“We think adults who come along should have a comfortable place to relax and recharge as well,” Megan continues. “Sadie will be fine. She will make friends quickly, and by the end of this week, she’ll be so engrossed in the experience she won’t want to leave. I better show her to her room so she can settle in.”
With that, she returns to Sadie and talks to her softly. Still looking a little stiff, Sadie comes to give me a hug before being whisked away to her adventure.
Waiting for someone to show me to my own room, I hold the stem of my flute a little too tight as I watch them disappear through the same glass doors the tennis boys had exited.
For reasons I can’t explain, I feel a thread of dread coiling itself around my spine.
EIGHTEEN
JUDY
Present Day
Clutching the phone, I sink onto the bed. “Who is this? Where’s my daughter?”
“This is Saul Daniels, ma’am. You told me to call if I remembered anything.”
“What…?” Relief and dread collide in my chest. “What do you remember?”
There’s a pause on the other end. Like he’s deciding whether to say anything.
“Well, I got a good memory,” he says. “Always have. Being a fisherman, you notice things some people might not. When you showed me that photo of your girl…something stuck with me, but I didn’t understand what until this morning.”
My mind is racing now, and when I speak, I can barely get the words out. “Wh… What is it?” Can he just get to the point?
“She was wearing a bracelet, wasn’t she? A thin silver band.”
I frown. “A bracelet? I didn’t notice?—”
“In the photo you and your husband showed me. She was wearing a silver bracelet on her left wrist.”
“She was?” I immediately snatch the envelope off the dresser and extract the photograph. I hold it up to catch the light from the window.
And there it is, a thin band of silver around Sadie’s small wrist. What does it mean?
“Well, she…she does…did wear jewelry sometimes.”
“Not that kind,” Saul replies. “I was told that those who stay in the camp, not visitors, wear those silver bracelets. I hear they call them permanent residents. Saw some kids wearing them around town since a year or two. Staff members get them too.”
The air bursts from my lungs and my pulse roars in my ears. “Permanent residents. Are you saying she—? You think she didn’t drown or run? That she stayed in the camp?”
“I’m only saying…” I know he’s about to choose his words carefully. “I can’t say that. I’m just telling you what I know.”
But it’s too late because stagnant hope has already erupted inside me.
Sadie didn’t run. She wasn’t taken by Hastings’ friends. She stayed in the camp.
“Thank you, Saul,” I whisper. “I’m so thankful.”
Saul tries to caution me not to read too much into the bracelet, but I press the red button on my phone before he can finish. The fragile bubble of possibility that’s just formed inside me, I can’t bear to have it punctured.
The phone drops onto the bed because my hands are shaking so much.
There’s only one way to find out if what I suspect is true.
Change of plans. I will no longer go to Grace Kitchen. Instead, I pick up the phone again and call Alice.
“Have you found out anything about the adult program at the camp yet?”
