Thirty

Fitch escaped.

I guess having a maze-ridden hotel with an old, boarded-up butler’s staircase to the basement helps you make a clean getaway. By the time the police reached the attic, we learned, Fitch had disappeared with his records and as much of the equipment as he could load into a rickety old luggage cart. They found the cart at the base of the hidden stairs. He had left the blue van behind. Instead he had driven away in a family car he’d kept parked in the underground garage.

Detective Tyrone and members of the Silver Bay, Black Hall, and Connecticut State Police departments hovered around Iris, Hayley, Minerva, Daphne, Matt, Abigail, and me in the parking lot of the hotel. They questioned all of us about Fitch and what had happened, and we answered as best we could, given that we were all tired and dazed and, in the case of Daphne, finally learning what had really gone on in the attic.

The police contacted Iris and Hayley’s parents. Rhode Island is right next to Connecticut, but in some ways it seems like a world away. There were two separate police forces investigating the missing girls. And because Eloise had been found in October, months before Iris and Hayley were kidnapped in late May, the investigators didn’t connect the cases. Only now were they putting it together, that a serial kidnapper—and killer—had been at work, crossing state lines along the way.

Iris and Hayley’s parents had returned from their vacation to the nightmare of missing daughters. Their story had been huge on local and even national news, but I had missed it, because I’d been avoiding the news and social media. Now I berated myself. If I had stayed alert, read about missing Rhode Island girls, I might have linked their disappearance with Eloise’s case and told Detective Tyrone. The case could have been solved sooner—saving Iris and Hayley from at least some of the trauma.

Their parents were now on their way from the Cat Castle to pick them up. They would be reunited within the hour.

Darkness was ebbing; morning stars still blazed bright, but one by one they began to dim in the dawn light. A line of orange appeared on the eastern horizon, and the sun rose on the third day since I’d found Iris. I heard a distant siren—the ambulance coming to take Abigail to the hospital. The police were trying to track down her and Fitch’s mom.

Detective Tyrone told me that every police department in New England had Fitch’s description and the license plate of his family car. There were so many places he could be. He was smart, he could hide anywhere, but they would find him. They were tracking his cell phone data. He couldn’t get away, she said.

I wanted to believe her, but she didn’t know Fitch. It would be so easy for him to trick people into hiding him. And who knew what he would do to them when he was ready to move on?

Detective Tyrone was eager to take Matt home to his parents, and to reunite me with Gram. But I wasn’t quite ready. As the ambulance arrived to take Abigail to Shoreline General, it backed into the parking lot, making that beep-beep-beep sound.

I grabbed Matt’s hand. “I think I know where he went,” I said.

“Fitch?”

I nodded.

“I think I do, too,” he said. “Let’s tell Detective Tyrone.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Let’s just drive by—to see if he’s there. Then we’ll call her.”

Matt gazed at me for a few seconds. He might have wanted to talk me out of it, but he saw in my expression that it would be futile.

We took advantage of all the police activity to climb into Matt’s Jeep. Minerva stayed at the hotel with Daphne, Abigail sped off to Shoreline General with lights and sirens going. Iris and Hayley were surrounded by police and medical personnel, being questioned and taken care of, waiting for their parents to arrive.

No one even noticed us leaving.

Matt drove us to the Braided Woods.