Chapter 2 - The Child Nobody Mentioned)
By the time Officer Daniels told me another child had made the emergency call, I had stopped thinking about leaving quickly.
I wanted Lily out of the house.
But I also needed to understand what had happened before Evelyn and Melissa could coordinate their stories.
I stood with Lily still clinging to me.
“Another child was here?”
Officer Daniels hesitated.
“I can only tell you what dispatch communicated to us. The caller sounded young.”
“How young?”
“Possibly elementary-school age.”
I looked at my mother.
“Who else was here?”
“No one.”
The answer came too fast.
Melissa rubbed the side of her neck.
Officer Daniels noticed.
So did I.
“Melissa?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
My mother became louder.
“There was no other child.”
The younger officer, whose name tag read Ruiz, stepped in from the hallway.
“Daniels.”
Something in his tone made everyone look at him.
He held a small object sealed inside a clear evidence bag.
A red plastic bracelet.
Cheap.
Child-sized.
There was a cartoon fox printed on it.
Lily lifted her head.
“I know that.”
The room went silent.
I looked down.
“You know this bracelet?”
She nodded.
“Ben had it.”
Melissa closed her eyes.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
“Who’s Ben?” I asked.
Lily looked confused by the question.
“The boy.”
My mother stepped forward.
“Lily is tired.”
Officer Daniels raised a hand.
“Ma’am, please let her mother speak with her.”
Evelyn stopped.
I kept my voice gentle.
“What boy, sweetheart?”
“The boy upstairs.”
Melissa suddenly walked toward the kitchen.
Officer Ruiz blocked her path without touching her.
“Please stay in the living room for now.”
“I’m getting water.”
“We’ll get some for you.”
Melissa stared at him.
Her expression became hard.
There it was.
The same expression she used as a teenager whenever someone had come too close to a secret.
I turned back to Lily.
“Did you play with Ben?”
“A little.”
“When did he come here?”
“He was already here.”
My throat tightened.
Already here.
Before we arrived?
I remembered Melissa’s question.
Did you tell her?
“Where was he?”
“In Aunt Melissa’s old room.”
The room at the end of the upstairs hallway.
Melissa’s childhood bedroom.
Now supposedly used for storage.
“Why was he in there?”
Lily looked toward Melissa, then pressed her lips together.
That was not normal for her.
Lily usually answered questions before people finished asking them.
“Sweetheart?”
Her whisper was barely audible.
“Aunt Melissa said I wasn’t supposed to tell.”
Officer Daniels glanced at me.
I felt something inside my chest turn to ice.
“Why?”
Lily shook her head.
“Okay. You don’t have to answer right now.”
That mattered.
I did not want to interrogate my five-year-old in front of people who frightened her.
I looked at Daniels.
“Can I take her home?”
“Yes, but we’ll need to follow up.”
“And this house?”
His eyes shifted.
“That’s being handled.”
My mother laughed sharply.
“Handled? Over what? A child having a tantrum?”
I looked at her.
“Did you hit Lily?”
“No.”
Lily stiffened.
Evelyn saw it.
So did everyone else.
My mother corrected herself.
“I tapped her cheek.”
My hands tightened around Lily.
“How hard?”
“It wasn’t hard.”
“Why?”
“She was being disrespectful.”
Lily began crying again.
I stood.
“That’s enough.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Turn everything into a catastrophe.”
I stared at the woman who had taught me from childhood that pain only counted if she personally considered it serious.
“No. I spent thirty-five years doing the opposite.”
She blinked.
“I spent thirty-five years making your behavior smaller so this family could keep pretending it was normal.”
Melissa muttered, “Please don’t start your therapy speech.”
I turned toward her.
“Where is Ben?”
Her face changed.
That question frightened her more than anything I had said.
“I don’t know.”
“Who is he?”
“Natalie.”
“Who is he?”
Melissa looked at Officer Daniels.
Then at Ruiz.
Then at our mother.
Evelyn gave her a tiny shake of the head.
I saw it.
So did Daniels.
He wrote something in his notebook.
Melissa exhaled.
“He’s a friend’s son.”
“What friend?”
“No one you know.”
“Why was he upstairs?”
“My friend had an emergency.”
“What kind?”
“It’s personal.”
“Where is he now?”
Silence.
Officer Ruiz answered instead.
“We haven’t located another child inside the house.”
I stared at him.
“You searched?”
“Initial safety sweep.”
“Then where did he go?”
No one answered.
Lily whispered against me.
“The lady took him.”
Melissa went pale.
I looked down.
“What lady?”
“The lady with the blue car.”
I remembered no blue car when I arrived.
Officer Daniels crouched several feet away, careful not to crowd Lily.
“Lily, did you see the lady?”
Lily nodded.
“She was mad.”
“What did she say?”
Lily frowned as if trying to remember.
“She told Aunt Melissa, ‘You promised he would be gone before Natalie came.’”
My heart stopped.
Melissa stared at Lily.
Not angry.
Terrified.
Officer Daniels stood.
“Ms. Harper,” he said to my sister, “I think we need to talk privately.”
Melissa looked toward the stairs.
And at that exact moment, a phone began ringing somewhere above us.
Not Melissa’s phone.
Not mine.
A different ringtone.
Three slow chimes.
Melissa whispered, “No.”
Officer Ruiz moved first.
The ringing continued.
May you like
Upstairs.
From the bedroom where Lily said the mysterious boy had been hidden.
