Chapter 5 - The Child He Took
There are moments when fear makes people freeze.
Mine made me furious.
Police issued an alert within minutes.
Dennis’s vehicle was registered.
His house was searched again.
Airports notified.
Hospitals circulated Lily’s photograph.
Rachel drove because I could not stop looking at the security image.
Lily holding his hand.
Not fighting.
That terrified me most.
“He told her something,” I said.
Rachel kept her eyes on the road.
“What?”
“He had to.”
“How do you know?”
“She was scared of him.”
“So?”
“She wouldn’t leave voluntarily.”
“Maybe he threatened her.”
“No.”
I zoomed in.
Lily was carrying something.
The bag of dresses.
“He told her it was about Elena.”
Rachel glanced over.
“You can’t know that.”
“He knew exactly what would make her cooperate.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered instantly.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then Lily’s voice.
“Nathan?”
My chest clenched.
“Lily. Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Is Dennis with you?”
A pause.
“He said Mama needs money.”
I closed my eyes.
Exactly.
“Lily, listen carefully. Your mom does not need you to do anything for Dennis.”
“He said you changed your mind.”
“I didn’t.”
“He said you’re taking our apartment.”
“He lied.”
“He said if I finish the dresses, he’ll let Mama stay.”
“Lily.”
My voice cracked.
“I promised you.”
Silence.
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
“No one is putting you outside.”
I heard breathing in the background.
Then Dennis took the phone.
“You always were sentimental about the wrong things.”
“Where are you?”
“You’re not in a position to ask questions.”
“You take me instead.”
He laughed.
“This isn’t a movie.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with it.”
My stomach twisted.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“You already lost it.”
“Victoria has it.”
“The police have it.”
Silence.
That was a lie.
Victoria still had the original temporarily while detectives cataloged evidence.
But Dennis didn’t know that.
“The drive too,” he said.
“Gone.”
“You’re lying.”
“Maybe.”
Rachel was already texting police to trace the call.
“Let Lily go.”
“I need insurance.”
“She’s seven.”
“So were you.”
The words stopped me.
“What?”
“You were seven when your mother started causing trouble for my father.”
I couldn’t breathe.
He remembered.
“You knew me then?”
“Of course.”
A flash of memory.
A young man outside our apartment.
Standing beside Harold.
Holding papers.
I had forgotten his face.
Not anymore.
“You came to our home.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened my mother.”
“My father handled tenants.”
“You stood there.”
“I learned.”
His voice contained no shame.
“You became exactly like him.”
“No. Harold was careless. I became better.”
Rachel looked at me, horrified.
I kept him talking.
“Better at what?”
“Understanding people.”
“Meaning exploiting them.”
“Meaning knowing what they’ll do when they’re desperate.”
I thought about Elena.
About Lily.
About all eighteen manipulated tenant accounts.
“Where is she?”
“Bring me Victoria’s original ledger.”
“I told you—”
“Then get it back.”
A sound came through the phone.
The rhythmic clatter of a machine.
Clack.
Whir.
Clack.
My heart stopped.
A sewing machine.
Dennis said, “Midnight. I’ll call again.”
The line died.
Rachel looked at me.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes.”
“She’s sewing.”
I knew that sound.
But more importantly, I knew something else.
Dennis had chosen a place with a sewing machine already inside.
Not random.
I called Victoria.
“Where did your husband’s old sewing operation run?”
“What?”
“Harold Cole. Where did his workers sew?”
“There were several places.”
“Give me all of them.”
She listed three addresses.
One had been demolished.
One converted to condominiums.
The third—
1149 Harlan Street.
My childhood building.
I went cold.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Harold owned the basement workshop.”
I hung up.
Rachel looked at me.
“You think he took her there?”
“I know he did.”
Police told us not to approach.
We approached anyway.
Harlan Street had changed.
The corner grocery store was gone.
The laundromat was now a cell phone repair shop.
But the building remained.
Brick darkened by age.
Fire escape rusted.
I stood across the street staring at the second-floor window where my mother used to hang towels.
For a moment, I was eight again.
Then I saw movement behind a basement window.
Small.
A child’s silhouette.
“Call the detective,” I told Rachel.
“I already did.”
“I’m going in.”
“No.”
“She’s in there.”
“Nathan, police are four minutes away.”
“Four minutes is four minutes.”
I crossed the street.
Rachel swore and followed.
The basement entrance was around the side.
Locked.
I remembered another entrance.
A service corridor connected through the boiler room.
As a child, I used it to sneak outside when my mother thought I was sleeping.
The door still existed.
The lock was broken.
Inside, the smell nearly knocked me backward.
Dust.
Oil.
Old fabric.
Memory.
I moved through the narrow corridor.
Then I heard the sewing machine.
Clack.
Whir.
Clack.
I entered the workshop.
Lily sat under a bare bulb at an industrial machine far too large for her.
Dennis stood behind her.
His hand rested on her shoulder.
Blood spotted the fabric near her fingers.
I saw red.
“Take your hand off her.”
Dennis turned.
Lily looked up.
“Nathan!”
I stepped forward.
Dennis grabbed her.
A knife appeared in his hand.
Everything stopped.
“Nathan.”
Rachel whispered my name behind me.
Dennis smiled.
“You brought company.”
“Let her go.”
“Ledger?”
“I brought it.”
I held up a leather book.
Not the real one.
Police had prepared a copy.
Dennis couldn’t know.
“Slide it over.”
“Lily first.”
“You’re still negotiating like you have leverage.”
Sirens sounded faintly outside.
His face changed.
“You called them.”
“Of course I called them.”
“You idiot.”
He pulled Lily backward.
She cried out.
I moved.
The knife pressed closer.
“Stop.”
I stopped.
Then Lily did something no one expected.
She stomped hard on Dennis’s foot.
He flinched.
That was enough.
I crossed the distance.
His knife sliced my forearm as I grabbed his wrist.
Pain burned.
I drove him into the wall.
Lily ran.
Rachel caught her.
Dennis and I hit the floor.
He was stronger than I expected.
Desperation does that.
He swung the knife again.
I trapped his wrist.
Then police flooded the room.
“Drop it!”
Dennis froze.
Three officers dragged him away.
Lily broke free from Rachel and ran to me.
“You’re bleeding!”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re bleeding a lot.”
“It looks worse than it is.”
That was a lie.
But she had heard enough frightening truths.
I let the paramedics handle me.
Dennis sat handcuffed against the wall.
As officers lifted him, he looked at me.
“You still don’t know.”
I ignored him.
He smiled.
“Nathan.”
I turned.
“Ask why your mother dropped the second lawsuit.”
My body went still.
“What second lawsuit?”
Dennis laughed as police dragged him toward the stairs.
I looked at Rachel.
She looked equally confused.
Then Lily tugged my sleeve.
“Nathan?”
I looked down.
She was holding something.
A photograph she had found under the sewing table.
Old.
Bent.
My mother stood in it.
Beside her was Elena.
Not adult Elena.
A little girl.
Maybe six years old.
And on the back, in my mother’s handwriting, were five words.
PROTECT SOFIA’S DAUGHTER IF NECESSARY.
Elena’s mother was named Sofia.
May you like
My mother had known her.
And somehow, eighteen years after her death, Catherine Mercer had known there might come a day when I would need to protect Lily.
