Chapter 2 - the rabbit with the missing eye
Nora carried Sophie upstairs to the guest room closest to Ethan’s private study.
The room overlooked Monterey Bay, though the storm had transformed the glass wall into a trembling sheet of black water. Ethan turned up the heat while Nora found dry pajamas, warm socks, and several towels.
Sophie refused to release the stuffed rabbit.
Even when Nora gently offered to dry it, the girl pulled it against her chest.
“No.”
“It will stay wet, sweetheart.”
“It has to stay with me.”
Ethan crouched beside the bed.
“No one is going to take it.”
Sophie studied his face, deciding whether his promise meant anything.
Adults had clearly promised her safety before.
Finally, she allowed Nora to wrap the rabbit in a towel while keeping it within reach.
The toy was old and badly damaged. One eye was missing. Several seams had been repaired with different colors of thread, and a fresh tear ran along its stomach.
Ethan noticed something hard beneath the fabric.
Before he could examine it, Nora returned with a bowl of soup.
Sophie ate three spoonfuls, then stopped.
“Is it poisoned?”
Nora’s expression softened with horror.
“No, honey.”
“Miles says people put medicine in food when they want children to sleep.”
Ethan turned away so Sophie would not see the anger on his face.
He took the bowl, swallowed a spoonful, and handed it back.
“Now you know it’s safe.”
Sophie ate slowly.
Ethan entered the hallway and called Dr. Thomas Walsh, a physician who had treated his family for twenty years. He gave only the essential details and asked the doctor to use the service entrance.
Then he called Rebecca Sloan, his attorney.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Ethan, it’s after midnight.”
“I found Laura Reed’s daughter outside my house.”
Silence.
“Say that again.”
“Sophie Reed is here. She says Miles Danner took Laura into a basement.”
Rebecca’s tone changed immediately.
“Do not contact local law enforcement.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Lock the estate. Disable every remote access point. Do not trust your security system.”
Ethan looked toward the monitor mounted beside his study door.
“Why?”
“Because Laura sent me a package before she disappeared. It contained evidence that someone inside Cole Maritime had been accessing your residential security feeds.”
Ethan’s grip tightened around the phone.
“You never told me.”
“She instructed me not to contact you unless Sophie appeared.”
“You knew she might come here?”
“I knew Laura had created an emergency plan. I did not know the details.”
“Come to the estate.”
“I’m already leaving.”
Ethan ended the call and entered the security room near the kitchen.
Wade Turner, his chief of residential security, appeared on one of the interior cameras. He was crossing the lower hallway toward the garage.
Ethan called him.
Wade answered immediately.
“Everything all right, sir?”
“Did the storm trigger an alarm near the west fence?”
A pause followed.
“No, sir.”
“A child entered the property.”
Another pause.
“That isn’t possible. The perimeter is sealed.”
“She came through the fence.”
“I’ll check the footage.”
“Don’t.”
Silence.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“Remain where you are.”
Wade disconnected.
A warning appeared across the security screen.
REMOTE ADMINISTRATOR LOGIN.
Someone was attempting to erase the estate’s camera history.
Ethan cut power to the network.
Every monitor went dark.
He opened the gun safe beneath the desk and removed a pistol he had not touched since his father taught him to shoot.
When he returned upstairs, Sophie was sitting beneath the blankets. Nora had placed a cup of warm milk beside her.
“Where’s the doctor?” Ethan asked.
“Ten minutes away.”
Sophie watched the pistol disappear beneath Ethan’s coat.
“Are they here?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked toward the dark window.
“They always come when the lights go out.”
The estate’s backup generator started with a low mechanical rumble.
Warm lamps illuminated the room again.
Ethan sat beside Sophie.
“Tell me about the house you escaped from.”
“It was near the ocean. Green roof. White fence.”
“How long were you there?”
“Four days.”
“Where did you live before that?”
“With Mommy in Salinas.”
“What happened four days ago?”
Sophie’s expression changed.
“Miles said we were going on vacation. Mommy didn’t want to go. He put something in her coffee.”
Nora covered her mouth.
“When she woke up, we were in the green house. The lady with the red shoes asked Mommy about numbers.”
“What numbers?”
Sophie reached for the stuffed rabbit.
“She said the numbers were hidden inside him.”
Ethan carefully touched the torn seam.
“Inside the rabbit?”
Sophie nodded.
“Mommy told her she burned them.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
Sophie turned the rabbit over.
The missing eye was not simply torn away. A tiny circular opening had been cut beneath it.
Ethan pressed the fabric.
Something clicked.
A narrow plastic capsule slid from the rabbit’s body.
Inside it was a small brass key and a folded piece of waterproof paper.
Nora closed the curtains.
Ethan opened the paper.
Three words were written in Laura’s handwriting:
TRUST ONLY SOPHIE.
Below them was a string of numbers and a hand-drawn symbol resembling a lighthouse.
Sophie pointed at the key.
“Mommy said that opens the place where the dead people keep talking.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“She said you would know.”
He did not.
But he recognized the lighthouse symbol.
It belonged to a sealed storage facility beneath the abandoned Point Delmar marine station, a property owned by Ethan’s late father.
No one had entered it in twenty-two years.
A crash sounded downstairs.
The front doors had opened.
Ethan rose, drawing the pistol.
Nora pulled Sophie behind the bed.
Footsteps crossed the foyer.
“Mr. Cole?” Wade Turner called. “I need to speak with you.”
Ethan remained silent.
Wade continued climbing the stairs.
Then Sophie whispered something that made Ethan’s blood run cold.
May you like
“That’s the man who drove us to the green house.”
👉 Ethan’s trusted security chief had helped abduct Sophie and Laura, proving the enemy had already been living inside the glass mansion.
