Chapter 3 - what Sophie’s rabbit carried
Sophie spent the night under emergency protective supervision in Elmer’s home.
She refused to sleep in the attic.
Elmer did not blame her.
Emily Park, the child-services worker, placed a small bed in the downstairs guest room.
Rosa washed Sophie’s pink shirt while Sophie wore one of Elmer’s oversized Portland Trail Blazers T-shirts.
Before bed, she gave Elmer her stuffed rabbit.
“Hold Bunny while I brush teeth.”
Elmer smiled.
“Absolutely.”
The rabbit was old.
One ear slightly crooked.
The fabric worn smooth from years of being carried.
A faded stitched label showed two initials:
L.W.
Laura Whitaker.
Elmer’s hands trembled.
She had made it.
Laura used to sew.
He remembered her making Christmas stockings because she said store-bought ones looked “emotionally unavailable.”
He laughed despite himself.
Then noticed something tucked beneath the rabbit’s collar.
A tiny folded piece of paper.
He did not open it.
He called Detective Morgan.
Police photographed it before unfolding it.
Laura’s handwriting.
Elmer recognized it immediately.
If Sophie is with you, Dennis found us.
Elmer sat down.
The note continued.
Please believe Sophie before you believe him.
Do not let Dennis take her anywhere alone.
Call Leah Morgan, Portland Police.
Elmer looked sharply toward the detective.
“You knew Laura?”
Morgan’s expression became guarded.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She contacted me about seven weeks ago.”
Elmer stood.
“You knew she was alive?”
“She contacted our financial-crimes unit under a different name. We were still verifying her identity.”
“And nobody called me?”
“She specifically asked us not to.”
“Why?”
“She believed Dennis monitored your communications.”
Elmer’s anger changed direction.
“What was she investigating?”
Morgan hesitated.
“I can tell you some of it now because Sophie has been recovered.”
Laura alleged Dennis had used a false death narrative to obtain control over assets connected to her family.
Not a huge fortune.
But enough.
Her mother had left a trust worth approximately $4.8 million.
While Laura was alive, she controlled it.
If she died, any surviving child would become beneficiary.
Elmer looked toward Sophie’s room.
“And Dennis would be her father.”
“Yes.”
“Guardian.”
“Potentially.”
Elmer felt sick.
Dennis told everyone Laura died before Sophie was born.
But official records said otherwise.
That meant Dennis had hidden the child’s existence too.
Morgan continued.
“Laura contacted us after discovering someone had accessed her old trust records.”
“Dennis?”
“She believed so.”
“What happened seven weeks ago?”
“She said Dennis had found her alias.”
“Then why wasn’t he arrested?”
“Because Laura disappeared before completing a formal statement.”
Elmer stared.
“Disappeared?”
“Three weeks ago.”
The exact time Dennis had begun preparing the attic.
Elmer’s heartbeat accelerated.
“You think Dennis has Laura?”
“We don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
Morgan pointed toward the security footage.
“We know he took Sophie without a known court order and concealed her here.”
Dennis called again that afternoon.
This time police recorded it.
“Dad, I need to see my daughter.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“Neither do you after locking her in a wardrobe.”
“I was protecting her.”
“From whom?”
Silence.
Then:
“Laura.”
Elmer gripped the phone.
“Laura is alive.”
Dennis exhaled.
“So you know.”
“You held a funeral.”
“I was trying to protect the family.”
“From your living wife?”
“She isn’t who you remember.”
“Where is she?”
Dennis ignored the question.
“Laura took Sophie and disappeared. I found my own child.”
“And locked her in my attic.”
“Temporarily.”
“For three days.”
“Dad, you have to trust me.”
Elmer almost laughed.
Then the woman in Dennis’s background spoke again.
Closer this time.
“Stop explaining to him.”
Elmer recognized the voice.
Vanessa Cole.
Dennis’s girlfriend.
The woman he had introduced to Elmer two years earlier as someone he met “long after Laura died.”
Elmer’s face hardened.
“How long has Vanessa known Laura was alive?”
Dennis disconnected.
Detective Morgan looked at him.
“You recognize the woman?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My son’s girlfriend.”
Morgan wrote the name.
Elmer looked toward Sophie’s rabbit.
Laura’s note had said Dennis found us.
Plural.
Not found Sophie.
Found us.
May you like
Whatever had happened three weeks earlier began with both mother and child.
👉 Laura had secretly warned Elmer through Sophie’s rabbit, and her disappearance occurred just as Dennis began preparing the attic hiding place.
