Chapter 2 - The Red FolderRichard descended three stairs before Amanda raised her hand.
“Stay there.”
He stopped.
“Amanda, what is this?”
“I called the police.”
Richard’s expression barely changed.
But his fingers tightened around the railing.
“For what?”
Lucy pressed herself closer to Amanda.
Richard looked at her.
That was enough.
Amanda stepped in front of her daughter.
“Don’t look at her.”
Richard blinked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Amanda, I woke up thirty seconds ago.”
“You locked my daughter inside a washing machine.”
The silence that followed was almost surreal.
Then Richard exhaled.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
Amanda stared at him.
Richard rubbed his forehead.
“She climbed inside.”
Lucy made a small sound.
Amanda’s entire body went still.
Richard continued.
“She was angry. She’s been acting out all afternoon.”
Lucy shook her head.
“No.”
Richard looked down at her.
“Lucy.”
“No!”
Her voice broke.
“You put me in!”
Amanda stepped forward.
“Do not speak to her.”
Richard raised both hands.
“I’m trying to explain.”
“No. You’re trying to tell me my daughter imagined what happened.”
“She was never in danger. The machine was off.”
Amanda stared at him.
“That is your defense?”
“It matters.”
“It matters that you closed an eight-year-old child behind a glass door and walked away?”
“I didn’t walk away.”
Lucy burst into tears.
“You did!”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
Sirens sounded faintly beyond the gate.
His head turned toward the front windows.
Amanda saw the calculation happen.
“You actually called them.”
“Yes.”
“This is insane.”
“No.”
Amanda’s voice became quiet.
“What’s insane is how normal you’re acting.”
Two patrol officers arrived first.
A child-services investigator was contacted.
An ambulance crew checked Lucy at the house before recommending that Amanda take her for further evaluation because of the emotional distress and the time she had spent confined in the cramped drum.
Richard attempted to speak several times.
The officers separated them.
The washing machine was photographed.
The laundry room was documented.
Lucy’s statement was taken cautiously, without Amanda coaching her.
Richard maintained that Lucy had climbed inside during a tantrum and that he had shut the door “for several seconds to teach her not to play in appliances.”
Amanda heard this from one of the officers.
“Several seconds?”
The officer’s expression remained neutral.
“That’s what he said.”
“She was crying when I got home.”
“We’re documenting the timeline.”
Amanda checked her phone.
Her car’s gate log showed she entered the property at 6:14 p.m.
Lucy had no idea how long she had been inside.
Only that Richard had left.
At the hospital, a pediatrician confirmed that Lucy had no serious physical injuries.
Amanda should have felt relief.
Instead, guilt swallowed it.
She sat beside the hospital bed while Lucy drank apple juice through a straw.
“Sweetheart.”
Lucy looked at her.
“What red folder?”
The child immediately stopped drinking.
Amanda regretted asking.
“You don’t have to tell me now.”
Lucy stared at the blanket.
“Richard said I wasn’t supposed to be in your office.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Looking for the purple markers.”
Amanda’s home study had art supplies in a lower cabinet because Lucy sometimes drew there while Amanda worked.
“That’s allowed.”
“Richard said it wasn’t.”
Amanda frowned.
“What happened?”
Lucy twisted the straw wrapper between her fingers.
“He was at your desk.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said something about a red folder.”
Lucy nodded.
“He had it open.”
Amanda’s pulse changed.
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
“There were papers.”
Lucy looked up.
“And your name.”
“My name?”
“He had your stamp.”
Amanda stopped breathing for a moment.
“What stamp?”
“The one that looks like your writing.”
Amanda had a facsimile signature stamp.
She almost never used it.
It was kept in a locked drawer for old-fashioned internal acknowledgment documents.
Richard knew it existed.
He did not have permission to use it.
“Did he see you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Lucy’s eyes watered again.
“He asked what I saw.”
“And you?”
“I said nothing.”
Amanda reached for her hand.
Lucy whispered:
“He called me a liar.”
Amanda’s chest tightened.
“Then he kept asking where the paper was.”
“What paper?”
Lucy looked toward the hospital-room door.
Then back at her mother.
“The one he dropped.”
Amanda leaned closer.
“You took something?”
Lucy nodded.
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
Amanda’s heart began pounding.
“Where?”
“In my dollhouse.”
Before Amanda could ask anything else, her phone rang.
Her attorney.
Amanda answered.
“Amanda, the police just called me.”
“I know.”
“There’s another reason I’m calling.”
“What?”
“Did you authorize anyone to request a loan against Briarwood?”
Amanda stared at the wall.
Briarwood.
The mansion.
“No.”
Her attorney became silent.
Amanda tightened her grip on the phone.
“How much?”
“Two-point-four million dollars.”
Lucy was still holding Amanda’s hand.
Amanda looked at her daughter.
At the frightened little girl Richard had tried to dismiss as disobedient.
Then Amanda understood why the red folder mattered.
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Richard had not been punishing Lucy for breaking a household rule.
He had been trying to frighten a witness.
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