Chapter 7 – THE LIE WHISPERED TO A FRIGHTENED CHILD

“Ivy!” I screamed, my voice tearing through the quiet emergency room.

Nurses at the front desk looked up in alarm. Daniel burst through the stairwell doors behind me, his face pale.

“Did she wake up? Did you see a little girl?” he shouted at the security guard.

The guard blinked, confused. “I… I saw a little girl in a blue dress walking toward the East Wing a few minutes ago. I thought she was looking for the bathroom.”

The East Wing. The hospital chapel was down that corridor.

I didn’t wait for Daniel. I ran.

My shoes slapped against the linoleum floors as I sprinted past dark offices and quiet patient rooms. My chest burned. Ivy was terrified of hospitals. She wouldn’t have wandered off unless someone told her to. Or unless she was hiding.

I burst through the heavy oak doors of the hospital chapel.

It was dim inside, lit only by rows of flickering electric votive candles.

In the very back pew, curled into a tiny ball, was Ivy.

She was violently sobbing, her hands clamped over her ears.

“Ivy!” I dropped to my knees beside her, wrapping my arms around her shaking body. “Sweetheart, I’m here. You’re safe.”

She pushed me away, her little face red and stained with tears.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried. “Vanessa said it’s my fault!”

I froze. “What did Vanessa say to you, baby?”

Ivy hiccuped, clutching something tightly to her chest. “She woke me up. She told me Mommy died because I was bad. Because I cried in the car and made Mommy drive off the bridge. Vanessa said if I tell Daddy, he’ll send me away just like Grandma.”

Rage, hot and blinding, flooded my veins. Vanessa had found Ivy while Daniel and I were arguing in the stairwell. She had used a child’s deepest trauma as a weapon to buy herself time to escape.

“Listen to me, Ivy,” I said, taking her small hands in mine. I forced her to look me in the eyes. “Vanessa is a liar. Your mother loved you more than anything in this world. The crash was an accident. It was never your fault. Do you hear me?”

Ivy sniffled, looking up at me with huge, broken eyes.

Slowly, she uncurled her fingers.

She was holding an old, tarnished silver pocket watch.

“Grandma gave this to me before the ambulance came,” Ivy whispered. “She said it belonged to Mommy. She said there’s a secret inside.”

I stared at the watch. I reached out and pressed the small latch at the top.

The gold casing popped open.

Inside wasn’t a clock face. It was a folded, tiny piece of paper.

Before I could unfold it, the chapel doors slammed shut, and the lock clicked from the inside.

Vanessa stepped out of the shadows, her red dress looking like blood in the candlelight.