Chapter 6 - WHAT ELLIE HEARD
The Chicago Tribune published Noah Bennett’s connection to Mercer Urban on Sunday.
By Monday morning, reporters waited outside Ellie’s preschool.
Adrian’s driver used a rear entrance, but Ellie saw the cameras.
“Are they here because of Lily?” she asked.
“They’re asking questions about my company.”
“Did you do something bad?”
Adrian considered the reassuring lie.
“I made decisions without checking whether people were safe.”
“Did Lily’s husband die?”
“Yes.”
“Because of you?”
“I don’t know everything yet.”
Ellie stared through the tinted window.
“That means maybe.”
“Yes.”
Vanessa called that afternoon from California.
She had not spoken to Ellie in eight months.
“You need to keep her away from the press,” she said.
“I’m trying.”
“You always try after the damage becomes visible.”
Adrian walked to the mansion’s library and closed the door.
“You surrendered custody.”
“I know what I did.”
“Then don’t lecture me about parenting.”
“I left because I was selfish and because motherhood frightened me. Both can be true. You stayed and outsourced every part that required you to feel uncomfortable.”
Adrian’s hand tightened around the phone.
“You said you weren’t built for motherhood.”
“I wasn’t. You turned that into proof that merely remaining in the house made you a good father.”
Vanessa did not ask to return. She did not offer an excuse that erased five years of absence.
She asked for a supervised video call with Ellie and agreed to follow the therapist’s advice if Ellie declined.
Adrian promised to discuss it with Ellie’s counselor.
It was the first conversation in years where neither of them pretended the other parent was solely responsible for their daughter’s loneliness.
That evening, Mrs. Landon asked to speak privately.
“I knew more about Lakeview than I told you,” she said.
Adrian waited.
“My older sister, June, is one of the residents transferred in January. She was not among the six left behind, but Rosa called me when problems began.”
“You knew residents remained.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I saw what happened when employees brought you delays.”
“What happened?”
“You stopped trusting them. Then you replaced them.”
“I replaced people who concealed problems.”
Mrs. Landon’s expression did not move.
“You often decided it was concealment before they finished explaining.”
Adrian looked toward the service entrance where Lily used to leave every afternoon.
“Did you hire Lily because of Lakeview?”
“I hired her because she needed work and because I believed you might listen if the problem entered your home.”
“You used my daughter and my house to reach me.”
“No. I never asked Lily to speak to Ellie. Your daughter did that herself because Lily looked at her when she talked.”
The sentence struck more deeply than accusation.
Mrs. Landon handed him copies of household schedules from the previous month.
Adrian had spent an average of nineteen minutes a day in the same room as Ellie while she was awake. Most of that time occurred at breakfast with his phone on the table.
He had paid for nannies, tutors, drivers, a nutritionist, and a private-school consultant.
He had not read Ellie a bedtime story in eleven months.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“For myself? Nothing.”
“Then why show me this?”
“Because you’re searching for a criminal explanation at Lakeview when part of the explanation is ordinary. People disappear when everyone assumes someone else is caring for them.”
Adrian went upstairs.
Ellie was sitting beneath her blanket, arranging stuffed animals along the headboard.
“Can I read tonight?” he asked.
She looked toward the clock.
“You have your Monday call.”
“I canceled it.”
“Because the newspaper says you’re bad?”
The question stopped him near the door.
“No. Because you said I spend money near you.”
Ellie pulled the blanket higher.
“You didn’t like when I said that.”
“I didn’t.”
“Are you mad?”
“At you? No.”
He chose a book from the shelf and sat beside her.
Halfway through the first chapter, she interrupted.
“Lily said babies know voices before they know faces.”
“That sounds right.”
“Her baby won’t know his dad’s voice.”
“No.”
“Will he know mine?”
“If Lily lets you talk to him.”
Ellie considered this.
“Can we help without buying everything?”
“I hope so.”
The next morning, the independent investigators recovered deleted voice messages from Grant’s project phone.
One was from Noah, recorded six days before his fall.
“The upper west deck is not safe,” Noah said. “If Mercer forces us back up there, somebody will die.”
Grant forwarded the warning to Adrian.
May you like
Adrian’s response came seventeen minutes later.
“I don’t care what it costs. Get the site moving by Monday.”
