“Luis,” I called. “I need you in here.”
Luis appeared in the doorway. I lifted the bed skirt higher. He froze. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The little girl flinched. I softened my voice immediately. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re safe. Can you come out for me?”
She didn’t answer. She pressed herself tighter into the corner. When I reached a careful hand toward her, I could feel heat before my fingers even touched her sleeve.
“She’s burning up,” I said.
Together, Luis and I eased the girl out. She was smaller than I expected, limp with fear and fever. Dana stepped in, saw the child in my arms, and stopped cold.
“She’s burning up.”
For one split second, nobody said a word because none of us had expected to find another child hidden there.
Then Mia gasped from the hall. “That’s the girl.”
We brought the child downstairs and settled her on the couch. I crouched in front of her and tried the simplest questions first.
“What’s your name?” I urged.
The girl said nothing.
“Can you tell me where your mom is?” I pressed again.
Still nothing.
“That’s the girl.”
Her eyes flickered from my face to my hands. Then she lifted her fingers and began moving them quickly.
Dana saw it first. “Kevin, she uses sign language.”
The girl’s hands moved faster when she saw we didn’t understand. Not wild, just urgent, like she was trying to climb over a wall built out of our confusion.
Dana knew enough to catch fragments. “Scared. Bed. Hid. Girl moved. She hid.”
Mia took one small step closer. “I dropped Teddy. When I bent down, I saw her eyes looking at me.”
No wonder the poor kid had panicked.
“Kevin, she uses sign language.”
The girl signed again, then pointed suddenly toward the front door. I followed the motion. “Someone outside?”
She nodded, then shook her head, frustrated.
Luis muttered, “We’re missing something.”
The girl slipped off the couch and hurried to the entryway, still wrapped in the blanket, pointing at the door over and over. And for one uneasy second, the tension rose all over again, because we still had no idea how she had gotten into that house.
Then the front doorknob turned.
A woman burst in, holding a small pharmacy bag. The second she saw the girl by the door, everything else vanished for her.
-
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