Chapter 9 - Elsie
Deputy Torres treated the message as urgent but warned the family not to turn fear into rumors. The child's mother, Hannah Bell, had already reported that Derek failed to return Elsie after a scheduled visit. Hannah had legal custody. The police were working with the appropriate agencies to locate the child.
Ryan sat beside Evelyn at the station. "I thought Mom's locked door was the whole problem," he said.
"It was the only problem we could see," Evelyn replied.
Hannah arrived in a green sweater with sleeves stretched over her hands. She recognized Derek from the photograph and nearly fell when she saw Elsie beside the notebooks.
"She hates it when people argue," Hannah whispered. "She hides her ears and counts backward from twenty."
Evelyn moved closer. "We're going to give the police everything we have."
Hannah looked at her. "You don't even know us."
"I know what it feels like to wait for a call you can't make happen."
Torres obtained another lead from a gas-station camera: Derek's sedan had turned north toward a shuttered lakeside motel. Officers went to check it. Nobody asked the family to follow.
Natalie sat alone in the hallway. She had shown Derek the house layout, the basement entrance, and Mara's address. She had handed him a map of their lives and called it a solution.
Ryan approached. "The deputy wants your phone."
"Will I be arrested?"
"I don't know."
"Do you hate me?"
He sat down, leaving an empty chair between them. "I don't know how to answer that today."
She nodded, somehow understanding that uncertainty was a consequence too.
Evelyn received a call from her sister June. "There's a man outside my house," June said. "He asked if you were staying here."
"Don't open the door," Evelyn told her.
June hesitated. "He left something on the porch. A little red hat."
May you like
Evelyn stood so abruptly her chair scraped the floor.
Then June whispered, "There's a note pinned to it. It says Paul promised."
