—Stay here—I told Rosa.
“Lock this door from the inside, along with the dresser, after I leave. If anyone other than me or the police knocks on the door, don’t open it.”
She seemed horrified that I would leave even for a moment, and I understood because I was horrified too, but the guest room now existed like a scream.
I took the heavy brass lamp from the dresser, kissed Noah’s forehead, then Mason’s, then Eli’s, and promised I would be back before they finished counting to ten.
That was a lie.
Every promise of protection made in a crisis is, at least in part, a lie, but children need the form of certainty even when adults can only offer movement.
The outside hallway felt colder than the baby’s room, even though the thermostat was set to a high temperature and the house normally retained heat like an airtight greenhouse.
The guest room door was closed but not locked, and behind it there was a slight creak and a sound that made my hair stand on end.
A cough.
Weak, dry, desperate.
I pushed open the door and found the room dark, except for the bathroom light, which cast a pale yellow band across the carpet.
At first I thought the figure in the bed was buried under the blankets.
Then the figure moved and tried to sit up, and I saw that it was a woman with tape around one ankle and bruises running up her throat.
She was haggard, barefoot, wearing one of Vanessa’s old sweatshirts, and her face was so sunken in with fear that it took me a second longer to recognize her.
That’s when I met her.
Tessa.
Vanessa’s younger sister.
He had disappeared nine months earlier.
Officially, according to Vanessa and her parents, she had gone to Oregon to undergo rehabilitation and “take a break” after a nervous breakdown that made it impossible to contact her family.
Unofficially, I hadn’t believed any of it at all, but like everyone else, I accepted the explanation because there was always some refined adult willing to repeat it.
Now Tessa was in my guest room, barely conscious, staring at me as if she didn’t trust the rescue enough to believe my face was real.
“Water,” he whispered hoarsely.
I dropped the lamp, ran to the bathroom, filled a cup, and brought it to her lips as all the theories I had about Vanessa’s cruelty gained strength.
Tessa drank too fast, coughed, trembled, and grabbed my wrist with surprising strength.
“You have to get them out,” he whispered.
“He said he would bring the newspapers tonight.”
“What papers?” I asked, though a part of me already knew that anything involving Vanessa, a strange man, and hidden prisoners had nothing to do with innocent paperwork.
