“He’ll worry.”
Hannah took her hand. “Listen to me. You’re safe here. We’re going to help you.”
Margaret gripped her fingers tightly.
“He said he would come back from the store,” she whispered. “He said he would only be gone twenty minutes.”
Hannah did not know what to say.
So she stayed quiet and held her hand.
Sometimes comfort was not an answer.
Sometimes it was simply not letting someone be afraid alone.
The police arrived at 2:12 a.m.
Officer Daniels, a kind woman in her forties, stepped inside with snow on her shoulders and concern in her eyes. She spoke gently to Margaret, asked her full name, her birth date, and whether she knew where she lived.
Margaret could answer some things.
Others slipped away.
There was still no missing person report. Officer Daniels said she would take Margaret to the hospital to be checked and continue searching for family.
When Margaret realized she had to leave, she became frightened again.
“No,” she said, clutching Hannah’s sleeve. “Please don’t send me away.”
Hannah knelt in front of her.
“I’m not sending you away,” she said softly. “The officer is going to help find your family.”
“Come with me.”
Hannah hesitated.
She had to work at seven the next morning. She had already been awake nearly twenty hours. Sophie needed her. Bills needed paying. Life needed her to stand upright whether she was exhausted or not.
But Margaret’s eyes were full of the same terror she had worn in the alley.
Hannah looked at Officer Daniels.
“Can I ride along?”
The officer nodded. “If you want to.”
Sophie stepped forward. “I’ll be okay. I can sleep a few more hours before school.”
Hannah looked at her little sister, who was not so little anymore, and felt both pride and guilt.
“I’ll be back soon,” she promised.
At the hospital, nurses wrapped Margaret in heated blankets and checked her temperature. She had mild hypothermia, dehydration, and bruises on her knees from falling. Nothing broken.
Hannah sat beside her bed until nearly four in the morning.
Margaret drifted in and out of sleep. Once, she woke and looked at Hannah as if seeing her clearly for the first time.
“You have kind eyes,” she whispered.
Hannah smiled tiredly. “So do you.”
“My son needs someone with kind eyes.”
Hannah blinked. “Your son?”
Margaret’s hand moved weakly over the blanket.
“He’s so busy being strong,” she said. “He forgets he is sad.”
Before Hannah could ask what she meant, Margaret fell asleep again.
At 4:25 a.m., Officer Daniels returned.
“We found her family,” she said.
Hannah stood quickly. “You did?”
The officer nodded. “Her full name is Margaret Whitmore.”
Hannah did not react at first.
Then the name settled into place.
Whitmore.
Everyone in Briar Glen knew that name.
Whitmore Development had built half the county. They owned apartment buildings, medical offices, shopping centers, and the new assisted living facility on the edge of town. The Whitmores were not celebrities, exactly, but they were the kind of people whose names appeared on hospital wings and scholarship plaques.
Hannah looked back at Margaret.