the hallway.
Lucas entered the old room with Michael.
Sophie remained attached to Michael’s hand.
Dust covered the shelves.
Old stuffed animals sat beneath faded glow-in-the-dark stars.
Michael suddenly remembered Rachel standing here years earlier, pregnant with Sophie, arguing that Lucas needed a “space bedroom” because dinosaurs were becoming boring.
Lucas walked toward a wooden toy chest.
He opened it.
Plastic planets.
Toy cars.
A baseball glove.
Then he stopped.
“It was here.”
Michael’s stomach dropped.
“What was?”
“My rocket.”
He began searching.
“No.”
Lucas grew frantic.
“It was right here.”
“Slow down.”
“Victoria moved it.”
Michael crouched.
“What did it look like?”
“Red. Big. Mom bought it.”
Michael remembered.
A plastic Saturn V rocket nearly two feet tall.
Lucas had carried it everywhere for a year.
“Where did you hide the flash drive?”
“In the bottom.”
Emily appeared in the doorway.
“I know where the rocket is.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Three months ago, before Victoria fired me, I found a box in her dressing room. There were things from this room inside it.”
Michael stood.
“What things?”
“Rachel’s jewelry case. Old photographs. Lucas’s rocket.”
His jaw tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
Michael remembered.
Emily had sent him seven messages after her dismissal.
Victoria had told him she was desperate because she had been caught stealing.
Michael had blocked Emily’s number.
Shame crawled through him.
“Where’s the box?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
Lucas began crying.
“She found it.”
Michael pulled him close.
“This isn’t your fault.”
“I should’ve told you.”
“You were five.”
“Mom said keep it safe.”
Michael closed his eyes.
“What exactly did she say?”
Lucas struggled to remember.
“She said, ‘This is important, buddy. Daddy gets it if Mommy forgets.’”
“If she forgets?”
Lucas nodded.
Michael felt sick.
Maybe Rachel had not expected death.
Maybe she had expected intimidation.
Someone downstairs shouted.
Then came the sound of glass breaking.
Security radioed Michael.
“Sir, Ms. Langford attempted to enter the service hall. She has been stopped.”
Michael handed Sophie to Emily.
“Stay here.”
He went downstairs.
Victoria stood near the ballroom entrance with two officers and her lawyer, Nathan Cole.
The shattered glass came from a champagne flute she had knocked from a table.
Victoria saw Michael.
“You’re holding me prisoner.”
“No one is holding you prisoner.”
“Your guards blocked the door.”
“Because police asked everyone directly involved to remain available.”
Nathan stepped between them.
“Michael, emotions are high.”
Michael laughed.
“My fiancée threatened my six-year-old with my dead wife’s riding crop.”
Victoria snapped, “I never touched her.”
“That is your defense?”
“She was destroying Rachel’s jewelry.”
Sophie had done no such thing.
Michael knew because the jewelry was stored in a bank vault.
“What jewelry?”
Victoria hesitated.
Nathan closed his eyes.
Michael saw it.
A mistake.
Emily came downstairs.
“The jewelry you accused me of stealing?”
Victoria stared at her.
Emily looked at Michael.
“When I found the box, there was a velvet case containing Rachel’s emerald bracelet.”
Michael’s face hardened.
“That bracelet is supposed to be in a safe-deposit box.”
“It wasn’t.”
Victoria looked at Nathan.
Her attorney whispered something.
Then Victoria said, “I found personal items that should have been preserved.”
“In your private dressing room?”
“I was organizing them.”
“You searched Lucas’s toys.”
“No.”
“He says you did.”
“He’s confused.”
Lucas appeared halfway down the staircase.
Michael immediately walked toward him.
“You were supposed to stay upstairs.”
Lucas pointed at Victoria.
“She broke the rocket.”
Victoria’s eyes widened.
Michael turned.
“What?”
Lucas swallowed.
“I saw it once. She didn’t know I was watching.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
He described waking after a nightmare.
He had walked downstairs and seen light under Victoria’s dressing-room door.
Through the opening, he saw Victoria holding the red rocket.
“She pulled the bottom off,” he whispered.
Michael’s pulse raced.
“What did she do after that?”
“She got mad.”
“Why?”
“Because it was empty.”
Victoria said, “This is ridiculous.”
But Michael finally understood.
The drive was not in the rocket anymore.
Lucas had moved it.
“Where did you put it?”
Lucas looked embarrassed.
“Mom told me to keep it somewhere people don’t look.”
Michael waited.
Lucas glanced toward Sophie.
“She helped me.”
Sophie whispered, “Princess Castle.”
Emily laughed once through tears.
Michael remembered a giant pink plastic dollhouse Sophie had received on her third birthday.
It was now stored in the attic.
They went together.
Inside the attic, beneath holiday decorations and old furniture, sat the plastic castle.
Sophie pointed toward its tower.
Lucas reached into the hollow section.
His fingers disappeared inside.
Then emerged holding a red USB drive no larger than his thumb.
Michael stared.
Three years.
Rachel’s secret had remained twenty feet above his bedroom.
Lucas gave it to him.
“I’m sorry.”
Michael closed his fingers around the drive.
“No.”
He knelt.
“You protected something your mother asked you to protect when you were five years old.”
Lucas’s eyes filled.
“You should never have had to.”
They took the drive to Michael’s secure study.
Nathan objected to Victoria remaining in the house while it was examined.
Police eventually permitted her to leave after taking statements and photographing the riding crop.
Michael instructed security to deactivate every code Victoria possessed.
Her engagement ring remained on her finger when she left.
She looked back once.
“Michael, Rachel was not who you think she was.”
Michael answered quietly.
“Neither were you.”
After midnight, his attorney Charles Mercer connected the drive to an isolated laptop.
Folders appeared.
FINANCIAL.
LANGFORD.
LUCAS_SOPHIE.
And one audio file.
FOR MICHAEL.
Michael clicked.
Rachel’s voice filled the room.
“Michael, if you are hearing this, it means I was either too afraid or too late to explain everything myself.”
Michael shut his eyes.
The children were asleep upstairs.
Emily sat across from him.
Charles leaned closer.
Rachel continued.
“Victoria Langford has been moving money through accounts carrying my authorization.”
Michael opened his eyes.
“She says I approved it.”
Static crackled.
“I did not.”
Then Rachel said something that made Emily grab the edge of the table.
“Tonight she told me that if I report her, she will make it look as though Michael helped her.”
The recording paused.
A second voice could faintly be heard in the background.
Michael recognized it.
Victoria.
Rachel whispered:
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“She’s here.”
And the file ended.
