My stomach dropped so hard I felt it behind my ribs.
“I’m listening,” I whispered, because something in me already knew.
“They say she isn’t there.”
The hallway narrowed.
The photographs blurred.
My hand tightened around the phone until my fingers ached.
“What do you mean she isn’t there?” I asked, and my voice didn’t sound like mine.
“I am at the school,” he said quickly, breath uneven. “They are telling me she was dismissed. That she left earlier.”
“No.” The word came out flat. Certain. “You didn’t authorize that.”
“I did not.” His voice broke. “They say someone signed her out.”
My knees softened.
Mila stepped closer without touching me, like she didn’t want to startle me but wouldn’t let me fall alone.
“Someone?” I repeated.
“A man,” Étienne said. “They believed he was family.”
Family.
The word cracked something open in me.
Sabine’s eyes flashed in my mind. Her little drawing. Her smile. The way she’d wrapped her arms around my legs like she’d decided I was safe.
“She’s five,” I said, and the number sounded obscene. Impossible. “She wouldn’t just go with?—”
“He knew her name,” Étienne cut in. “They said he spoke to her like he knew her. They thought … they thought it was normal.”
My throat closed.
I could hear noise on his end now—French voices, hurried, overlapping. A door opening. A sharp instruction.
“Étienne,” I said, forcing my lungs to work. “Slow down. Are the police there?”
“They are calling,” he said. “They are checking cameras. Ella?—”
“I’m coming,” I said instantly.
Mila’s breath caught.
“You cannot—” Étienne started, voice raw. “I don’t know?—”
“I’m coming,” I repeated, and this time it wasn’t comfort.
It was a decision.
I ended the call before he could argue, because if I heard him fall apart, I would, too.
28
