Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE ON THE FROZEN LAKE
Elena arrived near Lake Geneva on December twenty-sixth.
The house stood beside a frozen lake.
White siding.
Blue shutters.
A small porch decorated with Christmas lights.
Nathan parked across the street.
“That's the address.”
Elena stared.
Her daughter might be inside.
Eleven years.
Four thousand days.
Every birthday she'd spent crying.
Every Christmas she'd imagined what her daughter might have looked like.
And now the child was only a few yards away.
Nathan touched her arm.
“Elena.”
She looked at him.
“We need to do this carefully.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
They'd arranged to meet Isabella's guardian through an attorney.
The woman was named Margaret Hart.
She was sixty-three.
A retired schoolteacher.
When she opened the door, she looked at Elena for a long moment.
Then whispered:
“You have her eyes.”
Elena began crying.
May you like
Margaret stepped aside.
“Come in.”
