There is a certain comfort listening to your sister’s voice at close to eleven o’clock at night while sitting on the closet floor among winter coats and an impressive boot collection. Jane isn’t allowed calls after curfew. Jane isn’t allowed out of bed after curfew, but she’s assured me she’s worked out an arrangement with the guards—men, two of which she claims to have slept with. As glad as I am to speak with my sister, a part of me worries she’s trading blowjobs for the opportunity. And selfishly, I’m glad about it. I need her. Ironically, I need her levelheaded guidance. My sister has always been akin to a magician to me, capable of rearranging reality with her sleight of hand—but more importantly, her impressive cache of weaponry.

“Well, shit, Ally.” She pushes a heated breath into the receiver and clots up the line with its static. “Heather, Monica and Hailey all need to go. They’re dead weight you don’t need in your life right now. And sorry to say it, but so does James. In fact, I might schedule a visit out there just to cut his dick off myself. I’m pretty good at it, you know.”

A small laugh gets buried in my chest. “I know.”

A muffled cry comes from downstairs. A masculine familiar voice muttering something my way.

“I think James is calling me.” A horribly long sigh escapes me. “He probably needs me to turn down his bed,” I tease. James has always felt like a second child, and I never seemed to mind it. Until now.

“Don’t you dare—unless you plan on putting a scorpion in it, then be my guest.”

“Allison!” The hard thump of footsteps making their way up the stairs startles me.

“I’d better go.” It takes far more energy than I’ve got to get on my feet. “Thank you for listening.”

“Hey, I’m a captive audience. I’m glad to help. Look, don’t worry about the nut job or the nut job you’re married to. I’m going to fix all of this for you. The only thing you need to worry about is getting my niece back.”

The door to the room rattles and in comes the sound of anxious breathing, of my name being repeated on a furious loop.

“I’ll talk to you later.” I kill the line, and just as I’m about to exit the closet, the door bursts open, but it’s not James and his mile a minute chatter I focus in on. It’s the little girl he’s got a death grip on shivering next to him.

“Ota?” I sink to my knees and take in her pristine smooth skin, those large pits she calls eyes, that familiar yellow pinafore, her dark ponytail looking clean and glossed. My entire body explodes with every emotion all at once. “My God, where’s Reagan?” I look to James.

“She wasn’t out there. I’m going to look around. Don’t you let this little witch out of your sight.” He pushes her into me and takes off thundering down the stairs. “And don’t call anyone just yet!”

In seconds, I hear the back door slam shut, and it’s just me and this pint-sized being that ushered in so much hell into our lives.

“Ota?” I give her shoulders a quick rattle, but the little girl doesn’t make a sound. Her eyes gaze up at mine as if her silence were a game she’s determined to win. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” Maybe if I come at this from another angle. I mean, it’s not as if she was old enough to pull this off on her own. “Is your real name Allison?” My voice shakes as I say the lunacy out loud. “Is your mother Heather Evans?” My mouth hangs wide, anticipating something, anything, but her eyes examine me, her mouth remains sealed. “They hurt you, didn’t they?” I ease up my grip over her frail arms. She looks well. Her skin tone is good—not pale as if she were hidden from the light of the world in some dark closet. She looks just as healthy as I remember, and her cheeks are fat and filled. There is not one outward sign of abuse, not a bruise, not a hair out of place. “Ota, you have to talk to me. Reagan is your friend, and she’s in danger. You’re our only hope of getting her back.” My chest heaves with heartache that I won’t give into.

She blinks up at me, hard, haunted doll clicks that make me wonder if they’ve damaged her in other ways, irreparable damage that has stolen her childhood, her innocence, and her sanity forever.

“I can take you to a doctor.” I bring my voice down to a whisper. “I can get you the very best care. Those people who did this to you—who are still doing it to Reagan”—my voice grows tight—“they can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe.” I caress the top of her head with my hand, and she nuzzles into it like a cat.

“Yes.” I wrap my arms around her and marvel at how solid she feels. “It’s okay. It’s all over. You’re here now. You’re never going back there. Please, help me bring Reagan home.” Her body tenses beneath me. “You can live here with us.” I pull back, desperate to bargain the moon and the stars. I’d give her anything in the world if she helped me find Reagan tonight. “You can be my little girl.” My voice trembles as I hold back tears. “You’ll be Reagan’s sister.”

The back door slams, and the heavy rustling of James’ footsteps come barreling up the stairs.

I spring to my feet, my heart and my eyes hopeful to see my little girl again. “Did you find her?”

James comes in empty-handed, out of breath, his hair windblown. “There’s no trace of anyone out there.” He drops to his knees and grips the little girl by the arms. “Is Reagan hurt?” Her tiny frame rattles in his arms. “Is she alive?” His voice roars over her like a fire, and it takes all of my strength to pluck her free.

“Stop! You’re scaring her!” I pull her out of the room into the cool of the hall and try to catch my breath. “Would you like to see Reagan’s room?”

The little girl looks up at me intently before offering a solemn nod.

A flood of relief fills me. Progress. “There.” I look to James as he comes in close. “We just need to get her settled. Get some food in her belly.” I lean into Ota once again. “Do you like peanut butter and jelly?”

She gives an enthusiastic nod. Her hungry eyes affirm this.

A smile tugs at my lips as the weight that’s pressed against my chest for weeks begins to ease. “Get to it, James. We’ll be playing in Reagan’s bedroom.”

It feels like a dream as I make my way down the hall. I stopped going into Reagan’s room the last few weeks because the pain was too unbearable. But with Ota here, I can feel this nightmare slowly drawing to a conclusion. I open the door to the pink sanctuary, the scent of my daughter’s hair still thick in the air. Ota takes an apprehensive tour of the room, fondling the stuffed animals that line Reagan’s bed, picking up a framed picture of the three of us—Reagan, James, and me—from off the desk. She cuts those dark eyes my way a moment with a sobering expression that if I didn’t know better come very close to hate.

“That’s okay.” The words come out breathy, Marilyn Monroe style, only my octave isn’t punctuated with lust. It’s dominated with fear. “As soon as you help us bring Reagan home, we’ll take a new picture.” Lies. The last thing I want to do is commemorate this nightmare. There’s something undoubtedly creepy about Ota, something I can’t quite pinpoint, but it puts my better judgment on notice to watch my back around the little girl.

James breezes back in, and I help Ota take a seat at the small white play table that Reagan and I used to sit at often for our famed tea parties. I take a seat across from her, and James sits on the floor, docile like a Golden Retriever. Too bad he’s not as loyal.

“You get anywhere?” He scoots in close, his hand has the nerve to thump over my thigh. But it’s warm. His thick fingers have always had the ability to make me feel safe.

I shake my head. I’m starting to lose faith we’ll ever get anywhere with her. “But she looks great.” Ota looks up at me, mean and disconcerting between bites. I clear my throat. “You look healthy. So very clean and neat. I—I’m proud of you.” What I meant to say was I hope Reagan is healthy and clean, so perfectly unsoiled looking. My heart wrenches for what she must be going through. For what they’ve both been going through.

I spot Reagan’s crayon bin in the corner. “I know!” I reach over and pull it open before plucking a handful of construction paper from off the floor. “You can color all night if you want to. Draw any picture you like. No bedtime.” My heart thumps so loud I’m half-afraid she’ll hear it, sense my fear and desperation.

“Yes.” James gives an exasperated sigh of relief. “That’s a great idea. If you can’t tell us where they held you, maybe you can draw us a picture, give us an idea of what these people look like.”

I kick him from under the table.

Moron. It was supposed to have been subliminal, something her subconscious pulled out without her knowledge. He’s probably frightened her out of the idea. There’s too much damn pressure attached to it now.

He leans in, his panting still unbearably loud. “What are we going to do?” He whispers so low, hardly audible.

Ota pushes aside the plate with her half-eaten sandwich, a dime-sized dollop of jelly still adhered to her cheek. In its place, she lands a fat stack of paper, baby blue, a color she fished out from the bottom. I push the crayon bin her way and she carefully examines them, the solemn expression on her face unchanging. She reaches in with her right hand and pulls out a red crayon—with her left she pulls out black.

An unnerving combination, blood and darkness.

“Ota?” I swallow down the nervous ball clenched in my throat. “Would you be okay if James and I left the room for a minute?”

She nods without looking up, both her hands already dancing across the page as a pattern of swirls emerges beneath her.

James takes my hand and we head back out to the hall, closing the door silently behind us. And just like that, we’re both back to panting, sweat beading at his temples, my body exploding with heat.

“Where did you find her?” I pull him in by the shirt. There is something comforting about his strong frame pressed to mine, and I wish to God he had never slept with Hailey. I don’t know if James and I have ever felt closer than we have these last few hellish weeks, and yet now Hailey and her swollen belly will forever wedge a distance between us.

“She knocked on the door.” He winces. “I went out to see my dad earlier.” His gaze shoots around the hall, the stairs, the floor. “He hinted that Monica might have something to do with Reagan’s disappearance.”

“What?”

“I went there and basically searched the house.”

My stomach bottoms out. I’m not sure why I’m so surprised, why the visceral reaction. James has a hobby of paying other women visits. It’s apparently his thing.

“You find anything?” For so long I never thought to look to my husband’s harem as people of interest in my daughter’s disappearance, and now I wonder what took me so long.

He shakes his head, but that distant look in his eyes lets me know he’s not telling the truth. “Actually, I did find something. Remember a couple of weeks ago I discovered that my father wiped the house of any trace of my mother, my brothers, and my sister?” His dimples press in, but you can see the pain in his eyes. A part of me is glad about it. A very large, childish part of me wants James to hurt just a little bit more than I do at the moment. Not that my pain can be trumped by anyone—certainly not someone willing to break their wedding vows for three weeks straight. “Monica had them stored in her attic. It was eerie. It was as if she didn’t want me to go up there, but the more she protested, the faster I ran. And there it was. Every last box of crap my mother had spent a lifetime piecing together.”

His heart riots against my hand and I step in another inch. “And your father? How is he?” How is the killer I want to ask. McCafferty all but called him out on it. As much as I like Charles, it doesn’t change the fact he could be culpable for the deaths of his child and his wife. If it’s true, he’s psychotic, and when Reagan does come home, I don’t want her to have anything to do with him.

James looks dazed as if the question is enough to set him back emotionally twenty-five years. He looks every bit the lost little boy.

“I don’t want to focus on him right now.” He pinches his eyes shut a moment. “How old do you think that little girl in there is?” His lower lip pulls down with a heavy tick as if he’s about to bawl.

“I don’t know—about Reagan’s age, a little older maybe.”

“That’s what I thought.” He tugs his neck from his collar. “I’m thinking Monica lied about the baby she had. I don’t think it died as an infant.”

“Your baby?” I take a partial step back and the air cools me slightly.

“I don’t know if Monica’s child is or was mine—but that happened long before we were together.” He offers it up like the weak consolation it is. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “That doesn’t paint me in a better light. Not sure why I went there. Hell, I do know. I’ll do anything to make things right with you. Every step from here on out matters, and I’m desperate to follow the right path this time.”

“You’re rich with children as of late, aren’t you?” I couldn’t help smearing it with the sarcastic edge it deserved. Hailey Oden and her impossible perfection will now haunt me for the rest of my natural life. I remember the day they moved in. She was the first to greet us. She wore a bathing suit, a full-brimmed hat, and sunglasses. She looked like an old-time movie star, and even I admired her beauty.

“I’m sorry.” James bows his head and weeps silently a moment. His chest bucks hard and violent. “I’m so damn sorry.” He wipes his face clean. “I’m going to get a paternity test.” He glances to the door behind me.

“You think you’re Ota’s father, too? Is this some kind of God complex? Some mid-life crisis you’re dealing with?” My husband’s mid-life crisis has driven us all into a fiery abyss.

“No. I just thought maybe that was her, Monica’s daughter. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about anymore. I just need answers. Monica’s off her rocker. She’s obsessed with me.”

Heather blinks through my mind, that invisible daughter of hers. “I have to tell you something.” My voice shakes as I pull him farther down the hall. “You know that girl in the pictures McCafferty shared with us?”

“The nut case who named both of her kids after you? The one that started the GoFundMe?”

“I saw her. She tried to introduce me to her daughter and—” that scene from the hotel room comes to mind and a choking fear clings to me.

He grips my shoulders and gives a light shake. “And what?”

“She acted as if she were right there with us. She was—invisible.” Even sharing the notion with James seems ludicrous. “She simply wasn’t there.”

“Shit.” He looks just as stunned as I was. “McCafferty said she existed. There were school records.”

“But where is she now?”

We both glance to Reagan’s room as if the answer waited inside.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I’m not saying that’s her. I’m just saying Heather is out of her mind and she doesn’t know where her child or her sanity is.”

“Who is that little girl?” James wraps his arm around my shoulders and we continue to stare down Reagan’s door as if it had the answers.

“Who is she indeed?”

---

James and I decide that I should sleep on a blow-up mattress in Reagan’s room with one eye open. It’s the same blow-up mattress she used back home for sleepovers with friends. James jammed both the front door and the back to ensure that if Ota tried she couldn’t easily get out of the house. He wedged roofing nails into the downstairs windows to make them nearly impossible to pry open. If the house combusted into flames, we would all be toast quite literally.

But Ota didn’t sleep. Ota didn’t even come to bed. Instead, she took me up on the offer and colored all night long. The desk lamp bled right through my onionskin lids, assuring I wouldn’t sleep a single wink myself. It didn’t matter. The last good night’s rest I had was the night before Reagan was taken.

In the morning, after sharing a cup of coffee on the base of the stairs, James thinks it’s best if we keep Ota to ourselves another day and I happen to agree.

“Social services would scoop her right up. We’d lose the upper hand. She hardly trusts us. God only knows how long she’d stay clammed up if she was with strangers.” I raise my mug to him as the toilet flushes in the bathroom behind us, and we watch as Ota walks silently back into Reagan’s room, straight to the coloring projects that have possessed her. I glance to James. “She’s gone through half the ream.”

“I’ll bring up a few blocks of paper from the office.” James and I once bought a huge box of printer paper from Costco and spent the next year wondering how we would ever use it all. I think we have our answer.

He peers in at her from over my shoulder. That stubble of his has grown out. I love him like this, with his hair unkempt, his wrinkled shirt, barefoot with sweats. I wish he was still mine. “Have you looked at any of it?”

“No. She’s hoarding it all in the corner. I figure she’ll have to crash soon, and I’ll get to sift through it all I want. We need her to speak, though.”

“Maybe we should call Rich?” James looks resigned to the fact. I start to protest and he holds a hand up. I know that Rich is more of a brother to him than he is some errant cop working the case, but still. He has laws to uphold. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t say a word.”

“You can’t promise.”

“I will.” He picks up my hand and gives it a squeeze. That small gesture makes me ache to have him again. And then Hailey pops through my mind with that bowling ball uterus of hers and the feeling leaves as quick as it came.

My phone rings from my pocket and it startles me for a second. Jane can’t call me and my mother refuses. I pull it out, half-anxious to see Heather’s name even though she prefers to text. But it’s not Heather. It’s a number I don’t recognize altogether, so I decide to pick up.

“Hello?” The world wobbles beneath me, because at this point anything is possible.

The line clots up with silence.

“Hello?” My voice shrills into the line. “Reagan, is that you?”

The clearing of a throat. “Is this a Mrs. Allison Greer?”

“Greer?” I glance to James who is suddenly eager for information. “Yes—yes it is.”

“My name is Nora Stewart. I run the Saginaw Library District as the head librarian. A woman by the name of Heather Evans came by yesterday. She says you have a child fathered by a Black Stone Indian.”

“Fuck.” I take in a ragged breath and jump to my feet. Leave it to stupid, stupid Heather Evans to blow the most precious details of my life right out of the water.

“Well, I have the information she was looking for. I’m not sure how well you know her, but she said that she was in some kind of trouble. I hope you don’t mind me calling. She left two numbers, and one of them was yours. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t reach her.”

Stupid, stupid Heather.

“Oh?” I’m only mildly concerned at the thought of Heather in trouble. It’s most likely a lie she concocted to cover up for being there to begin with.

“Anyhow.” She pauses and I try to picture this woman, elderly by the sound of her rickety voice, Indian, a Black Stone according to Heather. I imagine her dressed in a purple sweater that she hand-knitted. Comfortable shoes. “We had an appointment at ten and it’s almost noon. She said this was an alternate number to reach her at. She explained to me you were her best friend.”

“Of course, she did.” I scratch the hell out of the back of my head because for the life of me I can’t ever seem to escape that title.

“Well, I’m a bit worried for her. She seemed awfully paranoid while she was here. She kept saying something about being followed. Something about a little girl threatening her.”

“A little girl?” A nervous laugh burps from me as I glance to Ota. “That would be her paranoia.”

“Not necessarily. Not if you knew anything about the Black Stone tribe.”

A fire line of electrical jolts runs up my back, spreading over me, embedding their vampire-like teeth right into my flesh, my nerve endings.

“Ms. Stewart?” I cup my hand over the receiver, walking deeper still into the hall. “Whatever you know about the Black Stone tribe, you need to tell me right now.” I swallow hard, tempering my breathing in the event I miss a single detail.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that over the phone. You know where to find me. But if I were you, I’d check on your friend. Something seemed very, very off to me. I have to go.” The line goes dead.

Something seemed very, very off to her? It sounds like Heather was having an ordinary day.

I step into Reagan’s room to find James seated at the table, the two of them coloring away like father and daughter.

And according to James, that’s exactly what they might be.