PART 2: The Rabbit With A Secret
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
Russell looked at me immediately.
“Why?”
“Because there was one just like it in our kitchen the night my mother disappeared.”
Everett’s expression changed. The tiredness left his face, replaced by something sharper and more worried. He asked me to sit down in the empty seat across from him and explain what had happened.
So I told him everything: Mom’s strange behavior, the overturned chair, the damaged phone, and the emergency instructions that had brought Poppy and me onto the airplane. My voice shook a few times, but I kept going.
When I finished, Everett turned the device over in his fingers.
“My company manufactured equipment like this several years ago,” he admitted.
Russell explained that it was an older location beacon, a model that had supposedly been discontinued.
“Only a small number of people had access to this version,” he said.
“Then why was it hidden in your baby’s shirt?” I asked.
Everett didn’t answer. Instead, he carefully removed the device, and that was when he noticed a small irritated mark on Oliver’s skin where the damaged casing had pressed against him.
The baby let out a long sigh and settled comfortably against his father’s chest, as if a weight had been lifted away.
Suddenly, the black object began flashing. A tiny green light blinked again and again, faster each time.
Russell quickly slipped it into a protective pouch and sealed it.
“It’s attempting to connect to an old tracking network,” he explained.
Everett stared at the pouch. For the first time, the powerful businessman looked genuinely uncertain.
“Wesley, I think we need to find your mother.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted it more than anything. But how could I trust a stranger whose company had made the same mysterious device Mom had been so frightened of?
I thanked him quietly and went back to my seat, where Poppy was still asleep under the thin airline blanket. I kept my eyes on the business-class curtain for the rest of the flight, wondering whether I had just helped a friend or sat down with an enemy.
As the airplane descended toward Rome, Poppy woke from her nap. She rubbed her eyes, climbed onto the seat beside me, and noticed Oliver sleeping in Everett’s arms, because Everett had come to check on us.
“Baby sad?” she asked.
“Not anymore,” I told her.
Poppy reached into her little backpack and pulled out her favorite stuffed rabbit. Its name was Biscuit.
She offered it to Everett.
“Biscuit makes people happy.”
Everett smiled and accepted the toy with great care, the way someone might hold a precious gift. But when he gently squeezed it, something clicked inside.
Russell heard it too. He leaned over, took the rabbit, and ran his thumb along its back. There was a small section of stitching, and the thread was darker than the rest.
I remembered Mom sitting at the kitchen table repairing that exact spot a few weeks earlier.
“Mom fixed Biscuit,” I explained. “She said he needed something special to help us find our way home.”
Russell looked at Everett. With Poppy’s permission, he carefully opened the repaired seam with a small pocketknife.
Inside was another small black device bearing the same silver emblem. But this one was different. Russell examined it for a long time and then discovered that its internal transmitter had been replaced with a tiny memory chip.
“This isn’t being used to track anyone,” he said. “Someone modified it to carry information.”
I stared at Biscuit. Mom had hidden something important inside my sister’s favorite toy. And she had made sure we would take it with us.
“She knew,” I whispered.
Everett leaned closer.
“Knew what?”
“That something might happen. That’s why she wanted us to keep Biscuit.”
Poppy tugged at my sleeve and asked whether Biscuit was hurt. I told her he was going to be fine, and Russell gently sewed the seam closed with a few quick stitches from a travel kit he happened to carry.
Everett promised that nobody would examine the chip without proper security precautions.
But the moment we landed and the seat-belt sign switched off, Russell’s phone began to buzz. He listened for a long time, and his face gave nothing away.
When he finally lowered the phone, he looked at me, then at Everett.
Rosalie Whitcomb was waiting at the airport. And she had a message from my mother.
“Tell Wesley not to trust anyone who says the black devices belong to Everett Blackwood.”
I turned slowly toward Everett.
He looked just as shocked as I felt.
