Chapter 2 - The Blue FolderPiper spent the night in the hospital.
Doctors found dehydration, bruising from confinement, and severe emotional distress, but no life-threatening injury.
Gideon sat beside her until sunrise.
He had not changed clothes.
He had not eaten.
Every time Piper moved beneath the blanket, he looked up.
Around three in the morning, she woke from a nightmare screaming.
“Don’t close it!”
Gideon was beside her immediately.
“It’s open.”
Piper stared around the hospital room.
“Where?”
“The door.”
He pointed.
The room door was propped open.
“No one is closing anything.”
Piper looked at him.
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
Only then did she lie back.
Detective Morris waited until the following morning to ask detailed questions, and even then a child interviewer handled most of them.
Gideon listened from another room.
Piper explained that she had gone into Elise’s former sitting room because she wanted a photograph for a school family project.
The room had remained mostly untouched since Elise’s death from cancer.
Gideon rarely entered it.
He had told himself he was preserving it for Piper.
The truth was simpler.
It hurt too much.
Piper found a loose wooden panel behind a cabinet.
Inside was a blue folder, a brass key, and an envelope with Gideon’s name.
Before she could read the envelope, Mrs. Dalton entered.
“What did she do?” the interviewer asked.
“She got weird.”
“What does weird mean?”
“She stopped smiling.”
“Did she say anything?”
Piper nodded.
“She asked where the folder was.”
“And where was it?”
“I had already put it in my backpack.”
“What happened next?”
Piper’s voice became smaller.
“Mrs. Dalton grabbed my arm.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
“She said I wasn’t supposed to find Mom’s things.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran.”
Piper escaped through the side door and reached her bicycle.
She put the blue folder into the front basket.
Mrs. Dalton caught her near the garden shed.
“She told me Dad had called and said I was in trouble.”
Gideon’s stomach twisted.
“I didn’t call.”
Detective Morris glanced at him.
On the recording, Piper continued.
“She said I had to come inside.”
Piper refused.
Then Mrs. Dalton showed her something on her phone.
“What?”
“A message.”
“Could you read it?”
“Some.”
“What did it say?”
Piper squeezed her hands.
“It had Dad’s name.”
Then came the detail that changed the investigation.
“And another name.”
“What name?”
“Victor.”
Gideon stood.
Detective Morris looked through the observation glass.
“Who is Victor?”
Gideon’s voice hardened.
“My uncle.”
Victor was his father’s younger brother.
He was sixty-one.
A minority owner in the family real-estate holding company.
And one of three trustees overseeing several family assets established after Gideon’s father died.
Gideon had never considered Victor dangerous.
Difficult?
Absolutely.
Greedy?
Possibly.
Dangerous?
Never.
Piper described what happened next.
Mrs. Dalton forced her into the garden storage building.
A large suitcase was already inside.
The same one later found beneath the flowers.
“She said I just had to stay quiet.”
“For how long?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Did she threaten you?”
Piper nodded.
“She said Dad was far away and nobody was coming.”
Gideon turned away.
He had been forty minutes from the mansion.
A delayed business meeting had ended early.
If it had ended on schedule, he would have returned more than two hours later.
The thought made him physically ill.
Piper had kept the brass key in her sock.
Mrs. Dalton searched her backpack and pockets but never found it.
“She kept asking about the blue folder.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Where is your bike?”
Piper hesitated.
“I left it by the old greenhouse.”
Gideon frowned.
“That greenhouse hasn’t been used in years.”
“I know.”
“Why there?”
“Mom used to take me there.”
Gideon looked down.
Elise had loved that greenhouse.
Before cancer weakened her, she spent weekends growing herbs and orchids there with Piper.
He had not entered it since she died.
By noon detectives searched the property.
The bicycle was found lying behind the greenhouse.
The basket was empty.
No folder.
No backpack.
But beneath the back wheel investigators found tire tracks from a second vehicle.
Mrs. Dalton’s sedan.
Detective Morris looked at Gideon.
“She came here before she fled.”
“She found the folder.”
“Maybe.”
Gideon looked toward the greenhouse.
Detectives searched it.
Nothing.
Then Piper, who had been allowed home later that afternoon, stood at the threshold and said:
“That’s not where I put it.”
Gideon crouched beside her.
“What?”
“I moved it.”
“When?”
“Before Mrs. Dalton caught me.”
“Where?”
Piper pointed toward an old potting bench.
There were twenty drawers.
She walked to the seventh.
Pulled it open.
Empty.
Piper stared.
“No.”
“What?”
“It was here.”
Detective Morris stepped closer.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Then Piper looked beneath the drawer.
Something had been scratched into the wood.
Three letters.
V.C.R.
Gideon stared.
Piper whispered:
“Mom wrote that.”
“How do you know?”
“She used to write notes on everything.”
Gideon touched the letters.
V.C.R.
Victor’s full name was Victor Charles Rowland.
The initials matched.
Piper looked at her father.
“Dad…”
“Yes?”
“Why did Mom hide something from Uncle Victor?”
Gideon had no answer.
Then his phone rang.
Victor.
Gideon stared at the name.
After three rings, he answered.
“Where are you?”
Victor sounded offended.
“At my house. Why?”
“Mrs. Dalton kidnapped Piper.”
Silence.
“What?”
“She buried her in a suitcase.”
Another pause.
Then Victor said something Gideon would replay for weeks.
“Did Piper find anything before it happened?”
Gideon stopped breathing.
He had not mentioned the folder.
He had not mentioned Elise’s room.
He had not mentioned the key.
“Why would you ask me that?”
Victor said nothing.
Gideon’s voice dropped.
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“What did you expect her to find?”
Victor ended the call.
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