Chapter 2
The notebook was not hidden.
It sat inside a locked cabinet in Melisande’s home office.
Grant obtained access only after Melisande’s attorney agreed relevant household records should be preserved.
The title was harmless.
Children — Household Observations.
The contents were not.
Bastian:
Aggressive response to correction.
Slamming doors.
Breaking household property.
Dangerous behavior on staircase.
Leaving home without permission.
Ophelia:
Frequent emotional manipulation.
Separation anxiety.
Dishonesty.
Refusal to follow adult instructions.
Unsafe running near stairs.
Leander read every page.
Some incidents were real.
Bastian had slammed a bedroom door once.
Ophelia had lied about finishing homework.
Both occasionally argued.
They were children.
But the descriptions transformed ordinary behavior into something darker.
One entry read:
Bastian again demonstrated reckless disregard for physical safety at upper landing. Nearly fell despite repeated adult warnings.
The date matched the day Bastian said Melisande bumped him.
Another:
Ophelia attempted to flee adult supervision near staircase after becoming emotionally dysregulated.
Leander frowned.
“When was this?”
Audrey remembered.
Ophelia had been crying because Melisande refused to let her take her late mother’s photograph to school for a family-history project.
The girl ran upstairs.
That became fleeing supervision.
Leander looked toward Grant.
“What is she building?”
Grant turned pages carefully.
“I don’t know yet.”
Another document answered part of the question.
A brochure for Wycliffe Academy.
Private residential school.
Children ages eight through fourteen.
Structured academics.
Behavior support.
Boarding options.
Leander stared.
“I’ve never heard of this place.”
Grant checked the notebook.
Wycliffe appeared six times.
Melisande had written:
Potential short-term stabilization option if home environment remains unsafe.
Leander looked toward the library where his children were sleeping on couches because neither wanted to go upstairs.
“She was planning to send them away?”
“We know she was researching it.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Grant’s insistence on precise language irritated him.
It also kept Leander from running too far ahead of the evidence.
Audrey remembered Melisande asking for the children’s medical insurance cards two months earlier.
“She said she was updating emergency records.”
Leander had not questioned it.
Melisande also requested copies of school evaluations.
Pediatric records.
Therapy notes from after the children’s mother died.
Leander stopped.
Both children had lost their mother, Caroline, three years earlier.
They had struggled.
Bastian became angry.
Ophelia became terrified Leander would disappear too.
They improved.
May you like
Now old grief was apparently being collected into a new file.
The question was why.
