Chapter 3 - The Girl in the Crawlspace
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The little girl weighed almost nothing. As Ryan pulled her through the opening and rested her on the clean kitchen floor, her head slumped against his shoulder.
Her body was shivering violently with hypothermia.
“Daddy...?” she murmured again, her hazel eyes glazed and unfocused.
Ryan looked down at her face. Beneath the layers of dust and soot, the delicate arch of her eyebrows and the shape of her jaw were hauntingly familiar.
He had seen those exact features before. In the silver-framed photographs that Caroline kept locked inside her cedar jewelry chest.
“Chloe...?” Ryan breathed, his mind reeling in absolute shock.
Caroline was backing toward the front hallway, her car keys clutched in her trembling fist.
“Caroline!” Ryan yelled, standing up with the child secured in his left arm. “This is your sister Victoria’s daughter! Victoria died six months ago in that car accident! You told me Chloe was sent to live with her father’s family in Seattle!”
“Her father abandoned her years ago!” Caroline screamed, her voice cracking into panicked hysteria as she reached for the front door handle. “Victoria left fifteen million dollars in a testamentary trust that only vests if Chloe survives to adulthood or if I am named her sole legal guardian!”
“So you locked a five-year-old child inside a wall?!”
“Julian and I needed time to forge the conservatorship paperwork!” Caroline shrieked. “If child services took her, the state would have assigned an independent trustee! We were going to move her to a private boarding school in Switzerland next month!”
Before Caroline could turn the brass deadbolt, the front screen door rattled.
Evan stood on the porch, holding the heavy cast-iron doorstop against the exterior frame, his small face set in fierce, brave determination.
“You’re not going anywhere, Caroline!” Evan shouted through the glass.
Caroline pulled frantically at the handle, but the iron wedge held firm.
Inside the kitchen, Ryan dialed 911 on speakerphone, holding Chloe close against his warm woolen sweater.
“Emergency dispatch,” the operator answered.
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“My name is Ryan Miller,” Ryan stated with cold, surgical clarity. “I am at 442 Elmcrest Drive. Send emergency pediatric paramedics and four armed police units immediately. I have a captive child and a felony kidnapper contained inside my residence.”
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