Chapter 10
I left the detention center with another child’s name burning through my skull.
Ellie.
Vanessa’s daughter.
Not mine.
Not, according to Vanessa, safe.
Julian did not believe her at first.
“She could be creating leverage.”
Detective Ramirez agreed.
“Or bait.”
I understood.
I did.
But I had seen Nora’s hand through a vent.
I had seen Maya’s bruises.
I had seen Ethan stand between violence and his sister.
If there was even a chance another child was being held by Eleanor, we had to move.
Vanessa gave an address.
An old farmhouse in Vermont under one of Eleanor’s shell companies.
Police raided it at dawn.
No Eleanor.
No Silas.
But there was a child’s room.
Pink blanket.
Small shoes.
A school workbook with the name Ellie Cross printed in careful letters.
Age five.
There was also a locked closet with scratch marks inside the door.
I stopped breathing when Ramirez sent the photos.
Maya was eating cereal beside me.
She saw my face.
“Another kid?”
I nodded slowly.
She pushed her bowl away.
“Then go get her.”
Ethan looked up.
“We can stay with Uncle Julian.”
I wanted to tell them they should not understand this.
But they did.
Because cruelty had made them fluent in danger.
“I will come back,” I said.
Ethan nodded.
“Bring her too.”
The search for Ellie lasted thirty-six hours.
The longest thirty-six hours of my life.
They found Silas first.
Driving north near the Canadian border.
He had a gun.
He had cash.
He did not have Ellie.
He talked after six hours.
Eleanor had taken the girl to a private cabin near Lake Willoughby.
“Why?” Ramirez asked.
Silas shrugged.
“Insurance.”
Insurance.
A child.
By midnight, police surrounded the cabin.
Eleanor came out holding Ellie in front of her.
The little girl was barefoot in the snow.
Maya’s voice echoed in my memory.
Doors let bad people in.
This time, the door opened.
A tactical officer pulled Ellie away.
Eleanor was taken down before she could run.
When Ramirez called, I could barely hear him over my own heartbeat.
“She’s alive.”
I closed my eyes.
Then I knocked twice on the kitchen table.
Maya answered twice.
May you like
Ethan answered once.
Together, we waited for another child to come home.
