Chapter 8 - The Girl Who Heard Too Much
We reached the house in six minutes.
It felt like sixty.
Marco's men entered through three doors at once. I went through the front with Luca beside me.
"Sophie!" Elena's voice echoed from upstairs.
I ran toward it.
Two guards lay unconscious near the east stairwell, both breathing. Someone had hit them with a stun weapon and taken their radios.
In the nursery hallway, Elena stood barefoot with Nora in her arms and Theo strapped against her chest. Miles cried from a portable bassinet.
"Sophie is gone."
The sentence nearly stopped my heart.
"Where was she?"
"Downstairs playroom. Rosa says the lights went out for maybe ten seconds. When they came back, Sophie wasn't there."
Marco's face changed.
"Seal the property. Nobody leaves."
A crash came from below us.
We ran.
The playroom window stood open, curtains moving in the rain.
On the rug lay Sophie's ugly handmade doll.
One button eye had torn loose.
Elena made a sound I never wanted to hear from another parent.
Then Marco pointed at the floor.
Small wet footprints led toward the window.
Beside them were larger shoe prints.
"They took her outside."
I picked up the doll.
Something hard rattled inside it.
"Elena, did this always make noise?"
She shook her head.
I tore open a seam.
A tiny plastic recorder fell into my palm.
Elena stared. "What is that?"
Sophie had been carrying the doll all night.
She had carried it into the nursery.
Into my office.
Near every conversation.
For one horrifying second I thought somebody had planted a microphone on her.
Then Marco pressed play.
Sophie's own voice came through.
"Mommy says if I'm scared, I can tell Button things."
A pause.
Then: "The wall man smells like Grandpa's orange soap."
Marco looked at me.
Sophie had recorded herself.
More whispers followed.
"He has shiny shoes. He has a bird on his coat. He says bad words when the door gets stuck."
A bird pin.
I knew exactly one man who wore a silver hawk on his lapel to every meeting.
Graham Bennett.
Our family attorney.
Luca swore.
"Bennett was at dinner here Sunday."
Marco checked the property map. "His car tag is still registered at the gate from that visit. If someone cloned the access token -"
A guard shouted from the terrace.
We ran outside.
Near the hedge, one of Marco's men was kneeling beside a tiny yellow shoe.
Sophie's.
Beyond the hedge, the ground dropped toward an old greenhouse.
The greenhouse door was open.
I heard a child crying inside.
Elena started forward.
Marco caught her arm.
"Wait."
I did not.
I kicked the greenhouse door open.
Sophie sat on the floor behind a potting bench, soaked and shaking.
Alone.
I dropped beside her.
"Are you hurt?"
She threw both arms around my neck.
"He left when I bit him."
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
"Good girl."
Then she pulled back and whispered, "It wasn't the bird man."
My relief vanished.
"What?"
"The man who grabbed me didn't have the bird."
"Did you see his face?"
She nodded.
Then she pointed past my shoulder.
"He's right there."
I turned.
May you like
A man stood in the greenhouse doorway holding a gun.
Dr. Gable.
