“Where are we going?” she’d asked, over and over. “This is our house.”
Her seven-year-old mind couldn’t grasp the concept of living anywhere else. She knew what death was—we’d been through that conversation with her when the old family cat had passed away a year before—but somehow, she couldn’t apply the notion to Mom and Dad. It didn’t compute, and for months after, she continually asked me when our parents were coming home.
I walked like a ghost through the old house, expecting every familiar aspect of it to trigger some kind of intense emotional reaction in me. Maybe that was why it didn’t happen. The wood floor creaked under my sneakers in the living room in the same way that it had when I was a child. The faucet in the downstairs bathroom still leaked. On the second floor, the master bedroom closet smelled faintly of the cedar balls my mother used to protect her expensive linens. My old bedroom belonged to the baby now. It was painted pale pink. There was a crib in the corner, over which spun a generic pastel-colored baby mobile. A diaper table had replaced my twin bed. The big windows, which faced east toward the front yard, were covered with blackout curtains, which seemed like such a waste. One of the reasons I’d loved my room so much was because the sun woke me up first thing in the morning. I’d never needed an alarm clock.
It was Holly’s room that reminded me of why I was there. It was the one room in the house that had been altered the least. The light blue walls were close to the color of Holly’s eyes, and the bunk bed by the window was nearly identical to the one we used to share when we both lived at the Millers’ house. Instinctively, my mind reached out to Holly. Somehow, over the course of the last week, the strange feeling of my little sister in my head had morphed into something that I needed to nourish. The mental connection between me and Holly was just as important as the blood we shared in our veins, maybe more. But, like last night, Holly was barely there. I strained to push through the invisible barriers that separated her mind from my own, but I could only do so much. Holly had to reach out too, and if her silence was any indication, she was in no position to do so. I had to work faster.
I combed the house from top to bottom, keeping an eye on the driveway through the windows just in case the new residents decided to return. It took over an hour to go through every closet, drawer, and hiding place on each floor. I came up sweaty, frustrated, and empty-handed. The postcard mocked me from my pocket, the folded corners digging into my hip. I took it out again and studied Holly’s handwriting, hoping that I’d missed a clue before.
We got you a Christmas present. Remember Noemie?
The wording didn’t make any sense. It was the end of spring. What kind of Christmas present arrived when summer was just around the corner? Then it hit me. It didn’t matter what time of year it was. What mattered was the Dubois family tradition of opening our presents at midnight on Christmas Eve. Holly’s message was a hint in itself. We had always opened our presents under the twinkling tree, which we’d always put up in the corner of the basement closest to the walkout so that we could see the lights from the backyard. I had to go back to where I’d started my investigation.
I returned to the level below ground, my sneakers thundering against the creaky basement steps. Of course, the corner by the walkout was piled high with junk. With three kids, the young couple who lived here now was probably too busy to tend to the growing storage situation in the basement. With a groan, I set to work clearing the clutter, trying to keep a mental image of where everything had been. I would need to rebuild the pyramid of disorder after I’d finished looking for whatever the postcard sender had left behind, a task that felt more daunting than the one I faced now.
At the very bottom of the heap, tucked between a broken television set and the baseboard, I found a shoebox. Usually, such a common household item would not stop my breath, but the faded, water-damaged logo called to mind a different time in my life. The box once held my favorite brand of softball cleats before the car crash had broken my collarbone, ruined my shoulder, and ended my athletic career. Gingerly, I lifted the lid. The box was chock full of photos, ones that had once hung in frames on the walls of the house. Here were my eight-by-ten school pictures from preschool all the way up to tenth grade. Here were the team photos of the Belle Dame High Junior Varsity Fastpitch girls, where Autumn and I stood side by side in each one. There were photos of my mom and dad’s wedding, Holly’s fifth birthday party, and Aunt Ani’s final day of medical residency for UNC Hospitals. The shoebox was a celebration of the Dubois family, and it had been sitting here in the basement of our house, forgotten for ten years.
One photo faced the opposite direction than the rest, folded in half so that only the white reverse side was visible. I plucked it free and flattened it out. It was a picture of me and Holly, jumping off the second tier of a boat dock and into the lake below. The lake was not far from our neighborhood. It was where most families in Belle Dame spent hot summer days, desperate for a way to cool off under the North Carolina sun. Holly was small, maybe four or five, dwarfed by a neon green life jacket. She’d been scared at first. The dock was a good ten or twelve feet up, an intense distance for some kids. But eventually she had taken my hand, sprinted toward the end, and leapt off. I remembered plunging into the water, wishing that I could bottle Holly’s bravery and keep it with me for when I was feeling meek. Even then, Holly was courageous and resilient. After that first jump, we couldn’t keep her off the dock for more than a few minutes. She circled round and round, squealing with joy as she splashed into the water below, until the afternoon thunderstorms rolled in and forced us to the covered area with the picnic tables near the boat ramp.
Like with the postcards, a message was scrawled on the back of the photo in Holly’s handwriting. If there was one good thing about these messages, it was seeing proof that Holly was alive, or at least she had been when she’d written out these clues for me.
Better hurry, the message read. She’s running out of air.
Panic bloomed like a poisonous flower in my lungs. I fumbled for my phone, my fingers trembling against the screen as I clicked on Mac’s contact information and pressed the call button.
“Yeah?” Mac sounded distracted. A copy machine beeped and muted conversations buzzed in the background of the call. “Bridget, what’s up?”
“I need a ride out to the lake,” I said.
“I told you I’m on duty—”
Overhead, a door slammed.
“Shit!” I set the shoebox aside and started re-stacking the junk in the corner of the basement as quietly as possible.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Her voice was garbled, as if she’d placed a hand over her mouth to keep the sound from traveling to the other cops at the station. “Don’t tell me someone caught you at that house.”
“Not yet,” I griped, listening to a set of footsteps cross right over my head. “Someone just came home.”
“Bridget!”
“Can you not scold me?” I asked, balancing an ancient dollhouse on the top of the pile. “Listen to me, Mac. I found something here. I think Noemie’s in trouble. Hell, she might already be dead. We need to get out to the lake—no!”
The dollhouse toppled over, tumbling off the junk pile in what felt like slow motion. I dove, desperate to catch it, but it eluded my grasp and fell to the floor with an earsplitting crash. My phone flew out of my hand and skittered across the room. Above, the footsteps halted. The basement door creaked open at the top of the stairs.
I crawled across the floor on my hands and knees, grabbed the phone, and scrambled to hide behind the washing machine just as someone flicked on the basement light from the staircase.
“Bridget?” The grainy sound of Mac’s voice through the phone felt as loud as an atomic bomb, even though she wasn’t on speakerphone.
“Shh,” I hushed her, folding my knees up to my chest to make myself as small as possible. “Just shut up for a second.”
“Hello?” a woman’s voice called down the stairs. “Is anyo
ne there?”
She took a tentative step downward, then another and another until she came into view. It was the mom from before, sans children, holding a baseball bat at the ready over her shoulder. I hardly dared to breathe as she inched by, praying that she couldn’t hear the steady beeping of the copy machine at the police station through the cell phone. When she rounded the corner and spotted the fallen dollhouse, her shoulders slumped, and she dropped the baseball bat to the floor with a relieved sigh. She didn’t notice the old shoebox set away from the rest of the mess.
“Damn it, John,” she muttered under her breath, picking up the shattered pieces of the dollhouse. “I told you to clean this stuff up. Ugh. I need the vacuum.”
She left the mess and jogged back upstairs, unaware of my presence. She left the door wide open, and I could hear the wheels of the vacuum cleaner rolling across the floor. If I wanted to make it out of the basement unseen, now was my only chance. I unfolded myself from the space behind the washing machine. My legs cramped up as the blood rushed back to my feet, but I ignored the static tingling and sprinted toward the walkout door, all too aware of the woman’s footsteps descending the staircase once more. I grabbed the shoebox and tucked it under my arm. Then I slipped outside, vaulted up the stairs, and sprinted down the side yard toward the street.
A few blocks down, I remember my ongoing phone call. I set the phone to my ear. “Mac?”
“Still here,” she grumbled.
“Can you pick me up?” I asked her. “I’m on Fortieth Avenue, heading toward the lake. We need to get there as soon as possible.”
“Bridge, if you think that Noemie’s in trouble, then I should really send someone out there right now,” Mac replied. The noise of the station had faded out. “Like a paramedic.”
“Damn it, how many times do we have to have this conversation?” I panted, cutting through someone’s yard. “They’ll keep Noemie alive long enough to screw with me. I can be at the lake park in five minutes if you come get me.”
“Don’t jump that damn fence,” she ordered. “I’m already pulling up behind you.”
Sure enough, Mac’s squad car ambled up the street. I opened the passenger side door before she came to a full stop and lowered myself inside. “Go, go, go. Make a left up there. It’s a shortcut.”
She did as asked. “What did you find?”
I showed her the picture and the message on the back. As soon as she read the threat, she accelerated and pulled a tight turn around the corner of the neighborhood. As the car straightened out, she floored it, shooting away from the more populated side of Belle Dame to plunge into the swampy shadows of the surrounding nature.
“I assume you got out of there unnoticed,” she said tersely as the car hurtled through the trees.
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Relax. I’m not sixteen anymore. I’ve since honed my burglary skills.”
“How reassuring.”
A fallen log blocked our lane ahead. Mac swerved around it, her eyes flashing to where my knuckles were white against the dashboard.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Bridget,” she reassured me.
“God, I hope so. Make a right at that dirt road up there.”
She slowed down to turn onto the narrow road that led to the public boat ramp, and we trundled into the little picnic area that used to be a favorite spot for the locals. The park had fallen out of favor. Now, the wooden tables were covered in green moss and the outdoor grills had rusted over. The concrete that made up the simple boat ramp was cracked in two, and water lapped up to kiss the algae that covered it. The sun had beaten the warm rich color out of the dock, resulting in dull gray wood that looked as though it might crumble off and fall into the lake with one heavy footfall.
“Well?” Mac slammed the door of her cruiser shut and planted her hands on her hips to survey the area. “I don’t see anything. Are you sure this is the place?”
“Dead certain,” I told her, but I held the photograph up to compare it to reality to make sure. The dead and empty park looked nothing like the happy place I recalled from mine and Holly’s childhood adventures.
“Let’s check the water.”
With her hand resting on the gun at her hip, Mac began to sweep the area, starting at the far side of the park. I headed straight to the rickety dock, the toes of my sneakers resting against the first plank of weathered wood.
“Noemie?” I called out, cupping my hands around my mouth to project the sound. “Are you out here?”
No answer. I didn’t expect one. It would’ve been too easy. I stepped onto the dock, testing my weight against each beaten plank before advancing. Mac, noticing my progression, jogged over.
“Are you nuts?” she called from the shore as I jiggled the ladder that led to the upper level of the dock. “That whole thing looks like it’s about to fall over!”
The ladder rocked as I climbed upward, the rotting wood threatening to disengage from where it was held to the second level with a series of rusted nails. I leaned forward, gripping it tighter.
“The message was on the back of a picture of this dock,” I told Mac. “She’s around here somewhere, and I can get a better view of the water from the top level.”
The last three rungs of the ladder were broken so I hoisted myself up the rest of the way, ignoring the bite of splinters against my palms. Mac watched as I walked out to the edge of the dock, shielded my eyes against the sun, and peered into the murky water below.
“Be careful,” she called. “I didn’t plan on going swimming today.”
“Me either,” I muttered.
The sun sparkled off of the lake water and into my eyes. I squinted around, desperately looking for any sign of a struggle. Noemie had to be around here somewhere, but the lake wasn’t giving up its secrets anytime soon.
“Noemie!” I called again. “It’s me, Bridget. Brigitte. Whatever.”
No one replied. A crow cawed overhead, hidden somewhere in the thick Spanish moss that hung between the trees. My pulse beat faster. Was Mac right? Had we come to the wrong place? But then a faint whisper echoed—not from the lake or the park—but from the inside of my mind.
“Jump,” Holly breathed.
I groaned then kicked off my shoes.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mac demanded as I backed up to get a running start. I squeezed my eyes shut, pretending that Holly was standing beside me, just as she had all those years ago. Then I hurtled toward the edge of the dock. “Bridget, no!”
I leapt out over the water and braced myself for impact. The drop itself didn’t scare me. I’d conquered greater jumps off of cliffs and out of planes throughout my years of adrenaline seeking. It was what might lay beneath the surface of the water that sent a cold shiver down my spine. I plunged into the lake, sinking like a stone as my clothes weighed me down.
I opened my eyes, but the green tint of the lake water didn’t have the best visibility, and the bubbles that rose from my displacement didn’t help either. I kicked toward the surface and took a deep breath.
“Are you insane?” Mac yelled at me from the shore.
I ignored her and dove again, this time keeping as still as possible as I scanned the lake floor. There. Beneath the dock. A shadowy figure. I surfaced.
“I think she’s under the dock,” I called to Mac, striking out toward the rickety wood.
Mac followed me along the water’s edge. “Bridget, do not go under there. If you get stuck—”
I ducked under the dock, where there were only four or five inches of air between the underside of the wooden planks and the murky lake water that lapped up the algae-covered support beams. The top of my head scraped against the dock as I fought to keep my nose and mouth above water, but the sight that met my eyes stole my breath anyway. There was a body tied to one of the supports—a dark-haired girl—and I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead.
“Noemie!”
I swam toward her. Sure enough, it wa
s the same girl from that dreadful night at the Paris club, except now her face was pale and green instead of a lively pink. She wasn’t dead though. Not yet. Though her eyes were closed, her fingers clutched the support beam, and her breath rattled in and out between white lips. I seized the nautical rope that kept her bound in place and followed the length of it with my hands. It looped beneath Noemie’s feet, keeping her close enough to the surface to breathe when she no longer had the strength to stay afloat.
“Good girl,” I said, spitting water out of my mouth as I struggled to untie the slippery knot. It slid free, and Noemie immediately sank. I caught her beneath the arms before she disappeared under the water, grunting with effort.
“Bridget!” Mac called. Her boots thumped against the dock overhead. “Damn it, Bridget! Make a noise!”
“I’ve got her!” I called up through the gaps in the planks. “I’m coming up.”
With Noemie in tow, I ducked under the water again to clear the claustrophobic underside of the dock, gasping with relief on the other side. Mac splashed through the water as I swam toward the shore, dragging Noemie along with me. When I reached Mac, she took over, gently lifting Noemie from the lake and carrying her to the cruiser. Trembling, I heaved myself out of the water and followed, collapsing against the open door of the car as Mac laid Noemie in the back seat.
“Is she breathing?” I asked.
Mac leaned over Noemie’s mouth, listening. “Yes. Go in my trunk and get the rescue blanket out of the first aid kit.” I did as asked, and Mac lifted Noemie’s shoulders to wrap the foil blanket around her. “Can you sit with her back here and make sure she’s okay? We need to get her to the hospital.”
I clambered into the backseat. Water pooled against the smooth vinyl as I lifted Noemie to lie in my lap. Mac climbed into the front, started the car, and peeled out of the park while I smoothed Noemie’s matted hair away from her sallow face.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I’m so sorry.”
Little Girl Lost: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery- Book 1 Page 9