Chapter 6 - THE CHILD WHO HAD BEEN HIDDEN TWICE
Arthur didn't shout.
That frightened me more.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
Daniel lowered his voice.
“She left school Friday afternoon. Never reached the children's home.”
Mom pushed herself upright.
“Did Margaret call police?”
“Yes.”
Arthur looked surprised.
“So this wasn't hidden.”
“No. There's an active missing-child investigation.”
That changed the room.
Arthur's anger became something colder.
Focused.
“Then we do not interfere with the police.”
Daniel nodded.
Mom looked at him.
“You?”
Arthur understood the question.
“You think because of what people say about me, I can't recognize when a missing child needs legitimate help?”
“I think you spent most of your life solving problems your own way.”
Arthur accepted that.
“Then consider this me learning.”
He turned to Daniel.
“Everything we know goes to the detective assigned to Emily.”
Daniel left.
I stared at the photograph.
Nine years old.
Only one year older than me.
“What if she's scared?”
Mom touched my hair.
“She probably is.”
“What if nobody brings her food?”
Arthur looked at me.
Something tightened in his face.
“We'll find her.”
“You said that like a promise.”
“It is.”
Mom looked at him sharply.
“Don't promise children things you can't control.”
Arthur nodded.
“You're right.”
Then he looked at me again.
“I promise we won't stop trying.”
That answer, somehow, I trusted more.
By evening, a detective came to the hospital.
Detective Rosa Martinez.
She was short, maybe fifty, with gray beginning at her temples and a voice that made adults stop talking over each other.
She questioned Mom.
Arthur.
Daniel.
Then me.
“Did you ever see Emily before?”
“No.”
“Anything in the photographs seem familiar?”
I looked again.
The bracelet.
The rosary.
The children's home.
Nothing.
Then I noticed the background.
A wall.
Children's drawings taped everywhere.
One drawing showed a red brick building with a blue door.
Above it, somebody had drawn a silver clock.
“I know that place.”
Everyone looked at me.
Detective Martinez moved closer.
“From where?”
“The bus.”
“What bus?”
“The city bus. Sometimes Mom takes me when we go to the free clinic.”
Mom frowned.
“Ivy...”
“The building is near the old train tracks.”
Martinez enlarged the photograph.
Arthur leaned in.
“The clock.”
Daniel nodded.
“It's not a clock. It's the old Sterling & Sons emblem.”
Mom stared at him.
“My grandfather's factory.”
Arthur looked at her.
“You told me that burned down.”
“Part of it did.”
Daniel checked something on his phone.
“The west warehouse survived.”
Detective Martinez held up a hand.
“No one goes there except police.”
Arthur nodded immediately.
Mom noticed.
So did I.
Martinez made calls.
Forty minutes later, her phone rang.
Everyone watched her.
She listened.
Her expression changed.
“She's there.”
Mom covered her mouth.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Arthur closed his eyes briefly.
Martinez wasn't finished.
“But she's refusing to come out.”
“Why?” I asked.
The detective hesitated.
“She says someone told her police would return her to Margaret.”
Arthur looked at her.
“And she doesn't want that.”
“No.”
Mom frowned.
“Margaret raised her.”
“Apparently Emily is terrified of her.”
I looked at the drawing.
“Can I talk to her?”
“No,” Mom and Arthur said together.
I looked at both of them.
Detective Martinez surprised us.
“Maybe.”
Mom stared.
“She's eight.”
“I know.”
“Absolutely not.”
Martinez remained calm.
“Emily won't approach officers. But she asked whether the barefoot girl was there.”
My heart kicked.
“The barefoot girl?”
Martinez nodded.
“That's what she called Ivy.”
Arthur's eyes narrowed.
“How does she know about Ivy?”
Nobody had an answer.
Twenty minutes later, Martinez showed me a police photograph taken outside the warehouse.
On the dusty window, written with one finger, were four words.
BRING THE BAREFOOT GIRL.
Mom turned white.
“She knows my daughter.”
Arthur shook his head.
“Or knows about her.”
They argued for ten minutes.
Finally, Martinez proposed something safer.
I could speak to Emily from inside a police car using a loudspeaker.
I wouldn't go near the building.
Mom hated it.
Arthur hated it.
I said yes.
We drove there together.
The warehouse stood beside rusty tracks and dead weeds.
The brick walls were blackened from an old fire.
Police cars surrounded it.
I sat between Mom and Arthur inside Detective Martinez's car.
She handed me a microphone.
“What do I say?”
“Whatever feels natural.”
I swallowed.
“Emily?”
Nothing.
“I'm Ivy.”
Still nothing.
“I was barefoot because my shoes had holes.”
Arthur looked away.
“I don't know if that's why you called me that.”
A small movement appeared behind an upstairs window.
“I have baby brothers. They're really loud.”
Mom squeezed my hand.
“I don't know you. But... you can come out if you want.”
Silence.
Then a child's voice came through a broken upper window.
“Did he follow you?”
I looked at Arthur.
“Who?”
“The man in the coat.”
Arthur froze.
Mom did too.
I pressed the microphone.
“Arthur?”
Emily appeared at the window.
Dark hair.
Pale face.
Gray eyes.
Even from far away, I saw it.
Evelyn's eyes.
“Yes,” she called.
“Did Arthur Pendelton follow you home?”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
Emily began crying.
“Then it worked.”
Arthur leaned toward the microphone.
“What worked?”
Emily disappeared from the window.
Seconds later, the warehouse door opened.
She walked out holding something against her chest.
Police approached slowly.
She refused to hand the object to anyone.
Not until she saw Arthur.
Then she held it out.
A small music box.
Silver.
Three stars engraved on the lid.
Arthur took it.
His hands shook.
Emily whispered, “My mother said if Margaret ever got scared, I should find the barefoot girl.”
Mom stepped closer.
“Your mother?”
Emily looked at her.
“She said her name was Evelyn.”
Arthur's face broke.
“You remember her?”
Emily shook her head.
“No.”
Then she pointed at the music box.
“She recorded herself.”
Arthur opened it.
The melody played first.
Soft.
Then an old woman's voice crackled from inside.
No.
Not an old woman's.
Evelyn's.
“Arthur, if you're hearing this, Claire finally found you.”
Mom began to cry.
May you like
The recording continued.
“And if Emily is standing beside you, then Margaret has already lied to all of us again.”
