Chapter 11 - hidden threads
The warm yellow glow of the desk lamp cast soft shadows across the oak-paneled study. Three-year-old Lily sat on the thick velvet rug, hugging the small brown teddy bear with frayed velvet ears. She looked up at me with wide, innocent dark eyes, repeating the sentence that had frozen the blood in my veins: "Daddy said to give Teddy to you, Mr. Julian."
My hand trembled as I kneeled beside her. My brother, Ethan, had been missing for three years, presumed dead after his sailboat was found capsized off the coast of Maine. No body was ever recovered.
"Lily," I whispered, keeping my voice gentle so as not to startle her. "When did Daddy give you this bear?"
"This morning before the big car dropped us off," she said softly, patting the bear's worn head.
Nora, my housekeeper of four months, stood framed in the doorway, a stack of freshly folded linens slipping from her fingers and tumbling to the floor. Her face turned ash-white.
"Lily, sweetie, go to your room," Nora gasped, rushing forward to scoop the little girl into her arms.
"Nora, wait," I said, standing up and stepping between her and the door. "Ethan is Lily's father, isn't he? That's why you took this job. That's why you came to my house."
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Nora held Lily tight against her shoulder, tears shining in her eyes as she looked at me with a mix of terror and profound exhaustion. "Julian, if they know Ethan is alive, they won't just kill him. They'll kill all of us."
I reached out and gently touched the back of the teddy bear's head. Beneath the soft plush fabric, right near the neck seam, my thumb pressed against something hard, thin, and rectangular—a hidden micro-drive sewn deep inside the stuffing.
