Chapter 5 - The Blue Backpack

Ben forced his fear into a sequence of questions.

"Car?"

"White minivan, dirt over the plate. Heading east. Eli walked toward her before I could stop him. She said 'three knocks, two' through the window. I went to intercept, and the van took off."

Tessa's voice shook with anger at herself. Ben would make room for that later. Now he called in a suspected child abduction with a vehicle description and last direction. He requested nearby traffic cameras and urged dispatch to contact school crossing guards.

Nora braced herself against the doorframe. "My sister's name is Leah. But she cannot be here."

"Why not?"

"She disappeared when we were teenagers. Our father told the police she ran away. Then he told us she had died. I found the real file this year."

Ben knelt by the backpack. One zipper was open. Inside were a reading workbook, crayons, a squashed granola bar, and an envelope with his name written in unsteady block letters: FOR THE NICE POLICEMAN.

The envelope contained a drawing. Eli had sketched the house with a dark square beneath the kitchen and a line leading to the red shed next door. Underneath, a single sentence: Mom says the truth has to go outside.

"He gave you this?" Nora whispered.

"He prepared it before I arrived."

Nora closed her eyes. "I told him if anything strange happened, find a grown-up who asks questions instead of giving orders. I didn't think he'd have to use it."

Ben studied the drawn line. It ended at a shed owned by an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Bell. Eli had drawn a key hanging from a yellow ribbon above its door.

Tessa's radio crackled. A crossing guard had seen a white minivan at the intersection near the library. It turned toward the abandoned Riverside clinic.

"That's where the county stored records after the flood," Nora said.

"Are you certain?"

"I saw Vale there last Thursday."

Ben stood. "Get Nora to the hospital. Keep an officer with her. I'll follow the lead."

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Nora grabbed his sleeve.

"If Leah is in that van, she might be helping them," she said. "Or she might be the only reason my boy is alive.