Chapter 10 - The House Without a Street Number

Forty miles outside Providence, Elise Ward counted footsteps in the hallway of a shuttered summer house. Her right ankle was swollen. Her lips were cracked. But her mind had remained painfully clear through thirty-nine days of being told that no one was looking for her.

Pines concealed the driveway, and sheets covered the windows. Elise knew the heater's rattle, the back door's latch, and the difference between Kent's boots and the lighter steps of the woman who brought food.

This morning she had escaped through a narrow laundry hatch while Kent argued on the phone. She had walked until a delivery driver gave her a ride into the city. Then she went straight to the Bellwether, where she believed Simone's public wedding would protect her from being harmed in front of witnesses.

She had been wrong.

Kent found her at the hotel before she reached the ballroom. He pushed her into a dressing suite and said, "One noise, and your little girl goes into the service lift next."

Elise made noise anyway. She had heard Poppy outside the door, heard the secret knock, and nearly broken her fingers answering it. Then Kent pulled her through the service hatch and loaded her into a laundry truck while the guests screamed upstairs.

Now he had returned her to the summer house. He didn't tie her hands; the bruises from the morning made that unnecessary. He locked the bedroom door and stood outside talking into his phone.

"The kid had the card," he said. "The cops have it now."

A pause.

"No, I don't know how much is on it. Ask Carver."

Elise closed her eyes. Her careful hiding place had worked. Poppy had carried the memory card through dozens of ordinary mornings and one terrible wedding day.

Kent's voice sharpened. "I can't keep her here. Not with every cop in Rhode Island looking for the girl."

Elise stepped to the window. Through the trees, she could see an unlit boathouse and a strip of black water. On the sill lay a rusty screw she'd loosened with the edge of a spoon. One more turn would free the old window latch.

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Then another voice came from the hall, soft and unmistakable.

"You can stop pretending you're brave, Elise," Simone said. "Your daughter is coming here tonight."