[CHAPTER 4] - Nora Blake
Dad didn't confront Vivian.
Not immediately.
That frightened me because Dad always fixed things right away.
Broken toys.
Scraped knees.
Bad dreams.
But whatever was happening inside our house was different.
He put Nora's bracelet inside his jacket pocket.
Then he smiled when Vivian entered the kitchen.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
"Fine."
His voice sounded normal.
His eyes didn't.
That evening, Dad gave me a bath.
Usually Vivian helped.
Dad locked the bathroom door.
He sat on the closed toilet while I played with foam letters.
"Ellie."
I looked up.
"Tell me everything Nora said."
I tried.
At four, remembering exact words was hard.
I remembered hunger.
I remembered being scared.
I remembered Nora saying her mommy was gone.
Dad listened without interrupting.
"Did she say where Vivian was taking her?"
I shook my head.
"Did she say Vivian's name?"
"No."
"Did you ever hear another adult?"
"No."
Dad rubbed his face.
Then I remembered something.
"Aunt Hannah."
His head snapped up.
"What?"
"Nora said Aunt Hannah once."
"When?"
I squeezed a foam fish.
"When Vivian pulled her."
"What did she say?"
I thought hard.
"She said, 'Aunt Hannah will find me.'"
Dad stood so quickly the toilet lid slammed.
"Are you sure?"
I nodded.
Dad kissed my wet hair.
"You did good."
Later, I learned he searched Nora Blake and Cedar Grove Elementary as soon as I fell asleep.
There were several schools with that name.
There were hundreds of people named Nora Blake.
But one result made him stop breathing.
A missing-child notice.
NORA ELAINE BLAKE.
AGE SIX.
BROWN HAIR.
HAZEL EYES.
LAST SEEN THREE WEEKS AGO.
The photo showed the same girl I had seen in the hidden passage.
Dad called the number on the notice.
A woman answered on the second ring.
"Hannah Blake."
Dad didn't know what to say.
"I'm Daniel Carter."
Silence.
"I think I've seen Nora."
The woman screamed.
Dad moved into his office and shut the door.
I was supposed to be asleep.
I wasn't.
I sat in the hallway and listened.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know right now."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"My daughter saw her."
"Your daughter?"
"In our house."
Another silence.
Then Hannah asked a question.
"Who is your wife?"
Dad didn't answer immediately.
"Vivian Carter."
Hannah made a sound like someone had hit her.
"Oh God."
Dad gripped the phone.
"You know her?"
"Vivian Mercer?"
"That was her maiden name."
"She's Nora's aunt."
Dad closed his eyes.
Hannah continued.
"Vivian is my sister."
Everything changed after that sentence.
Nora wasn't a stranger Vivian happened to know.
She was family.
Hannah told Dad that Nora's mother, Maya, had died eight months earlier.
Maya was Vivian and Hannah's youngest sister.
Nora's father had died before she was born.
Maya's will named Hannah as Nora's guardian.
Vivian had challenged it.
She lost.
Then Nora disappeared from a playground while Hannah was talking to another parent.
Police suspected an abduction.
But there had been no ransom demand.
No reliable witness.
Nothing.
Until me.
Dad asked why Vivian would take her own niece.
Hannah went quiet.
"Money."
Maya had inherited their grandfather's estate.
Most of it passed to Nora.
A trust worth more than four million dollars.
Vivian had once been named trustee.
Maya changed that six months before her death.
"Why?"
Dad asked.
"Because Maya discovered money missing from another family account."
Dad's voice lowered.
"Vivian stole from her?"
"We believe so."
I didn't understand millions.
I understood Vivian took Nora.
That was enough.
Dad told Hannah about the hidden passage.
The vent.
The bracelet.
Then he made her promise not to call police until he could locate Nora.
Hannah hated that.
So did he.
But Vivian had already moved her once.
Dad feared she'd move her again before officers arrived.
They agreed to meet the next morning.
That plan never happened.
At three in the morning, glass shattered downstairs.
Dad ran from his bedroom.
I ran too.
He found the back door open.
The secret camera was gone.
So was Vivian.
Her closet had been emptied.
One suitcase remained open on the bed.
Dad grabbed his phone.
Then he saw a note on the kitchen counter.
It had only one sentence.
STOP LOOKING FOR NORA IF YOU WANT ELLIE SAFE.
Dad read it twice.
I stood behind him.
"Daddy?"
He turned so fast he nearly dropped the paper.
"Go upstairs."
"Where's Vivian?"
"Upstairs, Ellie."
"Is Nora okay?"
His face broke.
He picked me up.
"I don't know."
I started crying.
He held me tighter.
Police arrived twenty minutes later.
Hannah arrived before sunrise.
She burst through the front door and looked at Dad.
"Where is my niece?"
Dad handed her the bracelet.
Hannah pressed it to her mouth.
Then she saw me.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"You found this?"
I nodded.
She knelt.
"Nora gave it to you?"
"She was hungry."
Hannah covered her face.
I reached toward her because adults looked less frightening when someone held their hand.
She took mine.
"Thank you."
Dad stepped closer.
"Vivian knew about the camera."
Hannah stood.
"Then she has help."
"Why?"
"The hidden passage in your house. The cleaned vent. The camera removed before she ran."
She looked toward the pantry.
"Vivian couldn't have built all that alone."
A police officer came from the garage carrying something in a plastic evidence bag.
A second red bracelet.
It had been found beneath Vivian's car.
Hannah looked at it.
Then at Dad.
"That's not Nora's."
Dad frowned.
"Whose is it?"
Hannah's face went pale.
"My sister Maya wore one exactly like that in the hospital the night she died."
The room went silent.
May you like
Until that moment, everyone believed Maya's death had nothing to do with Nora's disappearance.
Now nobody was sure.
