I had been in Singapore.
Camille had been home.
“Lock the system.”
Thomas looked up.
“Sir?”
“No files deleted. No permissions changed. No one touches a server.”
He nodded.
“And Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“Don't tell Camille.”
That changed his expression.
But he didn't ask why.
“Understood.”
I spent the next hour upstairs while Camille hosted my charity gala downstairs.
Music floated through the floor.
People laughed.
Champagne glasses clinked.
Meanwhile, Thomas discovered that the closet door had been opened fifty-two times in eleven weeks.
Most instances were brief.
Eight lasted longer than ten minutes.
The longest lasted twenty-three.
Twenty-three minutes.
My two-year-old daughter could barely sit through a cartoon for twenty-three minutes.
I imagined her alone in that black space.
The missing bulb.
The scratches.
The stuffed lamb.
I had to put Lily down because I thought I might be sick.
She immediately grabbed my trouser leg.
“Daddy no go.”
I crouched.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She studied my face as if deciding whether she could believe me.
That destroyed me.
Children that age are supposed to assume adults come back.
Lily checked whether I was leaving.
That was learned behavior.
“Find Nora,” I told Thomas.
“We're working on it.”
“Tonight.”
His eyes met mine.
“I'll find her.”
He did.
Nora was living with her sister forty miles away.
When Thomas put her on the phone, she sounded terrified.
“Mr. Whitmore?”
“Nora, why did you leave?”
Silence.
“I signed an agreement.”
“I don't care about an agreement.”
“She told me I would never work with children again.”
“Who?”
I knew the answer.
“Camille.”
I looked through the open doorway.
“Tell me what happened.”
Nora began crying.
“The first time I found Lily in the closet, Mrs. Whitmore told me it was sensory discipline.”
“What does that even mean?”
“That Lily was overstimulated and needed silence.”
“How long was she inside?”
“I don't know.”
“Nora.”
“I don't know because Camille wouldn't let me open the door.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What did Lily do?”
“At first she screamed.”
Nora's voice broke.
“Then she stopped.”
Something about that sentence hurt worse.
“Why did she stop?”
Nora was quiet for a moment.
“Because she'd learned nobody opened the door when she screamed.”
I sat down.
There are sentences a father hears that divide his life into before and after.
That was one of them.
“How many times?”
“I personally saw three.”
“You personally saw?”
“I think there were more.”
“Why?”
“Lily started panicking whenever you put on a suit.”
I closed my eyes.
Every morning.
I had interpreted it as separation anxiety.