Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Mrs. Alvarez lived three houses down.
She had known Emma since she was a baby.
Emma told her she'd left her backpack at Hale & Vine and needed it for school.
“Your father knows?”
Emma hesitated.
That should have been enough.
But Mrs. Alvarez looked at the frightened child standing on her porch and reached for her keys.
“I'll drive you. But I'm calling your father on the way.”
Emma didn't argue.
Hale & Vine occupied a restored brick building near downtown. At night, the dining room looked like an aquarium after the lights went out.
Mrs. Alvarez parked near the front.
“I'll come with you.”
“No!”
The word came out too quickly.
Emma swallowed.
“I mean… Vanessa might be in the back. I'll knock.”
Mrs. Alvarez frowned.
“Five minutes.”
Emma nodded.
Then she ran around the building.
The delivery entrance was slightly open.
That was strange.
Emma slipped inside.
The kitchen smelled of stainless steel, soap and something roasted hours ago.
“Vanessa?”
No answer.
She moved deeper into the room.
Then she saw it.
At the far end of the kitchen stood the walk-in freezer.
Emma had been inside it once when Vanessa showed her the restaurant.
Tonight, a thick chain crossed the handle.
A new brass padlock held it shut.
Emma approached slowly.
Something glittered near the bottom of the door.
She bent down.
It was a bracelet.
Silver.
A tiny heart hung from it.
Emma stopped breathing.
She knew that bracelet.
She had watched her father give it to her mother on their tenth anniversary.
Emma turned the heart over.
Two tiny letters were engraved on the back.
C + E.
Claire and Emma.
Her mother's bracelet had been lying on the floor outside Vanessa's locked freezer.
Emma's hand began to shake.
She looked at the steel door.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Emma moved closer.
“Mommy?”
Nothing.
Her eyes filled.
Maybe everyone had been right.
Maybe grief had turned an accidental phone call and an old bracelet into something they weren't.
Emma pressed her ear against the cold steel.
For three seconds, there was only the hum of machinery.
Then—
THUMP.
Emma jumped backward.
Her heart hammered.
She stepped toward the door again.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Emma put both hands against the steel.
“If that's you…”
Her voice broke.
“Please do it again.”
One second.
Two.
Three.
THUMP.
Emma began to cry.
But this time, they weren't tears of grief.
They were tears of certainty.
Her mother hadn't disappeared.
May you like
Someone had put her behind a locked door.
And Emma intended to open it.
