“Rachel?” I called down the dark stairwell, my voice shaking. “It’s Dad. If that’s you, answer me.” For a long moment, there was nothing but the drip of a pipe and the cool basement air rising up to meet me. Then, at the bottom of the stairs, a light clicked on, and I heard my daughter’s voice, thin and frightened and relieved all at once. “Dad? Oh my God, Dad, is it really you?”<\/p>\n
I went down those stairs faster than my knees have moved in twenty years. And there, in the corner of the finished basement, was Rachel, pale and exhausted, cradling little Ethan against her chest. He was flushed with fever, whimpering, but alive. A camping mattress lay on the floor. Bottled water, the groceries from the tipped bag, a nightlight. She had been hiding down here. My daughter had never been at any airport. “Dad,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face, “I didn’t know how to tell you. I’ve been so scared. Kevin, he’s been watching the house. He was going to take Ethan. The airport call this morning, I made it up. I’ve been hiding in my own basement for two days, praying he’d give up.” And then, from the top of the stairs behind me, I heard Dominic’s voice call out sharply, “Mr. Caldwell, that charcoal pickup just pulled into the driveway.”<\/p>\n
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