The Little Girl in Providence
Chapter 08 - The Little Girl in Providence
We drove to Providence in a storm.
Not a dramatic storm with thunder and biblical rain. Just cold, needling weather that made headlights blur and turned the highway into a ribbon of wet black glass.
Chloe slept against the window for twenty minutes, then woke with a start and asked whether the little girl had a coat.
Nobody answered.
That was how afraid we were.
Matteo sat across from me in the back of the SUV, speaking quietly into two phones, one after another. His voice changed depending on who answered. To one man, he was winter. To another, law. To Mara, he was almost gentle.
I watched him and wondered what sort of man could frighten half a city and still ask his driver to turn the heat higher because my sister was shivering.
“Stop studying me,” he said without looking up.
“I wasn't.”
“You were.”
“You study everyone.”
“Yes.”
“Then consider it educational.”
This time his mouth did move.
Barely.
The apartment building in Providence sat above a closed bakery with peeling green paint. It was the kind of place people describe as modest when they do not want to admit neglect.
The front door stood open.
Matteo's men moved first.
I hated that I was grateful for it.
Inside, the hallway smelled of damp carpet and old cooking oil. On the third floor, apartment 3B had no sound behind it.
Matteo knocked once.
“Isabel Marlowe?”
No answer.
He tried the door.
Unlocked.
The apartment was empty except for signs of a life interrupted. A mug of tea gone cold. A child's sock on the floor. Crayons scattered across a low table.
And on the wall, photographs.
A woman with my mother's mouth smiled beside a little girl with dark curls.
Isabel.
My cousin.
Preston's first wife.
Chloe picked up a drawing from the table.
It showed three stick figures beneath a large yellow sun. One was a woman. One was a child. One was a man scribbled over so hard the paper had torn.
“I hate him,” Chloe whispered.
I surprised myself by saying, “Good.”
There are things worth hating clearly.
Matteo found the phone on the kitchen counter. Cracked screen. No battery.
“She sent the message before they left,” he said.
“Or someone sent it from her phone.”
His eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
Enzo entered from the bedroom carrying a child's backpack.
“Clothes are gone. Medication still here.”
“Medication?”
“Inhaler.”
Chloe's face crumpled.
“We have to find her.”
Matteo was already turning toward the door when an old woman appeared across the hall in a robe and slippers.
“You looking for Isabel?”
Matteo's men shifted.
The woman lifted both hands.
“Relax, I am eighty-two and armed with arthritis.”
Matteo inclined his head.
“Ma'am.”
She seemed to approve of the manners.
“Man came this afternoon. Fancy. Smelled like money and bad decisions.”
“Preston?” I asked.
She studied me.
“You the bride?”
I swallowed.
“Almost.”
“Lucky girl.”
Her name was Mrs. Alvarez. She had been watching Lily whenever Isabel worked late at the florist shop. She told us Preston arrived around four, smiling like a television husband. Isabel tried to shut the door. He put his foot in the gap.
“She didn't scream,” Mrs. Alvarez said. “That worried me more.”
“Why?” Matteo asked.
“Women scream when they think someone will help. She looked past that stage.”
The sentence stayed in the hall like smoke.
Mrs. Alvarez had called the police. They came, took notes, and left after Preston showed them papers claiming a custody dispute.
“What papers?” Matteo asked.
She disappeared into her apartment and returned with a photograph she had taken through the peephole.
Preston stood in the hallway holding a document.
Matteo zoomed in.
His face hardened.
“That's not a custody order.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A medical authorization.”
“For whom?”
“Lily.”
Chloe grabbed my hand.
Mrs. Alvarez pointed toward the street.
“They didn't leave in his car. Another woman came.”
My breath stopped.
“What woman?”
“Blond. Beautiful. Angry enough to curdle milk.”
Matteo's gaze flicked to Enzo.
Enzo said, “Bianca Kensington.”
Preston's mother.
I thought of the elegant woman in the church, rising in offense when Matteo interrupted her son's performance. I had mistaken her for a spectator.
That was my first lesson of the day.
Cruel families do not produce one cruel man by accident.
Matteo's phone rang.
He listened.
Then he said, “We're leaving now.”
I stood.
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“Preston's family owns a private pediatric clinic outside Boston.”
Chloe whispered, “Why would they take Lily there?”
No one answered.
Then Mrs. Alvarez reached into the pocket of her robe.
“One more thing.”
She handed me a small stuffed lamb with a torn ear.
“She dropped it in the hall. That child doesn't go anywhere without it.”
I held the lamb against my chest.
Matteo looked from the toy to my face.
For the first time, his expression softened without hiding it.
“We'll get her back.”
At the bottom of the stairs, my phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
A video appeared.
Lily sat in the back seat of a moving car, eyes huge, no stuffed lamb in her hands.
Preston's voice said, “Tell Eleanor to come alone if she wants everyone to keep breathing.”
May you like
The video cut off.
And for one terrible second, the whole world became the face of a frightened child.
