Part 4 — I burst into Soni’s house to hear one answer, but her strange calm eventually frightened me myself

…Soni moved away from the window and immediately picked up the phone.

“Move security to the back entrance,” she said. “Let no one leave the house.”

Miranda snatched the phone from her hand.

“No. If you lock the building, they will say that you were holding Scout by force.”

“Then what do you advise?”

“For the first time in your life, the truth.”

Soni smiled bitterly.

“The truth is the most expensive thing in this city.”

I was still holding Scout’s recorder in my hand. Her last words kept circling in my head: “This time she isn’t alone.”

The doorbell rang downstairs.

Once.

A second time.

A third time.

This was no longer the bell of an accidental visitor. It was a message that whoever had come was certain the door would be opened.

Miranda took another sheet of paper from the folder.

“I have already sent the recordings to the police,” she told me. “If Nina is here, they will come in soon.”

“You knew she was involved in all this,” I told her.

“I suspected.”

“Suspicion and evidence are not the same thing.”

“That is why I brought the envelope.”

At the door Soni asked in a calm voice, like a servant:

“Who is it?”

Nina’s voice came from below.

“I’m your guest, Soni. I came to take Drew away.”

My stomach clenched.

“Where is Scout?” I shouted.

“You will get answers to your questions when you speak to me alone.”

“If you lay a finger on my daughter, I will publish everything.”

“First you have to find out where she is.”

There was confidence in her voice. At that time she still thought she held all the strings in her hands.

Soni looked toward me.

“Wait for the police.”

“No. I want to record her words.”

Miranda handed me a small recorder.

We went down the stairs together. Soni opened the door only a few centimeters. Nina stood outside with a black umbrella, on which drops of rain ran like silver lines. Two men stood behind her.

“Drew,” she told me, “at last act like a father and not like a victim.”

“You threatened Scout.”

“She is a child. Children invent stories when they are afraid.”

“Your voice is on the recording.”

Nina’s smile disappeared for a moment, but soon returned.

“The recording could have been edited.”

“The bank transfers too?”

“You have no idea whom you are confronting.”

“Now I do.”

Soni opened the door wider.

“This conversation ends here.”

Nina looked at her.

“You are finished too, Soni. If you keep me in this house for one more minute, I will let the whole city know that you were hiding Scout.”

“Let them know,” Soni said. “But first explain why you paid people to track her.”

Nina’s face turned pale.

At that moment, the flashing lights of police cars appeared at the end of the street.

The men standing behind Nina tried to escape. One pushed me on the stairs, but Soni grabbed him by the wrist. Miranda stopped the other and pressed him against the wall.

Nina, however, came toward me.

“Drew, I can still explain everything to you.”

“Where did you take Scout?”

“I didn’t take her.”

“Tell me the address.”

“If you speak against me, you will never get her back.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A warning.”

I stood on the threshold and saw for the first time how years, lies, and confidence were falling apart around her.

“No, Nina. This is your last attempt to make me afraid of you.”

The police officers entered the house. Miranda handed them the folder. Nina suddenly raised her voice.

“Drew, tell them that you were involved too!”

I kept silent.

“Tell them that you transferred the money!”

Again I kept silent.

“Tell them that you took Scout!”

Miranda turned on the recording.

Nina’s own voice sounded in the room:

“If Drew comes, tell him that the child will not return to him. Her life will cost me money.”

Nina jerked her head back.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said it,” Miranda replied.

“No!”

The recording started again.

Her voice sounded a second time. Then a third.

Nina slowly sat down on the stair. For the first time she heard her own threat as others heard it—cold, calculated, and frightening.

“I only wanted her to come back,” she whispered.

“Scout?” I asked.

“The family.”

“A family does not return through fear.”

The police officer extended handcuffs toward her.

“Nina Kane, you are under arrest on charges of threats, surveillance, and the forced movement of a minor.”

She looked toward me.

“You will regret this.”

“Maybe,” I answered. “But I will not come to save you anymore.”

That same night we found Scout in a small hotel room on the other side of the city. When I opened the door, she was standing by the window and tying the red scarf with both hands.

“Dad,” she said to me.

I went toward her, but stopped before she hugged me herself.

Her body was still trembling.

“I thought you wouldn’t find me.”

“When I heard your recording, I would have turned the whole city upside down.”

“Did Soni hurt you?”

“No. She acted badly when she hid the truth from me, but she was trying to protect you.”

Scout looked at the floor.

“I thought you would blame me too.”

“Never.”

The next day everything was officially recorded at the police station. Bank data and camera recordings confirmed that Nina had been paying two people for months to control Scout’s movements. No charges were brought against Soni, because the recordings showed that the girl had gone to her herself and that she had tried to hide her in a safe place the entire time.

Later Miranda told me that Nina’s lawyer had refused to take the case.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the client had already tried to hide evidence from him too.”

I was not happy about Nina’s downfall.

Scout still had a mother.

But saving her was no longer my responsibility.

Three weeks later I emptied the upstairs room of our house. Scout’s old bed was no longer there, her maps no longer hung on the wall, and colored pencils no longer lay on the windowsill.

I left only one thing.

The red scarf.

I hung it over a chair so that the room would not look completely empty.

Scout pushed the door open.

“Will I be able to sleep here again?”

“Whenever you want.”

“Can we move the bed to another room?”

“We can move it wherever you want.”

She thought for a while.

“I want it by the window. I want to see the first snow in the morning.”

“Okay.”

Two months later we moved to another city. I rented a small house by the river and worked at the harbor in the mornings. My hands were always covered with wood dust, but when I returned home in the evening, Scout’s drawings were waiting for me on the refrigerator.

In one drawing, she and I were pictured. Above us was a large yellow sun, and below was a small arrow showing both of us toward the same side.

“Is this a compass?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “It is the direction in which we are going home.”

The first snow came at the end of December.

Scout stood by the window and drew a circle on the glass with her finger.

“Dad, are we truly safe now?”

I stood beside her.

“Now we have a choice.”

“What choice?”

“To be afraid or to live.”

She smiled.

“Let’s live.”

That evening I received a letter from Nina. She sent it through a lawyer. It contained only four sentences.

“I want to talk to you. Everything was different. I need to be a mother to Scout. Please give me one chance.”

I held the letter in my hand for a long time.

Earlier I would have run immediately at such words. I would have carried her mistakes on my shoulders. I would have convinced myself that saving someone was love.

But that night I wrote only one answer.

“Scout needs peace. And you yourself must learn to answer for your mistakes. I am not agreeing to a meeting now.”

I put the paper into an envelope and sent it.

Scout asked nothing. She only took my hand.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“For the first time, really.”

Then we opened the window. Cold air came in, and the red scarf fluttered like a curtain.

I took the small copper compass from my pocket. Her childish inscription could still be seen on the lid: “For Dad, so he never loses his way.”

This time the needle was not pointing north.

It was pointing toward Scout.

And I did not lose my way again.