Chapter 3
Marjorie knew about the behavior problems.
Or rather, she knew Seraphine had been documenting them.
“She keeps a notebook.”
Alaric looked up.
“What notebook?”
“Mrs. Seraphine calls it Elowen’s behavior journal.”
“Since when?”
“Maybe six months.”
“What’s in it?”
Marjorie looked uncomfortable.
“I’ve only seen pieces.”
“Tell me.”
Incidents.
Elowen refusing dinner.
Elowen crying after bedtime.
Elowen hiding beneath a table during a large family gathering.
Elowen supposedly taking one of Seraphine’s bracelets.
Elowen screaming in the hallway.
Alaric remembered some of those events.
But not the explanations.
“The bracelet?”
Marjorie shook her head.
“Found in Mrs. Seraphine’s dressing room the next morning.”
“Did Elowen put it there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why call it stealing?”
Marjorie had no answer.
“The dinner refusal?”
“Mrs. Seraphine served mushroom soup.”
Alaric stared.
Elowen hated mushrooms.
Everyone knew.
“The hallway screaming?”
Marjorie hesitated.
“Mrs. Seraphine had boxed up some of Elowen’s mother’s clothes.”
Alaric’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“She said the room needed to be cleared.”
“What room?”
“The upstairs sitting room.”
That had belonged to Elowen’s mother, Mara.
Alaric had kept a few personal things there.
Not a shrine.
Just a room nobody was in a hurry to repurpose.
Seraphine apparently was.
Alaric realized the behavior journal might be recording reactions without recording causes.
Exactly the kind of record that could make an ordinary grieving child look unstable.
Rebecca asked for a copy through Seraphine’s attorney.
The response came that evening.
The journal was “private marital material” and would not be voluntarily produced.
That answer interested Rebecca.
“It concerns your daughter.”
“Then why call it marital?”
“Good question.”
The house security logs created another problem.
Someone had entered Alaric’s bedroom while he was at work on three dates in the previous month.
Seraphine had access.
So did household staff.
Nothing unusual there.
But on one of those dates, a printer connected to Seraphine’s home office produced forty-two pages.
The job title in the system:
Graydon intake.
Alaric stared at the record.
May you like
The folder Elowen found had not wandered into his bedroom.
Someone had printed it inside the house.
