Chapter 9 - THE GIRL CALLED EMILY
Pike's SUV was found beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Empty.
Hannah's phone was smashed on the passenger floor.
Grant stood beside the car listening to police radios and rain.
He had never hated darkness more.
Then Daniel's phone rang.
Hannah.
Her voice was controlled.
Too controlled.
"We're okay."
Grant stepped away from the detectives.
"Where are you?"
"I don't know. Pike took us to a house. Then someone else arrived."
A pause.
"Lucy bit him."
Grant almost laughed despite himself.
"Good."
Hannah whispered, "There's a girl here. Older. Maybe nine."
Grant's breath stopped.
"Name?"
"They call her Emily."
"Talk to her."
Hannah moved quietly.
Then another voice came through the phone.
A child's voice.
Older than Emma had been.
Soft.
"Hello?"
Grant could not speak.
Five years erased sound but not memory.
He remembered Emma singing wrong words to nursery songs.
He remembered her saying Daddy with a tiny whistle because of a missing tooth.
"Emily," Hannah said gently, "this is Grant."
The girl went silent.
Then she whispered, "I know that name."
Grant's knees weakened.
"From where?"
"Dreams."
Behind her, a door opened.
Hannah breathed, "Someone's coming."
The call ended.
Police traced it to a rural area north of Stamford.
Daniel got an address tied to North Light.
An old recovery house.
Grant insisted on going.
Voss caught him near the car.
"Your eyes are unstable."
"My daughter may be in that house."
"And if you get killed, that helps her how?"
Grant stopped.
She pressed protective glasses into his hand.
"Then stay behind the team."
At the property, police found one locked bedroom.
Inside was Lucy's yellow flashlight.
No Hannah.
No Emily.
On the wall, written in purple crayon, were three words.
DADDY LIKES TRAINS.
Grant covered his mouth.
May you like
Emma had loved trains because he did.
No one at Saint Arden could have known that.
