Chapter 8: What Lily Remembered About the First Sleepover
Three days later, my sister Sarah sat across from me at my kitchen table with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea she hadn't touched.
"She went twice," Sarah said.
"I sent her twice."
"You didn't know."
"I should have known."
"How?" I kept my voice steady.
"How would you have known?
There were other parents.
Other children.
A printed schedule.
Everything looked right."
Sarah's eyes filled.
"The specialist said Lily doesn't show signs of direct —" She stopped.
Pressed her lips together.
Started again.
"She said Lily protected herself.
That locking herself in the bathroom was exactly the right instinct.
That Lily's instincts were —" Her voice broke on the last word.
"Good," I said.
"Her instincts were good."
Sarah nodded.
She couldn't speak for a moment.
"She told the specialist something about the first sleepover," Sarah said finally.
"Something she hadn't told anyone yet.
She said at the first one, there was no man.
But there was a woman.
A woman she didn't recognize who came and sat with them during a movie.
She said the woman took a lot of pictures on her phone.
Lily thought she was just a mom.
She said she had a nice smile."
I set down my own mug.
"Did she describe her?"
"Older.
Dark coat.
She said she smelled like roses." Sarah looked up.
"Dana.
How many people are involved in this?"
I didn't have an answer.
I didn't pretend to.
Detective Voss had called me that morning with an update.
The memory card had been processed.
The images on it were being used as evidence.
She couldn't share details, but she confirmed that the card had been left inside the sleeping bag intentionally — not by Brenda, and not by Martin Hale.
By someone else.
Someone who had been in that house and had wanted those images found.
Someone on the inside had left them a trail.
"Voss thinks there's a witness," I told Sarah.
"Someone who was part of it and decided to get out.
Someone who made sure the card would be found."
Sarah stared at me.
"Who?"
"She doesn't know yet.
Or she does and she's not telling me." I looked at my hands.
"But whoever it was — they knew Lily would be the one to tell me.
They knew I'd call 911 instead of leaving.
They planned around that."
Sarah was quiet for a long time.
"Chloe Marsh," she said finally.
"Have they found her?"
"Not yet." I paused.
"But her parents are still here.
They haven't gone home.
They're staying at a hotel twenty minutes from the station." I paused again.
"Voss says that's a good sign.
That the investigation is moving."
Sarah reached across the table and took my hand.
"You stayed," she said.
"On that driveway.
You didn't leave."
"I had Lily."
"Other people would have taken Lily and driven away and told themselves it wasn't their problem." Sarah's grip tightened.
"You stayed."
I didn't say anything.
Outside the kitchen window, the neighbor's dog was barking at something in the yard.
A perfectly ordinary sound on a perfectly ordinary street.
May you like
The same kind of street Brenda Cole lived on.
I thought about that for a long time after Sarah left.
