Chapter 5 - The Second DaughterBrielle woke asking for Daisy.
It was the first question she asked Rosa.
Not where her mother had gone.
Not why police officers had been inside the house.
Not why the breakfast table was empty.
“Where's Daisy?”
Rosa knelt beside her.
“Daisy is with her daddy.”
“Is she in the box?”
“No, sweetheart.”
Brielle considered this.
Then she whispered, “Mommy said bad girls stay.”
Rosa felt her throat tighten.
She wanted to ask what else Vanessa had said.
Instead, she offered Brielle breakfast and called the caseworker whose number Detective Ortiz had provided.
By midmorning, child protective services had arranged temporary supervision while assessing Brielle's safety and contacting her biological father.
His name was Jason Bell.
He was thirty-eight, lived outside Charlottesville, and had been trying for more than a year to secure consistent parenting time with his daughter.
Vanessa had told Adam that Jason was unreliable.
She described him as unstable, angry, and uninterested in parenting.
Adam had never bothered to question the story.
Jason arrived at the county office looking as if he had driven there without stopping.
His jacket was inside out.
His eyes were red.
When Brielle saw him, she ran across the room.
“Daddy!”
Jason caught her.
He held her so tightly that the caseworker gently reminded him to let her breathe.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
Brielle patted his cheek.
“Daisy's sad.”
Jason looked toward the caseworker.
“Is the other girl okay?”
“She's receiving care, and her father is with her.”
Jason nodded.
For a moment he stared at Brielle's little hands.
Then he asked, “What happened in that house?”
The caseworker explained that the investigation was ongoing and that she could not share details outside her role.
Jason accepted the answer.
But his expression hardened.
“My daughter stays with me,” he said.
The caseworker explained that the agency would need to complete its immediate safety assessment and follow the applicable court procedures.
Jason agreed to cooperate.
Unlike Vanessa, he did not insist that the entire situation was a misunderstanding.
At the hospital, Adam was learning how complicated protecting two children could become.
Miriam Shaw had asked him about Brielle.
Adam answered automatically.
“She's Vanessa's daughter.”
“I understand,” Miriam said. “But she witnessed something frightening, and she may also need support.”
Adam looked down.
Brielle had always been quiet around him.
He had assumed she preferred her mother.
Now he remembered the little girl standing in the garden, pointing toward the forest.
Without her, Daisy might have remained in the woods much longer.
“I should thank her,” he said.
Miriam nodded.
“But please don't make her responsible for saving Daisy. She's three. She needs to know adults are handling this now.”
That afternoon, Daisy sat on the hospital bed drawing with thick crayons.
She had been given clean pajamas decorated with stars.
A nurse had washed the sticky substance from her hair.
But Daisy kept touching her scalp, checking whether something remained.
Adam sat beside her.
“Can I see your picture?”
Daisy turned the paper toward him.
It showed a large house with three windows.
A small figure stood near the door.
Another figure stood beneath a tree.
Between them was a square with four circles.
Adam's breath faltered.
“Is that the cage?”
Daisy nodded.
He wanted to tear the drawing apart.
Instead, he said, “You can draw whatever you need to.”
Daisy looked at him.
“Will Vanessa see it?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She returned to coloring.
After a while, she asked, “Did Brielle tell you?”
“Yes.”
Daisy pressed her yellow crayon against the page.
“Vanessa said Brielle wasn't supposed to.”
Adam waited.
“Wasn't supposed to what?”
“Tell about the woods.”
The sentence was simple.
But it told Adam something important.
Vanessa had anticipated that Brielle might reveal what happened.
She had tried to control the witness before the child even understood she was one.
That evening Detective Ortiz met Adam in a private consultation room.
She had obtained preliminary security records from Wrenwood.
The cameras covering the rear terrace and garden had stopped recording during the relevant period.
Not because of a power failure.
The system logs showed that an administrator had placed the cameras in maintenance mode.
The authorization came from an account belonging to Adam.
He stared at the report.
“I wasn't home.”
“We know your vehicle was in Richmond that afternoon,” Ortiz said. “Your location records may help confirm that.”
“Then somebody used my account.”
“That's one possibility.”
“Vanessa knows my passwords.”
Ortiz wrote it down.
Adam rubbed his forehead.
“How much trouble am I in?”
The detective considered her words.
“Right now, we're trying to establish exactly what happened. But you need to preserve everything, cooperate with your attorney, and avoid accessing or changing the security system yourself.”
Adam nodded.
Then Ortiz laid another photograph on the table.
It showed the garden shed.
On its concrete floor lay a small instruction manual for the cage's wheeled base.
A delivery label was still attached.
Adam recognized the address.
Wrenwood.
The order had been placed six weeks earlier.
The purchaser's name was Vanessa Whitcomb.
But the payment had come from a corporate account connected to Adam's business.
Ortiz pointed to a notation on the invoice.
“Someone requested an additional exterior latch before delivery.”
Adam looked at her.
“For storing tools?”
“That's what we're trying to understand.”
Then she showed him the purchaser's written instruction.
Five words had been typed beneath the order details.
Must not open from inside.
Adam stared at the sentence.
The cage had not been an ordinary garden purchase.
May you like
Someone had ordered it specifically to keep whatever was inside from getting out.
And Vanessa had ordered it weeks before Daisy was taken into the woods.
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