Chapter 7 - The Place for Disobedient Children
Lily refused to return home.
At Anne’s house, she sat between Rebecca and Claire, clutching a stuffed bear.
“Daddy said bad children go to a special school.”
“What kind of school?” Rebecca asked.
“He said nobody comes home until they tell the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That you scare me.”
Rebecca’s throat tightened.
Lily continued.
“He said if I told people I love you, they would think I was confused.”
Claire kept her questions gentle.
“Did anyone else say that?”
“Uncle Mason.”
Mason was not Lily’s uncle.
He was Derek’s business partner.
But he had insisted on the title since she was a toddler.
“Did Mason ever take you anywhere?” Claire asked.
Lily nodded.
“To a lady’s office.”
Rebecca looked at Claire.
“When?”
“While you were at Fort Knox.”
Derek had told Rebecca that Lily spent that weekend with his mother.
“Who was the lady?”
“She asked if Mommy hits people.”
“Did you answer?”
“I said no.”
“What happened then?”
Lily looked ashamed.
“Daddy got mad in the car.”
Rebecca pulled her daughter close.
“You did nothing wrong.”
Lily whispered, “I wanted to say what he wanted so he wouldn’t send me away.”
Claire requested the name of the office.
Lily remembered a blue door and a fish tank.
From Derek’s calendar, they identified a child evaluator named Dr. Melissa Grant.
Claire contacted her.
Dr. Grant sounded alarmed.
Derek had brought Lily without disclosing that Rebecca shared legal custody.
He claimed Rebecca was deployed overseas and unreachable.
“He told me the child feared her mother,” Dr. Grant said. “But Lily repeatedly denied it.”
“Did Mason attend?”
“Yes. Derek introduced him as Rebecca’s brother.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Mason had impersonated her family to strengthen the lie.
Then Dr. Grant added something worse.
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“Derek requested that I sign an emergency recommendation removing Lily from your care. I refused.”
👉 Derek had already been rejected by one evaluator—so he found another expert willing to repeat his story.
