What Miriam Hid in the Rabbit

Thomas found Marcus’s car abandoned three blocks away.

The keys were in the ignition. His phone lay crushed beneath the rear tire.

There was no blood, no indication of a struggle, and no trace of the man himself.

Detective Ortiz issued an alert but warned Gabriel against deciding too quickly what the disappearance meant.

“He may have run,” she said. “Or someone may want you to believe he did.”

Gabriel took Ellie home.

She refused to remove her shoes and sat on the living room sofa with both feet tucked beneath her. Every time a car slowed outside, she looked toward the window.

Gabriel brought her warm milk in the yellow cup.

“Am I in trouble?”

“No.”

“I left the table.”

“You asked permission.”

“But I didn’t wait for Ruth.”

“That doesn’t make what they did your fault.”

Ellie looked down at the cup.

“The lady knew Mommy’s song.”

Gabriel sat beside her.

“What exactly did she say?”

“She said Mommy wanted me to go with her.”

“Anything else?”

“She asked if Mommy left me a present.”

Gabriel felt a coldness settle in his chest.

“What present?”

Ellie shrugged.

“I told her Mommy gave me Bunny.”

The stuffed rabbit sat near the staircase. Its fur had faded from white to gray, and one velvet ear bent forward where Miriam had repaired it shortly before her death.

Gabriel retrieved it.

“Did Mommy ever tell you something was inside Bunny?”

Ellie nodded.

“She said I should only look if someone asked about her moon.”

Gabriel stared at his daughter.

Miriam had died nearly two years earlier. Ellie had been three, barely old enough to remember complete conversations.

Yet this instruction had remained.

Gabriel examined the repaired ear. The stitches were too neat to have come from Miriam, who had never sewn anything without tangling the thread.

He used a small pair of scissors to open the seam.

Inside was a brass key attached to a plastic tag bearing the number 317.

There was also a folded strip of paper.

Gabriel recognized his wife’s handwriting.

*If anyone uses the bracelet to approach Ellie, do not trust the first person who offers to help.*

Thomas stood in the doorway.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

Gabriel turned the note over.

Another sentence was written on the back.

*The bracelet will lead them to the key.*

A picture frame fell from between the rabbit’s body and its clothing.

Inside was an old photograph of Miriam standing outside Miller’s Diner.

Beside her was a man Gabriel had not seen in fifteen years.

Adrian Vale.

Gabriel’s former business partner.

The man whose career Miriam had destroyed by exposing a fraudulent charity contract.

In the background of the photograph, partially hidden behind an open car door, stood Marcus.