Chapter 4
At the hospital, Emma ate applesauce like someone had taught her not to trust full plates.
Small bites.
Careful eyes.
Lily sat beside her and handed her napkins.
“She likes blue cups,” Lily told the nurse.
The nurse smiled sadly.
“We’ll find one.”
I stood at the window while doctors examined Emma.
Malnutrition.
Old bruising.
Dehydration.
No current life-threatening injury.
Words that sounded clinical until I remembered they belonged to a child who had called me Daddy.
Officer Daniels asked me questions in the hallway.
“When did you last see Megan?”
“Six years ago.”
“Did she leave voluntarily?”
“I thought so.”
“You thought?”
I rubbed my face.
“Claire said Megan ran away. There was a note. My father confirmed it.”
“Your father?”
“Edward Vale. He was a family court judge.”
Officer Daniels stopped writing.
“Judge Edward Vale?”
I nodded.
His expression changed.
I hated that.
“What?”
He closed his notebook.
“I need to make a call.”
Inside the room, Emma whispered something to Lily.
Lily gasped.
Then looked at me.
“Daddy.”
I rushed in.
“What is it?”
Lily pointed to Emma’s bracelet.
“She says Grandma gave it to her.”
“My mother?”
Emma nodded.
“Grandma Rose hid me first.”
My mother had died four years ago.
I remembered her funeral.
Her bracelet.
The closed casket.
The grief.
But Emma’s wrist held the bracelet I watched my father place beside her body.
I sat down hard.
If Emma was telling the truth, my mother had not been buried with that bracelet.
And she had known about Emma.
Maybe she had hidden her.
Maybe she had tried to save her.
May you like
Then Emma whispered, “Grandma said if I saw you, tell you the house has two hearts.”
