[CHAPTER 6] - The Empty Cabin
Police reached Lake Marlow before we did.
Dad wanted me to stay with a neighbor.
I refused.
I screamed until he finally agreed I could ride with him as long as I stayed in the car.
Hannah sat beside us.
Nobody talked during the drive.
Dad held my hand.
The lake appeared between the trees after an hour.
Blue water.
Dark woods.
Small cabins scattered along the shore.
Vivian's family cabin sat at the end of a gravel road.
Police vehicles surrounded it.
My stomach hurt.
Detective Reed met us outside.
"Stay back."
Hannah grabbed his arm.
"Is Nora inside?"
"We don't know."
"You went in?"
"Yes."
"And?"
He hesitated.
"Nobody's there."
Hannah's face collapsed.
Dad wrapped an arm around her before she fell.
I stared at the cabin.
One upstairs window was open.
The curtains moved.
I remembered Nora saying she was scared.
I wanted to run inside.
Dad stopped me.
"No."
"But Nora—"
"They're searching."
Detective Reed took Hannah inside.
Dad stayed with me.
After ten minutes, another officer came out carrying a backpack.
Pink.
A stuffed fox hung from the zipper.
Hannah screamed from inside the cabin.
"That's hers!"
Nora had been there.
Police found canned food.
Children's clothes.
A mattress.
A bottle of sleeping medicine.
And rope.
Dad wouldn't let me see any of it.
They also found tire tracks leading away through a rear service road.
Vivian had known we were coming.
Again.
Detective Reed returned outside.
"She has someone watching."
Dad nodded slowly.
"Or someone inside the investigation is helping her."
Reed's jaw tightened.
"We'll handle that possibility."
Hannah came outside holding Nora's stuffed fox.
She knelt in front of me.
"Did Nora ever mention anyone besides Vivian?"
I thought.
"Man."
Everyone froze.
"What man?"
"I don't know."
"When?"
I squeezed Dad's fingers.
"She said the man gets mad."
Hannah looked at Reed.
"Vivian's boyfriend?"
Dad stared at her.
"She has a boyfriend?"
"I don't know."
Reed asked me gently, "What did Nora say exactly?"
I closed my eyes.
Memory came in pieces.
Nora whispering through the vent.
Bread crumbs.
Darkness.
"The man says I make noise."
"Anything else?"
"He has a snake."
Hannah gasped.
"Mason."
"Who?" Dad asked.
"Our cousin."
Hannah stood.
"Mason Cole. He has a snake tattoo around his wrist."
Detective Reed was already calling someone.
Hannah spoke quickly.
"Mason has been in trouble his whole life. Theft. Drugs. Fraud. Vivian always protected him."
Dad's voice turned cold.
"Where does he live?"
"Last I heard, outside Fairmont."
Police searched his name.
Mason owned a towing company forty miles north.
Officers went there.
The business was closed.
His truck was gone.
So was a dark SUV matching the vehicle in traffic footage near Lake Marlow.
Vivian had help.
She had probably had help from the beginning.
The hidden door.
Moving Nora.
Removing Dad's camera.
Escaping before police arrived.
Mason.
On the way home, Dad barely spoke.
He blamed himself.
I could feel it even though I didn't understand the words adults used.
He kept saying things like, "How did I not see this?"
Hannah finally snapped.
"Because she didn't want you to."
Dad looked at her.
"That doesn't excuse me."
"No."
Hannah's voice softened.
"But hating yourself won't find Nora."
I watched them from my booster seat.
They looked exhausted.
Scared.
Angry.
But for the first time, they looked like people working together.
When we reached home, Detective Reed called.
Mason's phone had pinged near Fairmont two hours earlier.
Police were closing in.
Dad carried me inside.
The house smelled different.
Maybe because Vivian wasn't there.
Maybe because I knew what had happened behind the walls.
Dad took me upstairs.
"You need sleep."
"Is Nora sleeping?"
His face changed.
"I hope so."
"Will you find her?"
"Yes."
"You promise?"
He hesitated.
Then he knelt.
"I promise I will never stop looking."
That answer scared me.
It meant he couldn't promise when.
I lay down.
Dad stayed beside me.
Sometime later, a noise woke me.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
I sat up.
The bedroom window.
Tap.
My room was on the second floor.
I walked toward the glass.
A pebble struck it.
I looked down.
A man stood beside the hedge.
He wore a baseball cap.
There was something dark curling around his wrist.
A snake.
Mason.
I didn't know his name yet.
But I knew the tattoo.
He lifted one finger to his lips.
Then he pointed toward our front door.
I screamed.
"DADDY!"
Dad ran in.
The man disappeared.
Dad reached the window.
"What happened?"
"The snake man!"
Dad grabbed his phone.
Police arrived within minutes.
They searched the yard.
Nothing.
Then Detective Reed found an envelope taped beneath our mailbox.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed me at preschool.
Taken that week.
Written across the bottom were four words.
NEXT TIME, WE TAKE HER.
Dad stared at the photograph.
Something inside him changed.
Until then, he had been frightened.
Now he was furious.
He called Detective Reed.
"You protect Ellie."
May you like
Then he looked toward the dark road.
"And I'm going to help you find them before they come near my daughter again."
