The Truth Inside the Blue Rabbit
Chapter 03 - The Truth Inside the Blue Rabbit
Marcus’s smile vanished for only a second, but Claire saw it.
He stepped away from Daniel and lowered his voice. “You’re scared. I understand. But accusing me won’t save her.”
“No,” Daniel replied. “Evidence will.”
Claire sent the recording to the lead detective. While officers quietly moved toward Marcus, every light in the hallway went dark.
Emergency power flickered on a heartbeat later. Marcus was already running.
He shoved through the stairwell door, but Daniel followed. Grief told him to chase the man who had nearly killed his wife. Reason told him Emily needed him upstairs. At the landing, he stopped.
Marcus looked back with a mocking grin before disappearing below.
Daniel returned to the surgical floor.
Claire nodded with relief. “Police have the exits covered.”
Minutes later, officers arrested Marcus in the parking garage. In his SUV they found a damaged front bumper, Emily’s broken necklace, and a rag that smelled of gasoline. Yet Marcus continued to deny everything.
The flash drive became their only chance to prove motive.
Police escorted Daniel to his house. The baby’s room stood exactly as Emily had left it: pale yellow walls, unopened diapers, and a wooden crib beneath paper stars. On the rocking chair sat a blue stuffed rabbit.
Daniel opened its stitched pocket and found the drive.
It contained company records, fabricated hotel photographs, copies of the anonymous messages, and security footage of Marcus purchasing the prepaid phone. The final file was an audio recording Emily had made that afternoon.
Marcus’s voice filled the room.
“You should have believed the affair. It would have been easier for everyone.”
Emily answered, “Daniel trusted you like a brother.”
“That was his weakness.”
Police finally had enough to charge Marcus with fraud, attempted murder, and evidence tampering. But justice brought Daniel no peace when he returned to the hospital.
Their daughter, Lily, lay inside an incubator with tubes smaller than his fingers. Emily had survived surgery, but swelling in her brain had left her unconscious.
Daniel sat beside her and placed the embroidered blanket near her hand.
“I should have told you everything,” he whispered. “I thought silence would protect you. It only gave Marcus room to lie.”
For three days, Emily did not move.
On the fourth morning, doctors warned that she might never wake.
Daniel carried Lily into the room for the first time. The baby made a soft, searching cry.
Emily’s fingers twitched.
Daniel leaned closer. “Emily?”
Her eyes opened halfway. Confusion passed across her face, followed by fear.
“Lily,” she breathed.
“She’s safe.”
Emily tried to speak again, but the monitors suddenly accelerated.
May you like
Then she whispered the words Daniel had been praying to hear:
“Take me home.”
