Chapter 4 - Bunny Heard Mommy Cry
Cassandro did not tear the toy apart.
Detective Brooks stopped him.
“If there’s evidence inside it, we document everything.”
A crime-scene technician arrived shortly after 2 a.m.
The rabbit was photographed, bagged, and examined.
Inside the Velcro seam beneath its battery compartment was a small memory card.
Cassandro stared at it.
“Is that from one of her toys?”
Marcus shook his head.
“That rabbit doesn’t use memory storage.”
Elena had purchased the toy herself.
Three months earlier.
Brooks looked at Cassandro.
“Did your wife ever mention recording conversations?”
“No.”
But Elena had once mentioned that someone had entered her home office while the family was away.
Cassandro had blamed cleaning staff.
Elena had not.
The card contained dozens of short audio files.
Most were useless.
Audrey laughing.
A television playing.
Elena singing softly.
Kitchen noise.
Then they reached the night of the disappearance.
9:08 p.m.
Elena’s voice.
“You moved the money again.”
A woman answered.
Vivienne.
“You don’t understand what you’re looking at.”
“I understand exactly what I’m looking at.”
Cassandro gripped the edge of the table.
The recording crackled.
Damian’s voice entered.
“Elena, lower your voice.”
“Get out of my house.”
Then Audrey began crying somewhere near the recorder.
Elena’s tone changed instantly.
“Baby, stay in your room.”
Vivienne spoke again.
“You should have left this alone.”
Elena answered.
“You stole from my husband.”
“No,” Vivienne said.
“I took what Cassandro never would have given us.”
A chair scraped.
Damian cursed.
Then Elena shouted.
“Don’t touch me.”
The recording abruptly ended.
Cassandro stared at the technician.
“That’s it?”
“There are more files.”
The next recording began seventeen minutes later.
But it was only eleven seconds long.
Damian’s voice.
“Where’s the copy?”
Elena breathed hard.
“Somewhere you’ll never find it.”
Vivienne said something too faint to understand.
Then Elena spoke one final sentence.
“If you take me to that house, Cassandro will find me.”
The file ended.
Brooks replayed it.
“What house?”
Cassandro shook his head.
Audrey suddenly appeared in the doorway with Marcus’s wife, who had come to help with her.
Cassandro lifted his daughter.
Audrey saw the toy on the evidence table.
“Bunny.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
Audrey pointed toward the speaker.
“Mommy said red house.”
Cassandro looked at Brooks.
“What red house?”
Audrey frowned, struggling.
Then she said another word.
“Briar.”
Brooks wrote it down.
Cassandro felt his stomach drop.
Because WBR suddenly no longer looked random.
West Briar Renovations.
May you like
A vendor that had received millions of dollars from Vale Resorts.
A vendor Vivienne had personally recommended.
