“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.