I stared at the phone as the elevator doors pinged open into the lobby.
A seven-year-old child had fled his house, bleeding into the freezing night, and he called it “dramatics.” He hadn’t asked if she was hurt. He hadn’t asked where she was. He was entirely unbothered by her absence.
I realized then, with a horrifying, absolute certainty, that my daughter hadn’t run away from a bad dream. She had run away from a monster.
2. The Second Sentence
I immediately called my older sister, Elena, who lived twenty minutes outside of Boston.
“Elena, wake up,” I commanded the second she answered, not giving her time to speak. “Get to Oakwood Elementary right now. Ana is there. She’s hurt. Do not, under any circumstances, let Sarah or Arthur near her until I get there. If they show up, you tell the police they are the primary suspects in an assault.”
“I’m on my way,” Elena said, the sleep instantly vanishing from her voice, replaced by fierce, protective instinct.
I hailed a taxi to the Geneva airport and booked the very first available flight out of Switzerland. It was a direct flight to Boston.
Ten hours.
Ten agonizing, claustrophobic hours trapped in a pressurized metal tube thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean. The plane did not have Wi-Fi. I had no cell service. I was entirely cut off from the world, my mind left alone in the dark to construct a thousand horrific, agonizing scenarios of exactly what Arthur Vance had done to my little girl. I pictured her crying. I pictured her bleeding. I pictured the absolute terror she must have felt running alone in the dark.
When the plane finally touched down at Logan International Airport, I sprinted through customs, abandoned my checked luggage, and threw myself into the back of a cab.
