Chương 4
Yet Sophie had somehow remained absent from my life and possibly absent from other systems that should have noticed her.
“What address is on her birth certificate?”
Bell’s expression shifted.
“You saw the certificate?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know it’s not a current record of residence.”
“I’m asking what city.”
He waited.
I heard my own tone and hated it.
The old social worker had walked into the room and started interrogating the man responsible for helping my granddaughter.
“Sorry.”
Bell nodded.
“Marissa’s address at the time of birth was Salem.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Is she alive?”
“We’re working on it.”
I looked away.
The answer was not reassuring.
A nurse came for me ten minutes later.
Sophie lay propped in a hospital bed wearing a gown covered in tiny blue stars.
Someone had cleaned dirt from her face.
Without the attic shadows, she looked even younger.
The stuffed rabbit rested under her chin.
One ear had been stitched with black thread.
“Hi,” I said.
She looked at my coffee stain.
“What happened to your pants?”
“Coffee emergency.”
She considered this seriously.
“Did you spill it?”
“Rosa says I attacked the cup.”
From the corner, Rosa said, “The cup lost.”
Sophie’s mouth moved.
Not quite a smile, but close.
I sat in the chair beside her bed.
“Are you hurting anywhere?”
The nurse answered before Sophie had to.
“She’s doing okay.”
Sophie picked at the rabbit’s stitched ear.
“Are the police mad at Daddy?”
I chose my words slowly.
“The police need to ask your daddy questions.”
“He gets mad when people ask too many.”
That sentence carried the plain certainty of experience.
“Does he?”
She nodded.
“He says questions make trouble.”
Rosa turned toward the window.
I kept my hands flat on my knees.
“What did he tell you before he left?”
Sophie’s eyes went to the doorway.
“He said not to tell.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
Her fingers stopped picking at the rabbit.
“The man said I have to tell the truth.”
“Who?”
“The man with the tie.”
“Aaron?”
She nodded.
“You can tell Aaron when you’re ready.”
“What if the truth makes Daddy go away?”
I had no useful professional answer.
All the approved language from my old career felt hollow when the child asking belonged to me.
So I gave her the smallest truth I had.
“What your daddy does after the truth is not your responsibility.”
She looked down.
“Mommy used to say that.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Marissa?”
Sophie frowned at the name.
“My mommy.”
“Is your mommy Marissa?”
A longer pause.
Then she nodded.
“Where is she?”
Sophie pulled the blanket higher.
“At the sleeping place.”
I did not ask what that meant.
The nurse had warned me not to conduct an interview, and Bell had warned me not to investigate.
For once, fear helped me obey.
Sophie looked at the rabbit.
“Daddy came to get me after Mommy went to sleep.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
“He said we were going to his house.”
She glanced toward the door again.
“But the shiny lady didn’t like me.”
“The shiny lady?”
“The one with the gold shoes.”
Trisha.
Even in family photographs, Trisha dressed as though someone might unexpectedly photograph her for a magazine.
“What did she say?”
Sophie’s shoulders rose.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“She said I wasn’t supposed to be real.”
The nurse stopped writing.
I felt my fingernails press into my palms.
Sophie continued because children sometimes released terrible things once adults stopped pulling.
“She said Daddy promised.”
“What did Daddy say?”
“He told her it was only for two days.”
My throat tightened.
“Two days until what?”
Sophie looked genuinely confused.
“Until the boat.”
The word sat strangely in the room.
Rosa turned from the window.
“The boat?”
Sophie nodded.
“Daddy said a man was coming on a boat.”
The nurse and I exchanged a glance.
I did not ask another question.
I called Detective Park from the hallway.
She answered on the second ring.
“Sophie mentioned a boat,” I said.
“What kind of boat?”
“She doesn’t know.”
I told her exactly what Sophie had said and nothing more.
Park was silent for several seconds.
Then she asked, “Did Dennis ever own a boat?”
“No.”
“Did Marissa?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Any marinas, fishing businesses, shipping companies, friends with boats?”
“No.”
I nearly said Dennis hated the water, but then remembered he was currently in Hawaii.
People changed selectively.
Park said, “Don’t ask Sophie more about it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Good.”
Her voice softened slightly.
“We found something else in the security archive.”
“What?”
“A vehicle came to the house Monday at 11:08 p.m.”
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What kind?”
“A dark pickup.”
“Did someone go inside?”
“No.”
The hallway seemed suddenly too bright.
“What happened?”
“Dennis came outside and spoke to the driver for about four minutes.”
“Can you see the driver?”
“Not clearly.”
“And then?”
“The truck left.”
I leaned against the wall.
“Sophie said a man was coming on a boat.”
“I heard you.”
“You think it’s connected?”
“I think we don’t know enough yet.”
I closed my eyes.
“What was Dennis doing with Sophie?”
“That’s what we’re trying to establish.”
When I returned to the room, Sophie had fallen asleep.
Her hand rested on the rabbit.
Rosa sat beside the bed reading a gardening magazine upside down.
I turned it around.
She looked at the cover.
“I wondered why the tomatoes looked strange.”
I sat beside her.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
A cart rattled down the hallway.
Someone laughed at the nurses’ station.
An infant began crying two rooms away and stopped almost immediately.
The world continued with an indecency that was also comforting.
Then Aaron Bell entered carrying his tablet and a paper folder.
His face had changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
May you like
He closed the door behind him.
“We located Marissa Cole,” he said.
