No! She could not go back. There was no going back. There was only the task at hand. She was Isabel.
“I—I’m just missing my mum, I guess,” Emmy whispered. It was as good an answer as any.
Mac lifted her palm off the table and enclosed it in his. “I’m so sorry about that.”
Emmy was mesmerized by the warmth and strength in his tender grip. She hadn’t been touched—by anyone—in weeks; not since Mum put her hand on her cheek on the night she died. Emmy wanted to be in Mac’s arms. She wanted Mac to pull her to his chest and kiss her forehead and tell her everything was going to be all right. She wanted to be enfolded in his embrace. And to disappear in it. For good.
A tiny exhale escaped her as she vented the tremendous pull of that desire to be held and loved.
“What can I do for you?” Mac said as he squeezed her hand.
Emmy summoned Isabel from the foggy place to which she had wafted away. She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“There must be something I can do.”
As Emmy felt Mac’s hand strong and protective over hers, and as she saw in his eyes a longing to be close that she didn’t need to be eighteen to recognize, she decided to trust him. To let him in, only halfway, so that she could have what she wanted—his help—and he could have what he wanted—a closer relationship with her.
“Maybe there is something,” Emmy said.
“Yes?”
Emmy leaned forward, imploring him. “I’m looking for a young girl. Her name is Julia Downtree and she’s seven. She disappeared on the first night of the Blitz. She was left home alone by accident and her street was bombed. None of the neighbors have seen her. She’s not on any of the casualty lists. The police have not seen her. She’s not in any hospital. She’s just... gone.”
“Is she someone you know personally?” Mac said, obviously puzzled by Emmy’s interest in one particular child.
Emmy had a split second to decide how she would answer. She knew he would double his efforts to help her if she told him the truth. Emmy didn’t have to tell him everything. But she could tell him this.
“She’s my half sister. And I’m the one who left her alone. I didn’t think she’d be alone for very long. It just... It just happened that way. I was on my way to her when the first bombs fell.”
With his other hand, Mac reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew a slim notepad, and placed it on the table.
“Julia, you said?” He pulled his other hand off hersand withdrew a pencil from the same pocket. He began to write.
“Downtree,” Emmy replied.
Mac glanced up at Emmy, wondering, she supposed, whether she was going to explain how she came to have a half sister.
“We’ve the same father and that’s all I am going to say about that.” The less Emmy entwined her two lives with explanations, the better. Besides, a gentleman didn’t need to know any of the supposed sordid details.
She said nothing else and Mac quickly lowered his gaze back to his notepad.
“She’s only seven,” Emmy continued. “Blond hair. The flat where she lived with her mother was off Queen Victoria in Whitechapel.”
“And where is her mother, if I may ask?”
“She unfortunately died on the second night of the bombings,” Emmy said, her voice breaking a bit.
Mac again looked up at Emmy, surprised at her reaction to the death of her half sister’s mother. Emmy was fine with Mac thinking whatever he wanted. She did not try to mask the emotions etched across her face.
“I’m so very sorry, Isabel. Damn this war. Damn the Nazis to hell.” He shook his head like people did when they were disgusted, and he slipped the notebook and pencil back inside his pocket.
“I just want to find her, Mac. I’m all she has. I’ve checked with the police and the hospitals and the IIPs. They have no record of her being found. None of the remaining neighbors have seen her.”
“And you’ve thoroughly checked the flat?”
“Yes. I’ve been back several times. There is no gas or water or electricity.”
“No other relatives or friends of the family could have come for her?”
