Part 2
“Where are they locked in?” Daniel asked.
“The room with the mattresses. We came from there this morning.”
Keene moved the woman several paces away and called for additional officers. When Karen Bell started to object, the sergeant answered firmly enough that Maisie lifted her head. Daniel kept his attention on the child.
“Was someone still there with them?”
Maisie nodded. “The man.”
“Does he know you’ve talked to us?”
“I don’t think so.”
Daniel reported what Maisie had told him and asked for officers to check on the other children. Keene stayed between the girl and Karen Bell.
Scout lowered himself at the girl’s feet. She watched him fold his long front legs, then looked at the quiet room Keene had mentioned.
“Does he come too?”
“With me.”
“Okay.”
The room belonged to terminal employees and contained a round table, a sink, and a calendar still displaying last month. Daniel moved two cleaning bottles from a low shelf before letting Maisie sit. She chose the chair nearest the door, then changed her mind when she saw the raincoat passing in the hall.
He closed the door most of the way. An officer remained outside, where Maisie could see his shoes through the gap.
“She won’t be coming in here,” Daniel said.
The girl put her feet on a chair rung. Her right sock had rubbed through at the heel. Daniel left her feet alone.
“Would you like water?”
“In a new cup.”
He opened a paper sleeve, took out the first cup, and filled it from his bottle. Maisie drank without taking her eyes off the doorway.
“Can you tell me the rest of your name?”
“Maisie Carter.”
“How old are you?”
“Eight. Nine in February.”
She spoke the second sentence with unexpected firmness.
“Where do you live?”
“La Crosse. My mom’s name is Nora. My dad’s Ben.”
Daniel wrote down the names and her hometown, relayed them over his radio, and let her drink.
“Did you see a street name at the place you left?”
She shook her head. “We went in the back.”
“What could you see?”
Maisie held the cup in both hands. “There’s a chair on the wall. A yellow one. Painted. And words under it. Maya read them when they brought her.”
“Is Maya one of the children?”
“She’s big. She can read everything.”
“Do you remember the words?”
Maisie frowned into her water. Daniel waited, hearing footsteps stop outside the door and start again.
“Hollis,” she said finally. “And furniture. Maya said it was a fixing place. But nobody fixes anything. There’s just stuff piled up.”
He wrote “Hollis Furniture” below the names and sent the words and the description of the painted chair to Keene.
Maisie watched his pen.
“What did you write?”
He turned the notebook so she could read it. She studied the lettering, then pointed to the word Carter.
“You got that right.”
“Good. Tell me if I get anything wrong.”
She pulled at a loose thread on the cuff of her sweatshirt. “She said Mom went away.”
Daniel looked at her.
“The woman outside said that?”
“At first the man said she sent him. Then later she said Mom went away and somebody else was going to have me.”
The last words came out evenly. Daniel set the pen beside his notebook before he answered.
“We’re checking with the people who have been looking for you.”
“People are looking?”
“They are.”
Her mouth trembled. She covered it with the cuff.
Keene tapped softly on the door and entered with Detective Lucia Shaw, a compact woman carrying a notebook and a damp wool jacket. Shaw had come from another call and still had rain on the shoulders of her blouse. She set the jacket on an empty chair rather than filling the doorway.
Keene handed Daniel her phone.
The missing-child photograph showed Maisie in a denim jumper, holding a rabbit with one floppy ear. Her smile exposed a gap on the bottom row of teeth. The report was eleven days old.
Daniel looked back at the child. She had folded her lips inward as though she were trying to hold them still.
“They found your mom,” he said.
Maisie stared at him. “She’s at home?”
“She’s in La Crosse. Andrea just talked to her.”
“Was she mad?”
Keene pulled out a chair. “She wants to come get you. Your dad’s coming with her.”
Maisie’s cup tipped. Daniel caught it before the remaining water spilled into her lap, and for a moment she seemed more concerned about the cup than the news.
“I didn’t mean to go,” she said.
“I know,” Keene answered.
Shaw waited until Maisie had put the cup down herself. Then she introduced herself and asked a few short questions about the building.
Maisie told them there were no windows in the room where the mattresses lay. One door led into a workshop, another into a hallway. The youngest boy was called Owen. He’d been missing a shoe since the day before.
“Is Owen hurt?” Shaw asked.
“His foot’s big on one side. He fell getting out of the van. Maya wraps it in her sweater.”
“How many children are there, besides you?”
Maisie raised one hand, spreading the fingers. “Five. Six with me. We counted every night. Maya made us.”
Her fingertips began moving against the table: five light touches, a pause, five more. Daniel recognized the movement from the raincoat.
“Does counting help?” he asked.
She drew her hand into her lap. “Mom does my fingers when I can’t sleep. One at a time.”
Shaw’s phone vibrated. She read the message and stepped into the hall with Keene. Through the gap, Daniel heard a street name and the words vacant repair shop. Then both women lowered their voices.
Maisie leaned toward him.
“They won’t find Owen if he’s hiding.”
“Where does he hide?”
“Under things. The man gets mad when he cries.”
Scout shifted to ease one hip against Daniel’s boot. Maisie looked down, and the dog rolled just far enough onto his side to stretch out his back legs. She rubbed the soft edge of his ear between two fingers.
“He looks different down here,” she said.
“He gets bigger when he stands up.”
“I like this way.”
Keene came back. A closed furniture repair shop matching the description stood a little over two miles away. Officers were going there now. The woman’s claimed relationship to Maisie had been disproved, and she was being taken into custody.
Daniel checked the time. Less than forty minutes had passed since Scout rose from the pile of paperbacks.
“We’re getting you checked by a doctor,” Keene told Maisie. “A woman named Fiona will meet you there and help you while your parents come.”
Maisie’s hand stopped on Scout’s ear.
“He’s going?”
“They need us at the building,” Daniel said.
She looked toward the doorway, then down at Scout.
“I can stay until the paramedics get here,” he told her. “Then I’m going to help the officers look for the others.”
“What if they say there’s nobody?”
“They’ve heard what you told us.”
“But if Owen’s hiding.”
Daniel leaned forward. “I’ll tell them about Owen. We’ll look for places a little boy could fit.”
She was quiet for several seconds. Then she took the pocket notebook from the table and turned it to an empty page.
“Write his name too.”
He wrote it in large letters. Maisie touched the O, as though testing whether it would stay there.
The paramedics arrived with a folded blanket. Daniel let them explain what they wanted to do before anyone lifted the girl out of her chair. She asked to walk, and they helped her put her shoes on properly.
At the door she turned back.
“Tell him I said my name. Then he can say his.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Daniel watched her leave with Keene, one hand holding the blanket shut at her throat. He emptied Scout’s bowl, put it back in the harness pocket, and headed outside.
Outside, a cold rain freckled the windshield. He drove toward the repair shop with Scout upright behind the partition, following the voices on the radio. Keene caught up after seeing Maisie safely into the ambulance.
The building had a sagging awning and a yellow chair painted above its name. A gray van stood backed toward the delivery entrance. Daniel stopped behind an unmarked car as an officer reported movement inside.
Keene was getting the last officers into position when the rear door opened. A man came out, gripping a boy in an orange shirt by the elbow. He pulled open the van’s sliding door and began lifting the child inside…
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