Chapter 5 - THE TOY FROM THE GRAVE
The police closed the block within eleven minutes.
Maya watched from the apartment window as officers stretched yellow tape across the sidewalk.
A bomb squad technician approached the cardboard box in protective gear.
Marcus stood behind Maya with his phone pressed to his ear.
"No, she is secure."
He listened.
"Understood."
He ended the call.
Maya did not turn.
"Is it Button?"
"We don't know yet."
"I know that rabbit."
"You saw part of it through a security camera image."
"I sewed the left ear twice."
Marcus said nothing.
Maya pointed toward the screen on the counter.
The building manager had sent a still image.
A small purple rabbit protruded from the damaged corner of the box.
One ear bent inward.
A patch of blue thread ran across the seam.
Maya's thread.
"It is hers."
Marcus stepped closer.
"Who knew you buried it with Lily?"
"The funeral director."
"Anyone else?"
Maya closed her eyes.
"I posted nothing. I told no one."
"Think."
She thought.
The cemetery.
Rain.
The white casket.
The funeral director asking whether Maya wanted to place anything inside before they closed it.
Maya had put Button beneath Lily's right arm.
A cemetery worker stood nearby.
A groundskeeper.
The priest.
Two staff members.
"Maybe six people."
Marcus sent the list to another agent.
The box was opened after explosives technicians cleared it.
There was no device inside.
Only the rabbit.
And a note.
YOU BURIED THE WRONG SECRET.
Maya read the photograph on Marcus's phone.
"What does that mean?"
"We don't know."
"Someone opened Lily's grave."
"Possibly."
"Possibly?"
Marcus spoke carefully.
"The rabbit could have been taken before burial."
"I placed it in her arms myself."
He nodded once.
"Then yes. Someone likely disturbed the grave."
Maya's stomach convulsed.
She rushed to the kitchen sink and vomited.
Marcus waited several feet away.
When she finished, he handed her a towel.
"I want to go there."
"No."
"She is my daughter."
"And the cemetery is now a crime scene."
"That is exactly why I need to go."
"Maya."
She turned with fury in her eyes.
"Do not tell me to be reasonable while someone is digging into my child's grave."
Marcus held her gaze.
"I am telling you to stay alive long enough to find out who."
The words landed hard.
Maya stepped back.
"You think this is a threat."
"I think someone found your current address despite our efforts to keep it private."
"David?"
"He is in federal custody."
"Nathan?"
"Under surveillance."
"Julianne?"
"Also in custody for questioning."
Maya stared at him.
"Then who is left?"
Marcus did not answer.
That afternoon, investigators reviewed cemetery cameras.
At 3:12 a.m. two nights earlier, a dark utility van entered through a service gate.
The gate code had been used correctly.
The van remained inside for thirty-seven minutes.
Its license plate was stolen.
The service gate code belonged to someone named Calvin Moore.
Calvin had worked maintenance at the cemetery for nine years.
He had not reported to work that morning.
By sunset, police found his car abandoned near the Des Plaines River.
His phone was inside.
His wallet was inside.
Calvin was not.
Maya sat in a secure interview room while Marcus explained.
"Was he involved?"
"We don't know."
"Is he dead?"
"We don't know."
"You keep saying that."
"Because guessing would be worse."
Maya looked down at Lily's bracelet around her wrist.
"The note said I buried the wrong secret."
"Yes."
"What secret would be in a grave?"
Marcus leaned back.
"Maybe the sender isn't talking about the grave."
"Then what are they talking about?"
"Maybe Lily."
Maya's eyes lifted.
"What does that mean?"
"The retesting request you made has been expedited."
"And?"
"The lab found something unexpected in her retained blood sample."
Maya's pulse accelerated.
"What?"
"Trace concentrations of an immunosuppressive compound."
Maya stared.
"What compound?"
"Tacrolimus."
"What is that?"
"A medication used to suppress immune response, commonly in transplant patients."
"Lily was not a transplant patient."
"We know."
"Could it cause meningitis?"
"It can increase susceptibility to severe infection."
Maya's mouth went dry.
"How much was in her system?"
"Not enough to prove deliberate poisoning from one sample. But enough that the medical examiner considers it abnormal."
Maya pushed back from the table.
"Someone gave her that medication."
"Possibly."
"Stop saying possibly."
Marcus's voice stayed calm.
"We need evidence."
"I gave her every medication she took. Children's acetaminophen. Antibiotics after she was admitted. Nothing else."
"Do you keep medicine at home?"
"Basic things."
"Did David take any prescription medication?"
Maya shook her head.
Then stopped.
"His mother."
Marcus waited.
"David's mother had a kidney transplant before Lily was born."
"Is she living?"
"She died four years ago."
"What happened to her medications?"
Maya thought back.
David had packed his mother's apartment after the funeral.
Boxes went to storage.
Some came home.
"I don't know."
Marcus made a note.
Agents searched the Vance estate again that night.
At 11:40 p.m., they found an old prescription bottle behind the false back of a bathroom cabinet in David's private study.
Tacrolimus.
His mother's name was on the label.
The bottle should have expired years earlier.
But the pills inside were new.
Maya received the call at midnight.
She listened without speaking.
Then asked one question.
"Fingerprints?"
"They're processing it."
She ended the call and sat alone in the dark.
Lily's last week replayed in fragments.
Breakfast.
Orange juice.
Headache.
David touching Lily's forehead and saying she felt warm.
David volunteering to stay home with her one afternoon while Maya went to a board meeting.
Lily sleeping when Maya returned.
The next morning she seemed fine.
Then David left for Nassau.
Then the fever exploded.
Maya pressed both hands against her mouth.
A terrible possibility formed.
She did not want it.
She tried to push it away.
It returned larger.
At 12:19 a.m., her secure phone rang.
Marcus.
"We got prints off the bottle."
Maya closed her eyes.
"David's?"
"Yes."
She stopped breathing.
Then Marcus continued.
"And one other set."
Maya opened her eyes.
"Whose?"
May you like
"Yours."
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