The Locked Playroom
Chapter 02 - The Locked Playroom
The playroom smelled of dust, cedar, and unfinished childhood.
A toy stove stood in one corner. Wooden blocks filled a chest beneath the window. A rocking horse faced the glass as if waiting for a rider who had stepped away for only a moment. Julian had been told the room was closed because grief needed privacy.
Now it looked less like grief and more like evidence.
The next morning, Sofia arrived at the east-wing service door with Lucy on her hip, a bag of snacks on one shoulder, and apology already forming in her eyes.
“I brought crayons,” she said. “She won’t touch anything valuable.”
Julian looked at Lucy, who had one purple sock and one green sock.
“She looks extremely dangerous.”
Lucy nodded solemnly. “I am three.”
Sofia almost smiled.
When they entered the playroom, Lucy ran straight to a carved rabbit with one missing ear.
“Bunny!”
Sofia inhaled sharply.
Julian turned. “What?”
“My grandmother had one like that,” she said too quickly.
“Rosa?”
Her face changed. “Lucy mentioned her?”
“Yes.”
Sofia looked at the rabbit. “Rosa raised me. She died last year.”
Before Julian could ask more, his assistant Mira Chen appeared with a tablet and a suspicious expression.
“Your Seattle call started without you.”
“Reschedule it.”
“It has already been rescheduled twice.”
“Then Seattle is learning patience.”
Mira looked into the room. Her gaze moved from Lucy to Sofia to Julian sitting on a child-sized chair with his knees at an impossible angle.
“Should I ask questions now or after legal has a panic attack?”
“After.”
Lucy held up the rabbit. “Bunny says hi.”
Mira, who terrified venture capitalists for sport, softened. “Hi, Bunny.”
For the next hour, Julian answered emails on the floor while Lucy built a house for the rabbit. Sofia checked in every ten minutes until Julian finally said, “She’s safe.”
Sofia looked at him. “I don’t know how to believe that fast.”
“Then believe it slowly.”
At noon, Lucy sat beside the covered piano. “Can it sing?”
“No,” Julian said.
Sofia, folding towels at the door, whispered, “It used to.”
Julian looked at her.
She froze.
“How would you know that?”
Before she could answer, the playroom door opened.
Vivian Ashford entered without knocking.
Julian’s mother wore cream silk, pearl earrings, and the soft disappointment she used like perfume. Her eyes swept the room, the child, the maid, the toy rabbit.
“Well,” she said. “I see the dead have become entertainment.”
Sofia went white.
Lucy hid behind Julian’s leg.
Vivian looked at the child with cold curiosity. “And who is this?”
Lucy peeked out. “Mean lady.”
The room went still.
Vivian’s face did not move. “Excuse me?”
Lucy pointed to Vivian. “I saw you in Grandma Rosa’s picture.”
May you like
Sofia closed her eyes.
And Julian understood the locked playroom had opened more than a door.
