The Name She Remembered
Chapter 02 - The Name She Remembered
Mara did not turn immediately.
Years of patrol work had taught her that the first movement after a child disclosed danger often determined whether the child kept speaking. She remained seated, keeping her body between the girl and the doorway.
“What is your name?” Mara asked.
The child glanced toward Rachel again.
“Emma,” she said automatically.
Then her mouth trembled.
“No. She makes me say that.”
Rachel stepped into the room. “That is enough. She is confused.”
Mara rose and held out one palm. “Stay in the hallway.”
“You cannot order me out of my daughter’s bedroom.”
“I can while I investigate an emergency call.”
Rachel’s face changed for only a second. The worried mother disappeared, replaced by something colder. Then the softness returned.
“Officer, she has dissociative episodes. Her doctor can explain.”
Mara touched the radio on her shoulder and quietly requested another unit.
The girl clutched Mara’s sleeve.
“My real name is Sophie.”
“Do you know your last name?”
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. “Bennett. I think.”
Rachel laughed nervously. “She heard that name on television.”
Mara remembered it.
Sophie Bennett had disappeared eighteen months earlier from a crowded county fair nearly sixty miles away. Every officer in the region had seen her photograph: six years old, brown hair, blue-gray eyes, a crescent-shaped birthmark below her left ear.
The child before Mara was older and thinner, but when she turned her head, Mara saw the pale crescent.
She stood.
“Rachel, place your hands where I can see them.”
Rachel’s eyes moved toward the bedroom window.
Mara saw it and moved first, blocking the path.
“You are making a terrible mistake,” Rachel said.
“Then we will correct it after we verify your identity.”
Backup arrived at the front door. Officer Luis Ortega entered the hallway while Mara guided Sophie behind her.
Rachel suddenly reached into the pocket of her robe.
Both officers shouted for her to stop.
She pulled out a small plastic bottle and threw it toward the bathroom. Pills scattered across the carpet.
Sophie began screaming.
Mara lifted the child into her arms while Ortega secured Rachel’s wrists.
As Rachel was led away, she looked directly at Sophie.
“You know what happens when you lie,” she said.
Sophie buried her face against Mara’s shoulder.
Mara looked at the pills, the locked bedroom window, and the perfectly made bed.
May you like
This had never been a home.
It had been a cage arranged to look like one.
