Chapter 3
At 7:58 the next morning, a black car stopped outside.
Rose sat on the guest bed in yesterday's birthday dress, clutching her rabbit and Grandpa's wooden hotel.
"Mom, will you still be here when it comes?"
"I'm not leaving you."
I had spent the night on the phone with a lawyer. The divorce papers were inside my coat.
Adrian called from downstairs. "Rose. The driver is waiting."
She took my hand, and we went down together.
Her suitcase stood by the open front door.
On the foyer table, Adrian had arranged the remaining eleven brass keys in their red velvet box. Celeste stood beside a phone mounted on a tripod, the Crown Key around her neck.
Rose stopped. "Why is there a camera?"
Adrian handed her a sheet of paper. "You will do three things before you leave. Give Celeste the other keys. Apologize for embarrassing her. Then read this."
Rose studied the page. "It says I gave the baby my inheritance because I wanted my brother to have it."
"That's right."
"But I didn't."
She read the next line under her breath. "I am giving up my right to Grandpa's hotels because a son should inherit them."
Her eyes lifted to Adrian.
"Will I be allowed to come home if I say it?"
No one answered.
Rose folded the page. "Then I'm not saying it. You don't want me to be happy. "
Celeste adjusted her hair for the camera. "People are saying terrible things about us. Tell them you gave it willingly, and this can end."
"You want her to lie," I said.
Adrian ignored me. "Put the keys in Celeste's hands."
Rose closed the box. "No."
"Apologize."
"No."
"Stand by the camera."
She backed into me. "No."
Adrian pointed toward the open door. "This behavior is why she needs that school."
"She is behaving like a child whose father stole her birthday, bedroom, and home in one night."
"You taught her to call everything hers. You taught her to disrespect me."
"Grandpa said the keys were mine," Rose whispered.
"Your grandfather is dead," Adrian snapped. "I decide now."
Rose's face crumpled, but she did not cry. "And you decided you don't want me."
I placed the envelope on top of the key box.
"What is that?" Adrian asked.
"Divorce papers. Rose is not going to boarding school. She is leaving with me."
Adrian laughed once, but fear flashed in his eyes. "You can't take my daughter."
"You were about to send her six hours away without my consent."
"I am her father."
Rose looked at the suitcase, then at the ribbon around Celeste's neck.
"You gave him my key. You gave him my room. Now you're giving him my home."
Adrian's mouth opened, but Rose kept going.
"I don't want to call you Dad anymore."
He went pale.
"Rose." His voice softened for the first time. "You don't mean that."
"I do."
The driver appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Vale, we need to leave now."
Celeste touched Adrian's arm. "Let her calm down at school."
His fear hardened into anger
"Get in the car."
Rose stepped behind me.
"She is leaving with me," I said.
He reached around me and seized Rose by the wrist.
She cried out as the wooden hotel fell from her hand and broke across the floor.
"You're hurting me!"
Adrian pulled her toward the open door.
"Mom!"
I forced myself between them and locked my hand around his arm.
"Take your hand off my daughter."