Chapter 3 - The Child With the Red Shoe
Police separated us immediately.
Paramedics examined Lily inside the ambulance.
Her body temperature was dangerously low.
There were needle marks near her elbow.
I asked what had been injected.
The paramedic said they needed blood tests.
Taylor insisted Lily had a fever and became confused.
Evelyn supported her story.
“She has night terrors,” my mother told the officers. “David travels often. He doesn’t understand how difficult she has become.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I gave Detective Sarah Cole the old phone.
The recording contained six files.
Only one played.
The others were password protected.
Inside the freezer, police found the red shoe, the torn bracelet, and traces of blood beneath the rubber lining.
The bracelet showed three letters.
AVA.
Lily heard the name and began crying.
“Ava told me not to drink the juice.”
“Who is Ava?” I asked.
“She lived downstairs.”
Our house had no downstairs except a sealed storage basement Evelyn claimed had flooded years earlier.
Taylor looked at my mother.
Evelyn said nothing.
Police searched the basement entrance and found a new lock behind stacked furniture.
Taylor claimed she had never seen it.
The key was discovered inside her purse.
Officers opened the door.
The stairs led into darkness.
At the bottom was a small room with two mattresses, children’s clothes, empty medication bottles, and a wall covered in drawings.
One drawing showed Lily beside another little girl.
Above them, written in shaky letters:
DADDY WILL FIND US.
My knees nearly gave out.
Detective Cole found a second red shoe under the mattress.
Ava had been real.
But she was gone.
One of the basement walls had been cleaned recently.
Bleach still burned the air.
Then an officer discovered a tiny handprint beneath the lowest stair.
It was drawn in dried blood.
Evelyn stood at the top of the basement.
Her calm expression finally cracked.
“She wasn’t supposed to be here.”
Detective Cole looked up.
“Who wasn’t?”
Evelyn realized everyone had heard her.
May you like
And before she could recover, Lily pointed toward her grandmother.
“Ava called her Mom.”
