Chapter 2 - The Empty Bedroom
The ambulance moved through the base with its interior lights dimmed, escorted by security vehicles.
Dom stayed beside my stretcher, his knee braced against the turn of the road.
I had stopped asking when the pain would end.
All I wanted was proof Lily was alive.
My mother, Elaine Brennan, picked up on the fourth call.
Her voice came out thin and strangely composed.
"Kate? Why are military police at my house?"
"Where's Lily?"
A pause.
"I put her to bed two hours ago."
"Go look. Right now."
I heard slippers dragging down a hallway, then my mother's small gasp.
The silence that followed was the longest sound of my life.
"Her window is open," Elaine whispered.
I stared at the roof of the ambulance.
"Mom, listen to me. Don't touch anything. Go to the officers."
"Her rabbit is gone."
The stuffed rabbit had been in the photograph beside Lily's pillow.
Whoever had sent the picture had taken the rabbit as well.
Dom was already calling the dispatcher, who confirmed that the house's rear security light had been disabled and a neighboring camera had recorded a van leaving eighteen minutes earlier.
There was no clear license plate.
My mother cried once, sharply, then became quiet.
I knew that silence.
She was blaming herself.
"Mom, tell the officers everything."
A new message lit my screen: DO NOT DELAY THE FLIGHT.
It contradicted the previous demand to cancel the inspection.
I looked at Dom.
"They're not all giving the same orders."
He frowned.
"Or someone wants us to think they aren't."
At the hospital, a surgeon named Dr. Hannah Park explained that both legs needed urgent stabilization and several operations might follow.
I asked her to put Lily's name on the whiteboard across from my bed.
"That's the only discharge goal I care about."
Dr. Park held my gaze.
"My job is to make sure you'll be here when they find her."
Just before anesthesia, Dom leaned down.
"NCIS is coming. The lot is quarantined. Nobody boards with those kits."
"And Lily?"
His jaw tightened.
"We're bringing her home."
The last thing I saw was my daughter's name written in blue marker.
May you like
When I woke, someone had erased it.
