Chapter 4 - HOW LONG?Reid did not sleep.
At six-thirty, Maisie woke beside him.
She looked around in confusion.
Then remembered.
“Grandma?”
“Not here.”
Maisie relaxed.
Reid noticed.
That tiny relaxation told him more than a hundred accusations could.
He made pancakes.
She ate half of one.
Normally she asked for chocolate chips.
Today she did not.
Reid sat across from her.
“Can I ask you something?”
Maisie froze.
He immediately saw it.
“That sounded scary.”
“A little.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Okay.”
He took a breath.
“You said Grandma has been treating you badly since before Christmas.”
Maisie looked at her plate.
“Yeah.”
“What happened first?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay.”
He waited.
She eventually said:
“She got mad because I broke Mom’s ornament.”
Reid remembered.
A small glass snowflake Lauren bought for Maisie’s first Christmas.
He had found it broken.
Cecelia told him Maisie knocked it over and became hysterical.
“What did Grandma do?”
“She said I broke it because I didn’t care about Mom.”
Reid’s chest tightened.
“What else?”
“She said Mom left because I cried too much as a baby.”
He stopped breathing.
“What?”
Maisie did not look up.
“She said Mom wanted a different life.”
“That part…”
Reid chose carefully.
“Your mother did leave the marriage.”
Maisie nodded.
“But she did not leave because you cried.”
“Grandma said you didn’t want to tell me.”
Reid closed his eyes.
“And you believed her?”
“She’s your mom.”
The logic was devastatingly simple.
“She said she knows things you won’t say.”
Reid moved around the table and sat beside Maisie.
“What else did she say?”
Maisie shrugged.
“Lots.”
“Can you tell me?”
“Do I have to?”
“No.”
Immediate.
“You never have to tell me everything at once.”
Maisie nodded.
Then:
“She says I look like Mom when I get mad.”
Reid smiled sadly.
“You do.”
Maisie glanced at him.
“Is that bad?”
“No.”
“Grandma says it like it’s bad.”
Reid looked away.
“Grandma was wrong.”
Maisie waited.
“About a lot of things.”
That morning Reid called Dana Brooks, the senior house manager, and asked her to come in early.
Dana had worked at Briarstone Manor for eleven years.
When Reid showed her the recording, she went pale.
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you suspect?”
Dana hesitated.
That was enough.
“What did you see?”
“Not this.”
“What?”
“Maisie becoming quiet around Mrs. Lane.”
Reid looked at his daughter in the next room.
“How long?”
“Months.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dana’s face filled with shame.
“I thought it was family tension.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mrs. Lane has always been strict.”
“With Maisie?”
“With everyone.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Dana looked at him.
“I was afraid of overstepping.”
Reid rubbed his forehead.
Everyone had been afraid of overstepping.
Meanwhile an eight-year-old had been learning where the emergency button was.
Dana continued:
“There was one night…”
Reid looked up.
“Maisie was crying upstairs.”
“When?”
“January. You were in Raleigh.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Mrs. Lane told me Maisie had been disrespectful and needed space.”
“How long was she crying?”
Dana swallowed.
“Maybe forty minutes.”
“And nobody went in?”
“Mrs. Lane told staff not to.”
Reid stood.
“Which room?”
“The study.”
“Locked?”
Dana’s silence answered.
Reid turned away.
Briarstone Manor had a small reading study off the upstairs gallery.
No dangerous lock.
But an old brass key could secure it from outside.
He walked there.
Maisie followed at a distance.
Reid touched the door.
“Did Grandma ever lock you in here?”
Maisie nodded.
“How many times?”
“Three.”
Dana covered her mouth.
Reid crouched.
“Why?”
“She said I had to calm down.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you have your phone?”
“No.”
“Tablet?”
“No.”
“Could you get out?”
“No.”
Reid looked at the door.
Nothing about it seemed sinister.
That was part of what made it worse.
Ordinary room.
Ordinary lock.
Terrible use.
Maisie whispered:
“I screamed the first time.”
Reid turned.
“And?”
“She said screaming made it longer.”
He felt sick.
“How did it end?”
“I stopped.”
Those two words stayed with Reid for the rest of the day.
May you like
Not because she calmed down.
Because she learned nobody came.
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