Page 24 of Christmas Past
By the time he’d recovered enough to realize what was happening, he was standing there with his hand on her face, his eyes focused on hers. And she was staring straight back at him.
Wide awake.
Shivering, she sat up, pulling the covers with her.
“She’s scared, Chad. Really scared. She saw something that petrified her. And she can’t move because of her foot.”
“What did she see?”
“I have no idea…” Bella was whispering. And starting to cry softly, too.
“It felt like she was up. Awake. Like she’d eaten recently. She’s incredibly lonesome. But not cold. She didn’t have to use the restroom and she wasn’t wet.”
“She’s being taken care of.”
“Somewhat. I guess. Nothing’s been done for her foot. It just hangs there, hurting.”
“Hangs there…” He sat down beside her, smoothing that silky hair back away from her face. “Hangs where? From what?”
She stared at him. “I don’t know.” Tears dripped slowly down her cheeks. “It kind of feels like she's being held, but I can't be sure. I know for certainthat something just scared her really bad. And that she was wide awake – like in light, even – when it happened. What three-year-old is wide awake at…” she glanced at the clock “…two in the morning?”
Chad started to shake. From the inside out. The darkness the first day. Almost no sensation all day that day except a sense of a hurting foot. Maybe like it throbbed while the little girl slept. Basic needs being met. No ransom being asked. No family money to pay a ransom. No communication from the kidnapper at all.
Why did someone take a child, feed her, clothe her…
Someone who’d wanted a child…maybe someone who’d lost one…had seen the little girl in town with ringlets of gold hair and…
He looked at her, pulling on his uniform over his sweats and T-shirt.
“What?” Bella was out of bed now, watching him as she pulled sweats and a sweatshirt on over her pajamas. “You know where she is.”
“I only know of one person in town who always sleeps all day and is up all night…”
“Who?”
“One person who lost a little girl with blonde curly hair…”
He looked at Bella. Hardly daring to believe he was right. Because if he was, it meant that Camille was perfectly fine – other than being lonesome and afraid, and whatever injury she’d sustained to her foot.
“Gracie,” he said. And then wondered if Bella knew about the woman who’d lost her entire family to fire ten years before. “Barty said she smiled at him today,” he added.
As far as he knew, Gracie never smiled. Ever. He should have caught it then. Except that Barty had been so certain that the romance he thought was happening might actually come to be.
On the phone before he had his shoes tied, Chad arranged to have an ambulance and a couple of FBI agents meet him at Gracie’s house in town. And received confirmation that they’d wait for him to go in. Gracie knew him. They weren’t taking any chances that this was going to go down wrong.
His request that no one be notified yet was also granted.
He didn’t want Camille’s parents woken until he could deliver a well, albeit hurt-foot child to them.
He didn’t yet know he could do that.
He only hoped.
Because Bella had taught him how to hope.
~*~
Chad was almost out the door before he seemed to realize Bella was following him.
