Chapter 2 - The Rabbit“Lucy!”
I pushed through the darkness.
People shouted.
Glasses shattered.
Some guests laughed nervously, assuming the blackout was a technical problem.
I knew better.
“Everyone stay where you are!” someone yelled.
Emergency lights glowed red along the ballroom walls.
I searched behind the velvet curtain.
Nothing.
“Lucy!”
No answer.
Vanessa caught my arm.
“Nathan, stop.”
I pulled away.
“Where is she?”
“How would I know?”
“You knew her name.”
“I heard you say it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Her jaw tightened.
Before she could answer, the chandeliers flickered back on.
Applause erupted around the ballroom.
My father, Richard Cole, stood near the stage looking irritated but amused.
“Apparently,” he announced into the microphone, “even five-star hotels aren’t immune to blown circuits.”
Guests laughed.
Vanessa forced a smile.
I didn’t.
I searched the ballroom.
No Lucy.
No black-suited man.
Then I felt the stuffed rabbit beneath my jacket.
Proof.
I needed somewhere private.
“I’m going upstairs.”
Vanessa blocked me.
“The toast is beginning.”
“I need five minutes.”
“Nathan.”
Her hand wrapped around my wrist.
For years, I had considered that touch comforting.
Now it felt like a restraint.
“I said five minutes.”
Something passed between us.
Then she released me.
“Of course.”
I walked toward the elevators.
I expected Vanessa to follow.
Instead, I looked back halfway across the room.
She was speaking urgently into her phone.
That confirmed more than any confession could have.
The elevator doors closed.
My engagement party occupied the Grand Bellamy Hotel’s entire second floor, while Vanessa and I had a suite on twelve.
Inside the elevator, I removed the rabbit.
It was old.
Gray fabric.
One plastic eye missing.
The seam across its stomach had been roughly repaired.
I pressed the button for twelve.
Then changed my mind.
If Vanessa knew Lucy had given me this thing, my suite was the first place she would check.
I pressed nine instead.
When the doors opened, I stepped into an empty hallway.
A housekeeping cart stood near room 914.
I moved behind it and examined the rabbit.
There was something inside.
Hard.
Small.
I pulled at the damaged stitching.
The thread snapped.
Inside the stuffing was a tiny black object wrapped in plastic.
A USB drive.
My heart pounded.
A second object slid out.
A photograph.
It showed Lucy standing beside a woman approximately thirty years old.
The woman had dark hair and a warm smile.
Written across the back:
If something happens to me, find Nathan Cole. He knows how to listen. – Emily
Emily.
I didn’t know anyone named Emily.
Footsteps entered the hallway.
I shoved everything into my pocket.
Vanessa appeared around the corner.
She stopped when she saw me.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked.
“I watched the elevator indicator.”
Of course.
She came closer.
“Why are you hiding?”
“I’m not.”
“Where’s the rabbit?”
“What rabbit?”
Her expression hardened.
“Nathan, please don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Become paranoid again.”
Again.
Another word she had been feeding me for months.
I smiled faintly.
“You’re right.”
That surprised her.
“I am?”
“Absolutely. I’m exhausted.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“My ears are ringing badly.”
Her concern returned immediately.
“You should rest.”
“I think so.”
She touched my face.
“Come upstairs.”
“I need to say goodnight to Dad first.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
She stared.
I softened my tone.
“Please. Five minutes alone.”
Vanessa hesitated.
“Fine.”
She kissed my cheek.
Then whispered:
“Don’t let that strange child ruin tonight.”
I watched her walk away.
The moment the elevator doors closed, I pulled out my phone and called the only person I trusted completely.
My younger sister.
“Claire?”
“Nathan? Aren’t you downstairs?”
“I need you to listen carefully.”
Her tone changed instantly.
“What happened?”
“Leave the party without telling anyone.”
“Why?”
“Go to your apartment. Lock the door. I’ll meet you there.”
“Nathan—”
“And bring the laptop you use for forensic work.”
Claire worked in cybersecurity for a federal contractor.
“What am I looking at?”
“A USB drive.”
Silence.
“Where did you get it?”
“From a four-year-old deaf girl who says Vanessa has been poisoning me.”
A longer silence.
Then Claire said:
“I’m leaving now.”
I disconnected.
When I returned downstairs, Vanessa stood beside my father.
Both were waiting.
Dad smiled.
“There’s my son.”
My father was sixty-seven and had built Cole Meridian’s original manufacturing division before handing me control twelve years earlier.
He adored Vanessa.
That worried me now.
He handed me champagne.
I accepted it.
Vanessa watched.
I raised the glass.
“Actually,” I said, “I’d like to make the toast.”
The ballroom quieted.
Vanessa looked surprised.
I faced the guests.
“Tonight is supposed to be about trust.”
She smiled.
“So I want to thank everyone who has stood beside me during a difficult year.”
My eyes remained on Vanessa.
“Especially those who have helped me understand exactly who I can trust.”
Her smile flickered.
People applauded.
I placed the untouched glass down.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE DRUNK THE CHAMPAGNE.
My blood turned cold.
Another message arrived.
A photograph.
Lucy.
Sitting inside what looked like a dark vehicle.
Her face wet with tears.
Beneath it:
FORGET THE RABBIT OR SHE DISAPPEARS LIKE HER MOTHER.
I looked across the ballroom.
Vanessa was smiling at guests.
Then her phone vibrated.
She glanced down.
And smiled.
That was when I realized something terrifying.
Lucy hadn’t wandered into my engagement party by accident.
Someone had brought her there.
Someone else had tried to stop her.
And somewhere inside that stuffed rabbit was the reason a four-year-old child had just been kidnapped.
I walked toward Vanessa.
She opened her arms.
“Everything okay?”
I kissed her cheek.
“Perfect.”
Then I whispered:
“I love you.”
She relaxed.
“Love you too.”
I smiled.
Because if Vanessa was poisoning me, she couldn’t know I had discovered it.
Not yet.
I needed her comfortable.
I needed her careless.
And most importantly—
I needed Lucy alive.
Claire lived twenty minutes from the hotel.
I arrived at 11:43 p.m.
She opened the door immediately.
“What happened?”
I handed her the USB drive.
“No internet.”
“Obviously.”
She led me into a home office filled with monitors.
“Air-gapped laptop?”
“Always.”
Claire connected the drive.
There were seven folders.
NATHAN
VANESSA
STERLING FOUNDATION
MEDICAL
LUCY
ACCOUNTING
IF I’M DEAD
Claire looked at me.
“Whoever made this expected trouble.”
“Open Medical.”
Inside were scanned documents.
Blood tests.
Prescription records.
Pharmacy invoices.
Photographs.
Then one spreadsheet.
My name appeared repeatedly.
Nathan Cole.
Dosages.
Dates.
Symptoms.
Tinnitus.
Vertigo.
Cognitive impairment.
Sedation.
I felt physically sick.
Claire whispered:
“Oh my God.”
She opened another document.
A research paper about aminoglycoside-induced ototoxicity—drugs capable of damaging hearing under certain circumstances.
Beside it was a handwritten dosage schedule.
My schedule.
Someone had been deliberately exposing me to medication capable of producing hearing damage.
I gripped the desk.
“How?”
Claire scrolled.
“Looks like tiny doses mixed with other compounds.”
“Could it cause permanent hearing loss?”
“I’m not a doctor.”
She looked at me.
“But whoever did this knew exactly what symptoms they wanted.”
I remembered Vanessa bringing me smoothies.
Soup.
Supplements.
Tea.
Pills.
“You need a hospital,” Claire said.
“Not yet.”
“Nathan.”
“If I suddenly confront Vanessa or disappear into a hospital, whoever has Lucy may hurt her.”
Claire hated it.
So did I.
“Open ‘If I’m Dead.’”
There was one video.
Claire clicked it.
A woman appeared.
The woman from the photograph.
Emily.
She looked exhausted and terrified.
“My name is Dr. Emily Ward.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“If you are watching this, I may already be dead.”
I leaned closer.
Emily swallowed.
“Three years ago, I worked as a clinical research consultant for the Sterling Foundation.”
Vanessa’s family foundation.
“I discovered unauthorized trials involving psychoactive compounds and ototoxic medications.”
Claire froze.
Emily continued.
“The program was disguised as charitable neurological research. It wasn’t.”
She glanced toward a sound off camera.
“They were testing how medication could alter memory, perception, hearing, and judgment without producing obvious toxicity.”
My stomach dropped.
“Vanessa Sterling knows.”
I stopped breathing.
“She isn’t merely aware of the program. She helped run it.”
Claire whispered:
“Nathan…”
Emily continued:
“If Vanessa is engaged to Nathan Cole when he sees this, then she has already moved to the final stage.”
“What final stage?” I whispered.
Emily answered from three years in the past.
“Control of Cole Meridian.”
The video ended.
For several seconds neither Claire nor I spoke.
Then the front windows exploded.
Glass sprayed across the room.
Claire screamed.
I dragged her down.
A gunshot tore through the wall above us.
Then another.
Someone outside shouted:
“GET THE DRIVE!”
Claire crawled beneath the desk.
I grabbed the laptop.
The front door shook violently.
One hit.
Two.
Three.
Wood splintered.
Claire looked at me.
“Nathan, they followed you.”
I stared at the USB drive.
“No.”
Another blow hit the door.
“They followed the rabbit.”
May you like
And suddenly, whoever had been making me lose my hearing was no longer trying to keep me sick.
They were trying to make sure I never heard the truth at all.
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