Chapter 10 - The Song Catherine SangBy midnight, police vehicles surrounded the Bennett property.
Dogs searched the tree line.
Officers checked neighboring roads.
Martha was gone.
Lily stood at the bedroom window while a paramedic finished treating her wrists.
Richard wanted her to leave the house.
A hotel.
A private residence.
Anywhere.
Lily refused.
“If Martha came here for whatever Mom hid, leaving doesn’t solve anything.”
“You were kidnapped thirty minutes ago.”
“And she escaped.”
“Exactly.”
“So we find the evidence before she does.”
Richard paced.
“You are not helping search for evidence while a violent woman is somewhere outside.”
“She already knows this house better than I do.”
“That’s not helping your argument.”
Lily folded her arms.
“I’m staying with you.”
Richard almost objected again.
Then stopped.
For years, he had mistaken protecting Lily for making decisions on her behalf.
Tonight had exposed the cost.
“Fine.”
Lily blinked.
“Fine?”
“You stay beside me.”
“Deal.”
They returned to the question.
The song Catherine sang when Lily came home.
Richard searched old videos.
Nothing.
Lily went through Catherine’s jewelry box.
No clue.
Then she remembered the photograph with HOME AT LAST written on the back.
She pulled it from the frame.
Under the date was another line she had never noticed.
Sleep, little sparrow.
Richard stared.
“I remember.”
“What?”
“That’s what she called you. Sparrow.”
“What song?”
He hummed badly.
Lily recognized the melody anyway.
“‘Blackbird’?”
Richard nodded.
“Your mother loved the Beatles.”
The clue felt obvious now.
Blackbird.
But what did it mean?
They searched the red folder recovered from the basement.
Bank records.
Names.
Transfers.
Photocopies of checks.
A printed map.
At the bottom of one page, Catherine had drawn a tiny bird.
Lily pointed.
“There.”
Beside the bird was a handwritten notation:
B-IRD / 2:14.
Richard frowned.
“Could be a code.”
Lily searched Catherine’s books.
Nothing.
Richard checked archived company documents.
Nothing.
Then Lily looked toward the old nursery photograph again.
The house in that photograph was not the current mansion.
It was Richard and Catherine’s first home.
A smaller colonial house outside the city.
Lily had lived there until she was four.
“Does someone else own the old house?”
Richard shook his head.
“I kept it.”
“Why?”
He looked embarrassed.
“Couldn’t sell it.”
Lily understood.
“Is it empty?”
“Mostly storage.”
“Then we go there.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
“Martha may know about it.”
“That’s exactly why we have to.”
Police objected too.
Eventually an arrangement was made.
Two officers would accompany them.
Richard’s driver would take them.
The old house was twenty-five minutes away.
As the luxury car moved through dark streets, Lily found herself sitting where Richard had been when the emergency video arrived.
She looked at his phone.
“You really saw everything?”
“Enough.”
“How long?”
Richard hesitated.
“Thirty-two seconds.”
“That’s it?”
“That was enough.”
Lily turned toward the window.
“I should’ve told you earlier.”
Richard’s voice softened.
“No. I should’ve noticed.”
“She was careful.”
“I was absent.”
“You worked.”
“That’s not a defense.”
Lily looked at him.
Richard continued.
“How long?”
“About eight months.”
His face tightened.
“The first time?”
“She grabbed my arm because I told her not to throw away some of Mom’s old magazines.”
“And after that?”
“Little things.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lily almost said because you were busy.
Instead she told the deeper truth.
“Because she made me feel ridiculous.”
Richard listened.
“She’d be cruel, then act normal. She’d say I misunderstood. If I got angry, she’d tell me I was spoiled. Then you’d come home and she’d be wonderful.”
Lily swallowed.
“After a while, I started wondering if maybe I was the problem.”
Richard’s voice broke.
“You weren’t.”
“I know that now.”
The car slowed.
The old Bennett house appeared beyond a line of trees.
Dark.
Unoccupied.
Police entered first.
Clear.
Richard unlocked the front door.
The smell of old wood and closed rooms surrounded them.
Lily had no memory of the place.
Yet something inside her reacted.
A hallway.
A staircase.
Faded marks on a wall where her childhood height had been measured.
Richard touched one.
“Your mother did these.”
Lily ran her fingers over the pencil lines.
They entered the old nursery.
Everything had been covered with sheets.
Richard turned on the light.
A faded mural covered one wall.
Clouds.
Stars.
And small black birds flying toward a painted tree.
Lily stepped closer.
One bird was darker than the others.
Beneath it, almost hidden in the branches, was a number.
“B-IRD,” Lily whispered.
She touched the bird.
The wall sounded hollow.
Richard looked at her.
They removed a small decorative panel.
Behind it was a shallow cavity.
Inside sat a black envelope.
Lily reached for it.
Then every light in the house went out.
One of the officers shouted.
A window shattered downstairs.
May you like
And from somewhere in the darkness, Martha’s voice called softly:
“You should’ve left your mother’s secrets buried.”
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