Chapter 10 - The Child in the Yellow Coat
For three seconds no one moved. Then Lucy ran to Adam, and he dropped to his knees to catch her.
“I was in the blue room,” she said. “I heard the phone, but I didn’t answer.”
“Whose phone?”
“The house phone. It rang and rang.”
“Did anyone come inside?”
Lucy nodded. “A woman.”
Adam’s arms tightened around her. “What woman?”
“She had gray hair. She said she was Camille’s mother.”
Olivia closed her eyes. “Mara.”
“She took someone wearing my coat,” Lucy said. “I saw them through the window. They were short, but they had my hood up.”
Camille understood. “She took a decoy.”
Lenore looked toward the hall. “Who?”
Adam ran to the blue room. The bed was empty, and the yellow raincoat Lucy had been wearing earlier lay on the floor. A child-sized mannequin used for emergency drills stood beside the window.
“She took the training dummy,” Adam said.
Lucy’s lower lip trembled. “Is she angry?”
“She is,” Adam said. “But she is not smarter than us.”
“She sounded smart.”
“That’s different.”
The house phone rang again.
Everyone heard it. Adam lifted the receiver on speaker.
Mara’s voice filled the room. “You have ten minutes to bring the music box to the old courthouse.”
“You know where it is?” Camille asked.
“I know what Lenore keeps.”
“You have no one we care about.”
“You have your mother. I have her pulse.”
Olivia grabbed the phone. “Mara, listen to me.”
“I listened for twenty-nine years.”
“The box is not what you think.”
“Then you will not mind bringing it.”
The line went dead.
Adam turned to Lenore. “Your house.”
“The box is in the basement.”
“We go together.”
“No,” Olivia said. “Mara wants Camille.”
“Mara wants the box.”
“She wants Camille to open it.”
Camille faced her mother. “What happens when I do?”
“The music will play.”
“That’s all?”
“No. It will open a compartment.”
“What’s inside?”
Olivia’s eyes moved to Arthur. “A name.”
Arthur’s hands began to shake.
Adam noticed. “Whose name?”
“The person who ordered the first payment.”
“We already know. Martin Vale.”
“Martin was paid,” Arthur said. “He did not make the payment.”
“Who did?”
Arthur looked at Lenore.
Lenore said, “We have to leave.”
They drove in two vehicles. Adam took Camille, Lucy, and Olivia. Nora took Lenore and Arthur. The old courthouse stood downtown, its clock tower dark against the morning sky.
Inside the basement, rows of abandoned filing cabinets formed a maze. The music box had been placed on a stone table beneath a single hanging bulb.
Camille approached it. The box was painted blue, with a tiny silver bird on its lid. She remembered it from childhood: Olivia winding it while singing about a bell forgetting the hour.
“Don’t touch it,” Adam said.
“We came here to open it.”
“We came here to make Mara think we would.”
“What’s the alternative?”
Nora’s voice came through the earpiece. “Mara’s people are moving in from the west corridor.”
Adam looked at the box. “We use a copy.”
Camille shook her head. “She will know.”
“Then we let her know exactly what we want her to know.”
He opened the music box with a pen. The mechanism was intact. A wire ran beneath the painted lid, connected to a small transmitter.
“Lenore built this?”
“No,” Olivia said. “I did.”
Camille stared at her. “You planted a tracker in my childhood toy?”
“I needed to know if Mara found it.”
“You never intended to come back for me.”
“I intended to come back every day.”
Footsteps approached.
Adam lifted the music box. “We split. Nora takes Lucy through the north exit.”
“I’m staying,” Lucy said.
“No.”
“I know the song.”
The box began to play by itself. The melody was thin and haunting. As the silver bird turned, a panel opened beneath it.
Inside was a strip of paper bearing one name.
Mara stepped into the corridor and saw it.
“Read it,” she said.
Camille unfolded the paper.
May you like
The name was not Martin Vale.
It was Lenore Rowan.
