The answer came immediately from the child.
Daniel looked at her.
“Lily.”
Richard raised one hand.
“Let her speak.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“We’ve already been through this.”
Richard ignored him.
He crouched carefully in front of Lily.
His knees complained visibly, but he stayed there.
“Look at me, bug.”
Lily slowly lifted her face.
Richard’s expression changed.
“What happened?”
Her eyes moved toward Daniel first.
He saw it.
So did Richard.
The old man looked at his son for half a second.
Then back at Lily.
“No one is interrupting you.”
Natalie spoke from behind them.
“Richard, she’s very emotional.”
He did not turn.
“I believe I just said no one is interrupting her.”
Natalie went silent.
Lily wiped her nose.
“I came in because I wanted Grandma Ellie’s picture.”
Richard nodded.
His late wife Eleanor’s photograph stood on the bookshelf beside the crystal horse.
Eleanor had died eleven years earlier.
The horse had been her anniversary gift to Richard during their thirtieth year of marriage, commissioned from a Czech glass artist she discovered during a trip to Prague.
Its insurance value was nearly forty thousand dollars.
Its value to Richard had nothing to do with insurance.
“And then?” he asked.
Lily looked toward Natalie again.
“She was here.”
Richard did not move.
“What was she doing?”
“Looking for something.”
Natalie laughed nervously.
“I was getting my phone.”
Richard still did not look at her.
“Lily?”
“She was at your desk.”
The atmosphere changed again.
Richard’s study opened off the far side of the living room.
The door was currently closed.
Natalie said quickly, “I went in because I needed a charger.”
Lily shook her head.
“You had a brown envelope.”
Natalie’s face tightened.
Daniel turned.
“What envelope?”
“There wasn’t one.”
“There was.”
“Lily.”
The girl pointed toward Natalie’s handbag.
“She put it in there.”
Natalie took one step backward.
Daniel noticed.
Richard noticed too.
The old man remained crouched.
“And the horse?”
Lily started crying again.
“She saw me.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching her.”
Richard’s voice stayed gentle.
“Then?”
“She told me to go downstairs.”
“I said the adults were talking,” Natalie interrupted.
Richard looked at her now.
“You’re having difficulty following simple instructions today.”
Natalie’s lips pressed together.
Lily continued.
“I said I was going to tell Dad.”
Daniel felt something cold move through his chest.
Richard asked, “And then?”
“She grabbed my arm.”
Daniel looked sharply at Natalie.
“No.”
Natalie shook her head.
“That did not happen.”
Lily lifted her left sleeve.
Four faint red marks ran above her wrist.
Daniel stopped breathing.
They were not dramatic bruises.
Nothing that would have caught attention across a room.
Four narrow marks.
Fingers.
Daniel walked toward his daughter.
“Let me see.”
Lily pulled back.
Not much.
Enough.
Daniel froze.
She was pulling away from him.
He lowered his hands.
“Okay.”
Richard looked at the marks.
His expression hardened.
“What happened after she grabbed you?”
Lily spoke quietly.