Chapter 6 - The Night Someone Came for Lily
Damon reached the guesthouse seconds after the alarm sounded.
Marcus and two security officers had already secured the hallway. Rachel was with Lily in the bathroom, where the child had hidden when she heard unfamiliar footsteps.
“It's all right,” Rachel whispered. “Damon is here.”
Lily emerged clutching a stuffed rabbit that Patricia had bought her.
“Someone was outside,” she said. “He tried the door.”
Damon knelt.
“Did you see him?”
She shook her head.
“Did he say anything?”
“He said my mommy wanted me.”
Damon felt a cold wave move through him.
“Did he say her name?”
“No. He said I should come quietly.”
Marcus reported that the intruder had escaped through a service corridor. The access code belonged to a temporary security contractor who had stopped reporting for work three days earlier.
The police were called, and the estate's security records were handed over.
Damon moved Lily to a secure location approved by the authorities. He also made sure Rachel and Patricia could remain with her.
That night, Lily had a nightmare.
She woke crying for her mother, and Damon sat beside her bed until her breathing settled.
“Do you think Mommy knows where I am?” she asked.
“I hope so.”
“Can we call her?”
“We're trying to find her.”
Lily looked down at her rabbit.
“She said she'd come back before I forgot her voice.”
Damon had no answer that could make that fear disappear.
The next morning, a detective named Laura Mitchell arrived with news. A vehicle linked to the former contractor had been found abandoned near the train station. The man himself was still missing.
The detective also revealed that Anna had contacted a legal aid organization several weeks earlier, asking how to report financial fraud while protecting a child.
“She may have been preparing to come forward,” Mitchell said. “We believe she had help from someone inside the Rochefort organization.”
“Can you find her?”
“We're following several leads.”
Damon offered to provide whatever resources were needed, but Mitchell warned him not to interfere with the investigation.
That afternoon, Elisa appeared on television.
She stood before a bank of microphones, claiming Damon had allowed an unidentified child to disrupt a charitable event and was now using an alleged financial scandal to attack her family.
She described herself as the victim of a public smear campaign.
By evening, clips of the gala had spread across social media. The footage showed Elisa shouting at Lily, Damon kneeling to give her cake, and the stunned faces of the guests.
Millions of people watched.
Some praised Damon. Others accused him of staging the incident for publicity.
Damon refused to reveal Lily's identity or discuss her mother's disappearance publicly.
“Our priority is the child's safety,” he said in a short statement. “We will cooperate with investigators and protect the privacy of everyone involved.”
The foundation's board demanded an emergency meeting.
Several members urged Damon to distance himself from Lily until the scandal passed.
He stood at the head of the conference table.
“She came to an event dedicated to helping children, and we treated her like an inconvenience. That failure belongs to us.”
One board member warned that donations might collapse.
“Then we will earn back public trust by showing where every dollar goes,” Damon replied.
He ordered the foundation to publish independently audited accounts and suspend all grants under investigation.
It was the first time the organization had voluntarily opened its books to outside scrutiny.
That evening, Detective Mitchell called again.
They had located a witness who claimed to have seen Anna alive two days earlier.
She had been staying at a motel under another name.
When officers arrived, the room was empty.
But they found a note tucked beneath the mattress.
It contained one sentence:
TELL DAMON THAT ELISA KNOWS WHO REALLY CAUSED THE ACCIDENT.
Damon read it twice.
May you like
Then the detective added the words that changed everything.
“The witness says Anna wasn't alone. Someone from your own family was helping her hide.”
