Chapter 6
Ryan met with Dr. Bennett again.
This time Rebecca placed the Lake Geneva plans on the table.
The doctor looked disturbed.
“She showed me photographs of this room.”
Ryan leaned forward.
“When?”
“During our consultation.”
“What did she say?”
“That you had already agreed Lily might spend weekdays there.”
“I never agreed.”
Dr. Bennett looked genuinely shocked.
“She said the problem was getting you emotionally ready to follow through.”
Ryan sat back.
There it was.
Vanessa had been telling professionals that Ryan knew.
She had been telling staff that Ryan approved.
She had been telling Ryan that Lily simply needed time to adjust.
Every direction of communication passed through her.
Dr. Bennett gave Rebecca copies of materials Vanessa submitted.
They included short phone videos.
Lily crying.
Lily throwing a spoon.
Lily screaming “No Vanessa!”
Lily hiding behind a couch.
The clips looked troubling without context.
Ryan watched the dates.
Then checked Marian’s staff records.
Every clip was recorded during periods when normal staff had been ordered away.
Rebecca noticed it too.
“Look at the timestamps.”
Several recordings began only seconds after something had already happened.
The beginning was missing.
No clip showed what triggered Lily’s reaction.
Vanessa documented the aftermath.
Not the cause.
Ryan felt sick.
The teddy camera had frightened her because unlike her phone, it recorded moments she did not choose.
The hidden camera was not the whole case.
It was the one device Vanessa could not control.
That afternoon Lily had another session with her therapist.
Ryan waited outside.
When Lily emerged, she climbed into his lap.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“No more Lake House?”
Ryan froze.
He looked at the therapist.
She said softly, “She brought it up herself.”
Ryan looked back at Lily.
“Why don’t you want to go?”
“Vanessa says bad girls live there.”
He closed his eyes.
May you like
The country house was not merely a future childcare plan.
Vanessa had already been using it as a threat.
