Chapter 2 - The Toy That Was Listening
I carried Isabella upstairs myself.
Beatriz followed us.
“Gabriel, this is ridiculous.”
I turned at the top of the stairs.
“If you take one more step toward my daughter, security is removing you from this house.”
Her mouth opened.
I shut Isabella’s bedroom door.
“Show me.”
Isabella sat on the edge of her bed and pointed at a stuffed gray rabbit near the pillow.
“Mr. Buttons.”
I picked it up.
Nothing looked wrong until I turned it over.
A line of stitching under one arm was newer than the rest.
My hands began to shake.
I tore it open.
A tiny black device fell onto the comforter.
Microphone.
Wi-Fi transmitter.
Battery pack.
I stared at it.
Isabella covered her ears.
“She told me if I said bad things about her, she would know.”
“How long?”
“A long time.”
“How long, Isabella?”
Her chin trembled.
“Since Christmas.”
Six months.
I had bought that rabbit myself.
I unplugged the bedroom router and placed the microphone inside a metal desk drawer.
Isabella watched every move.
“Can she hear now?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
She exhaled like she had been holding her breath for months.
Then the rules started coming out. Beatriz made her stand facing the wall when she cried. She took away dessert and dinner whenever Isabella refused chores. She made her repeat, “Daddy has enough problems,” whenever she asked to call me.
Every sentence was simple. That made it worse. Children describe cruelty without the language adults use to soften it.
I sat on the floor beside her and realized my daughter had learned an entire survival system while I was boarding planes.
Beatriz had offered to wrap it.
I walked into the hall with the device in my hand.
Beatriz was waiting.
She looked at the transmitter and immediately said, “That isn’t mine.”
I laughed once.
“You knew what it was before I said a word.”
“I guessed.”
“No.”
I called Mason Reed, the head of estate security.
“Lock the gates. Nobody leaves. Call the police.”
Beatriz stepped toward me.
“Gabriel, don’t do this.”
“You put a listening device in my daughter’s toy.”
“I did not.”
“Then tell that to the police.”
Her face changed.
Not fear this time.
Anger.
“You think this is about some stupid rabbit?”
I stared at her.
“What is it about?”
She looked past me toward Isabella’s room.
“Ask her what she’s been digging for.”
I turned.
Isabella stood in the doorway.
Barefoot.
Small.
Terrified.
“What does she mean?” I asked.
Isabella pressed her lips together.
Beatriz said, “Tell him.”
“Don’t speak to her.”
Isabella whispered, “She makes me look through the trash.”
“For what?”
“She says Mommy hid something before she died.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
My wife Elena had died twenty-two months earlier in a car crash on Pacific Coast Highway.
Beatriz and I had met almost a year after that.
At least, that was what I believed.
“What did she say your mother hid?”
“A red box.”
Beatriz closed her eyes.
Too late.
I looked at her.
“You knew Elena?”
She said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“You told me you had never met my wife.”
Beatriz’s voice dropped.
“I told you what I was supposed to tell you.”
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