CHAPTER 30

“S o, what did Dylan say exactly?” Hollis asked as soon as Raleigh climbed into the car.

“Just that she has a lead,” Raleigh replied.

Hollis backed out of the driveway and said, “Did you make sure the–”

“The nurse knows you’re with me. I checked on your mom. She’s sleeping and won’t even know we’re gone.”

“Thank you,” Hollis replied, going ten miles over the residential neighborhood speed limit. “Wait. I don’t know where we’re going.”

“Directions,” Raleigh said, placing her phone with the map already loaded in the cup holder of Hollis’s rental car.

“West,” she said. “Got it.”

“It’s midday. We should be there in, like, ten minutes,” Raleigh added.

“I’ll try to get us there in five,” Hollis said, taking Raleigh’s hand over the center console and squeezing it. “How are you?”

“My heart is racing so fast; I feel like I might have a heart attack soon.”

“It’s going to be okay. No matter what, it’ll be okay,” Hollis told her, trying to find calming words to say and only finding those.

“Dylan sounded like it was a good thing. She wouldn’t have told me there was a lead and to go to the station if it had been something bad, would she? If she found a bo…” Raleigh faded out. “A body.”

“Hey, there’s no body. It’s going to be fine.”

“Hollis, it could be. There’s always a chance – a big chance – that that’s what they’ll find.”

“Let’s just see what Dylan has to say before we worry about that, okay?” Hollis suggested, her own heart racing now because she couldn’t stand to see Raleigh in that kind of pain .

“Was it really okay that you just left work?”

“Probably not. But I texted Kenna on my way to the parking garage and told her why I had to go. If they have to fire me for this, so be it.”

“Hollis, I don’t want you to lose your job because of me,” Raleigh said.

“There are two things that matter to me right now.” Hollis pulled up to a red light and turned to Raleigh. “You and my mom. That’s it. Nothing else matters in the end.”

Raleigh nodded, and they drove the rest of the way in silence as Hollis repeatedly squeezed Raleigh’s hand. When Hollis parked in the lot at the station, she lifted Raleigh’s hand to her mouth and kissed it.

“I’m here. No matter what, I’m here.”

Raleigh nodded nervously and let go of Hollis’s hand long enough so that they could get out of the car. Then, Raleigh pulled it back into her own, and they walked inside together. Hollis let the door close behind them on its own and looked around for Dylan.

“There she is,” Raleigh said, pointing behind the large wooden desk that blocked them off from the rest of the station. “Dylan!”

Dylan looked up and nodded at them. She moved to the desk and said something to the officer there, who then held open the half-wooden door for them to walk through. Hollis felt Raleigh practically grip the life out of her hand, but she didn’t let go, despite the pain. She’d wear a cast for a month if it meant Raleigh needed to break bones for comfort right now.

“Tell me,” Raleigh requested.

“Let’s go in here. I got us a room,” Dylan said, motioning for them to walk into what looked like an interview room Hollis had seen on every cop TV show.

The walls were concrete. The table was metal and had clearly seen better days, having scrapes and dings all over it. The chairs were metal as well and looked uncomfortable. It reminded Hollis of the room she’d last seen her father in when he’d been handcuffed to a table like this. She tried to shake herself out of thoughts of her dad because today and this moment, in particular, were about Raleigh. For some reason, Hollis felt like this would change things. She wasn’t sure how yet, but whatever Dylan was about to say, it would make things different for Raleigh and, likely, for them, too, as a result. So, she let Raleigh take her hand and put it in her lap when they sat down next to each other.

Dylan sat across from them, clasped her hands on the table, and took a deep breath.

“Dylan, you’re killing me here,” Raleigh said.

“I have to start off by saying that we don’t know anything yet. There are a lot of questions we still need to answer, and we–”

“I don’t need a disclaimer. I need to know what you know,” Raleigh interjected.

“Okay. You’re right. Sorry, cop habit.” Dylan cleared her throat. “Do you remember those women in the pictures you took of Eden?”

“Yes. There were two you were trying to find.”

“I still haven’t found one of them, but I did find the other. She was in town visiting family.”

“She took my daughter?”

“No, I don’t have any reason to think that,” Dylan replied. “When I talked to her, though, she mentioned that her brother had rented a house to a woman in your neighborhood a few blocks away. Apparently, he had some questions about why she left so quickly, so I went to see him.”

“What did he say?”

“The woman had rented a house for six months when she up and left. He had to do the final inspection with her before she drove off, and he said he saw a little girl in her car.”

“Eden?”

“I don’t know that, Raleigh,” Dylan said.

“The woman had a daughter, too, and she would have been about Eden’s age, according to the landlord, anyway. What was interesting, though, was that he thought the woman’s daughter had passed away. A month before Eden went missing, the renter had missed a payment, and he’d had to reach out to get the money from her. She’d told him she’d lost her child and had forgotten about the rent. He had her information, so after I talked to him this morning, I looked her up, and he was right. It looks like she had a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter who’d passed suddenly from an illness. The kid looked a lot like Eden, which meant the woman could probably pass Eden off as her to people. And she looks enough like Eden to be her mom, so–”

“She took my child because she lost hers?” Raleigh asked, and Hollis could feel the anger pouring off her in waves.

“I don’t know. We’re looking for her. She didn’t leave a forwarding address and paid the landlord everything she owed for the rest of the lease term and then some extra to cover any cleaning costs, likely to avoid him trying to track her down. He said he saw a little girl, but he didn’t think it was Eden. He thought maybe the woman had lied to him about losing her daughter in a way of getting out of paying a late fee. It never dawned on him to mention it to anyone until I came around asking questions.”

“That’s stupid,” Hollis chimed in.

“I know. But that’s all I’ve got right now,” Dylan said.

“That’s it?!” Raleigh asked. “What’s being done to find her?”

“I’ve notified the FBI, and we’ve got a new Amber alert out on Eden with this new info. There hasn’t been a trace of this woman since that day.”

“What about her family?” Hollis asked.

“I’ve got local officers stopping by her cousin’s house right now, but that’s all we’ve got. Her parents are both long gone. She has a brother, but he’s in the military and has been in Germany for the past two years. I’ve already reached out to his commanding officer, but with the time difference, we haven’t heard back yet.”

“So, she’s basically gone underground like my dad did?” Hollis asked .

“It seems like it, yes,” Dylan replied. “She also doesn’t have any credit cards, any bank accounts, or property in her name.”

“She changed her name,” Hollis concluded.

“And probably her appearance as well,” Dylan added. “She might have even cut or dyed Eden’s hair so that she wouldn’t be recognized. But, Raleigh, it’s been over a year. Even if she’s done that in the beginning, she’ll get lazy or make a mistake. Eden’s four now. People will wonder why she’s not in school soon, wherever she is. Maybe she’ll mess up and put her in daycare. Eden might say something that makes people think or question.”

“Do you think she remembers me? It’s been over a year,” Raleigh said.

“I don’t know,” Dylan said honestly.

“Hollis didn’t remember her mom until she was older,” Raleigh reasoned.

“Hey, my dad told me my mom was gone, and–”

“Lied to you, I know. Eden’s probably been told this crazy woman is her mom so many times that she doesn’t even remember who her real mom is,” Raleigh said, tears forming in her eyes.

“Raleigh, we’re not sure this is Eden yet,” Dylan tried to caution.

“But if it’s her, this is good news,” Hollis suggested. “She’s with a woman who wanted her own child so badly that she was willing to take someone else’s. She’s probably taking good care of her, babe.”

“What do I do now?” Raleigh asked.

“Nothing. There’s nothing you can do right now. We don’t want to spook her into picking up and moving by doing any press. She’s probably feeling okay right now, like she’s safe, and that’s what we want. We want her guard down because it’ll make it easier to find her. Once we do, we’ll surveil first to learn what we can. Like I said, we don’t even know if this is Eden yet. If it’s not, we don’t want to scare the little girl. ”

“Dylan, is it her? Do you think it’s really her?” Raleigh asked, wiping the tears from her cheek.

“I can’t…” Dyland sighed. “I made a promise once, and it really hurt someone, so I don’t make promises anymore.”

“But you found him; you found Noah. And you found Oliver,” Raleigh replied.

“And caused Ada a lot of pain before that,” Dylan remarked, shaking her head. “I don’t know if it’s Eden, Raleigh. Her daughter did die, but she could’ve been babysitting for someone else the day she moved or something. I don’t know. This is the best lead, and it’s the only lead I’ve got right now, so we’ll follow it until we find this woman. We’ll see if it’s Eden.”

“Once you think you’ve found her, though, she’ll be brought back to Raleigh, right?” Hollis checked.

“First, we would do a DNA test to confirm, but yes,” Dylan replied.

“She’s my daughter; I just need to see a picture of her, and I’ll know it’s Eden,” Raleigh argued.

“We would still need to do the test,” Dylan replied. “This woman could make the same claim. The DNA results would need to confirm that it’s Eden before we can get her back to you.”

“Hollis, what do I do?” Raleigh asked, catching Hollis off guard.

“I’d love to get a DNA sample from you right now,” Dylan said instead, saving Hollis from having to answer. “We have one on file, but I don’t want this woman or her potential attorney claiming that we have an old sample that could’ve gotten contaminated or–”

“Whatever you want,” Raleigh interrupted. “Take my arm. I don’t care. I just want my daughter back.”

“I’ll get the technician to come in and take a cheek swab. Then – and I hate to say this – but then, you’ll have to wait until we find her. I should hear from her brother no later than tomorrow. And her cousin might know where she is, but we’ll still have to– ”

“I get it,” Raleigh said.

“This is still good news, Raleigh. It’s something.”

“I know. Thank you, Dylan. Hundreds of people were looking for my daughter, and you might have actually found her.”

Dylan nodded politely, stood, and left them alone in the room. Hollis could hardly feel her hand, so she pulled it out of Raleigh’s and wrapped it around her shoulders just as Raleigh crashed into her side and began to sob against Hollis’s neck.

“Oh, baby,” Hollis said softly. “This is good news.”

“I could get her back,” Raleigh said between sobs.

“I hope so,” Hollis replied, kissing her temple. “God, I hope so.”

“I don’t know how I can just sit and wait.”

“You can because you know this is the best chance of getting Eden home. We’ll wait because Dylan told us not to scare this woman into moving Eden somewhere else. We’ll wait, Raleigh, because we want her back.”

Raleigh looked up at her and asked, “ We ?”

“We, babe,” Hollis said, kissing her on the forehead.