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

I burst into Soni’s living room without even having time to knock on the door, and at that very moment I saw how her hand gripped the heavy crystal glass lying on the table.

It was seven o’clock in the evening at home. Rain struck the windows, while the fire in the fireplace crackled as if it were even more nervous about me than the room was.

“Is Scout here?” I asked.

Soni slowly put the glass down.

“No.”

“Tell me once again.”

“Scout is not here, Drew.”

Her answer was too quick. Too calm. That was exactly why I did not believe it.

In my coat pocket I had a small copper compass that Scout had given me for my birthday. On its lid, in her handwriting, it said: “For Dad, so he never loses his way.” I kept touching that cold edge with my fingers again and again, as if the object really could show me the way.

“Then why aren’t you letting me into the house?” I asked and looked at the hallway behind her.

“Because you burst in like midnight and demand an answer by shouting.”

“My daughter disappeared three hours ago. No one is answering her phone. Her friend said they brought her to your house. And now you tell me she isn’t here?”

Soni’s jaw tightened.

“You have your information mixed up.”

“Then show me every room.”

She lowered her head slightly.

“This is my house.”

“Scout is my daughter.”

For a moment, only the sound of the rain could be heard. Then one floorboard at the end of the hallway shifted with a creak.

My eyes immediately darted there.

Soni heard it too.

“It’s the sound of an old house,” she said.

“Old houses don’t sound like children’s footsteps.”

I went toward the stairs, but Soni blocked my way. Up close I noticed that she had a thin scratch on her right wrist. It was fresh. The skin was still red around it.

“Step back, Drew.”

“What happened to your wrist?”

“Nothing.”

“Did Scout do it to you?”

Something flashed across her face. Not anger. Fear.

That suddenly made the room smaller.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told me.

“Then why are you afraid?”

Soni quickly turned and went to the small cabinet standing near the fireplace. She took a key from it. My gaze was drawn to the camera monitor hanging on the wall. One of the screens showed the backyard. Under the rain, beside the wooden shed, a small red backpack lay.

It was Scout’s.

“Where did you find this?” I shouted.

Soni stepped in front of the monitor.

“There is nothing there.”

“I saw the bag.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“My eyes still work perfectly well.”

I reached the stairs. This time she put her hand against my chest. Her fingers had stiffened, but I did not step back.

“If you take even one step, I’ll call the police,” she told me.

“Call them.”

My voice came out calm. It surprised me too.

Soni took out her phone, but did not dial the number. She looked at the screen and suddenly lost color.

“Who is calling you?” I asked.

She did not answer.

The second phone, which lay under the sofa, rang.

The sound of the ringing cut through the room like a knife.

Soni slowly turned her head. I passed beside her and ran toward the door, behind which the answer was probably hiding. My fingers gripped the handle, but at that same moment the door opened from inside and a woman holding a black folder appeared on the threshold…

…The woman had wet hair, and she held the black folder clenched in her hand as if losing it would cost her her life.

“Drew Kane?” she asked me.

“Who are you?”

“Miranda Vale. Soni’s lawyer.”

Soni quickly closed herself off in front of her.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“You called me,” Miranda replied. “You told me we had no time left.”

My heart stopped too.

“What time?” I asked.

Miranda looked toward me, but did not answer. She ran her thumb along the edge of the folder so hard that her fingernail turned white.

“Where is Scout?” I repeated.

Soni hissed through her teeth.

“I told you, she isn’t here.”

“Her bag is in the backyard.”

“Anyone could have left a bag there.”

“In your house?”

“This is a city, Drew. Anything is possible.”

Miranda lowered her eyes. That very movement gave me the answer she did not tell me in words.

“Do you also believe she is here?” I asked.

“I only brought documents.”

“What documents?”

Soni raised her hand.

“Be quiet, Miranda.”

“No,” she said. “This time I will not be quiet.”

The air in the room changed. Outside, the wind struck a tree branch against the window, and for a moment I thought Scout was standing behind the door, listening to us.

“Was my daughter here?” I asked.

Miranda pressed her lips together.

“I saw her a few hours ago.”

My knees grew heavy.

“Where?”

“Upstairs.”

Soni immediately moved toward her.

“Enough.”

“You told me you would protect the child temporarily,” Miranda continued. “But now everything looks different.”

“No one was threatening Scout,” Soni said.

“Then why did you hide her?”

I looked at Soni.

“Whom were you hiding her from?”

Instead of answering, she looked toward the stairs. From above came a light knock, repeated three times.

It was Scout’s old signal. In childhood, when I waited behind the door, she always knocked three times.

“Scout!” I shouted and went up the stairs.

Soni followed me.

“Stop!”

“My daughter is calling me!”

“It’s a trap!”

In the upstairs hallway I recognized a smell—the smell of orange soap and wet wool. Scout smelled exactly like that when she walked in the rain with me.

The first door on the left was locked.

“Open it,” I told Soni.

“I can’t.”

“Then I’ll break it.”

I struck the door with my shoulder. The lock shook.

“Drew, if you do this, everything will be over.”

“It was already over the moment you hid my daughter from me.”

The door opened with the second blow.

The room was empty. The window was open. Only Scout’s red scarf lay on the bed. Beneath it I noticed a small sheet of paper.

My name was written on the paper.

“Dad, if you came here, don’t trust anyone.”

The paper trembled in my hand.

“This is her handwriting,” I said.

Soni closed her eyes.

“Drew, you have to listen to me.”

“Now?”

“Scout isn’t hiding from you. She is hiding from someone.”

“Whom?”

Miranda appeared in the doorway. Her face had an expression as if the answer frightened her too.

“From the person who ordered her abduction,” she said.

The silence choked both of us.

“What does ‘ordered’ mean?” I asked.

For the first time Soni did not dare look me in the eyes.

Miranda opened the folder and took out a white sealed envelope.

“Scout left this with me. She told me to open it only when you were here.”

“Open it.”

“Not here.”

“Right now!”

Miranda put her hand on the envelope, but Soni grabbed her by the wrist.

“First you have to understand whom you are going up against,” she whispered.

At that moment, the sound of the door being broken in came from below.

Miranda pressed the envelope to her chest.

Soni said quietly:

“They’ve already come…”

…Light spilled into the hallway from beneath the door, and the sound of heavy footsteps slowly, unhurriedly, came up the stairs.

Soni drew a pistol, but Miranda held her hand.

“If you shoot, we won’t be able to help Scout.”

“Put the weapon down, Soni,” I said. “I have already lost control enough.”

“They didn’t come only to kill you,” she replied. “They need the documents.”

Two men appeared at the top of the stairs. One wore a dark coat, and the other held an iron box in his hands.

“The envelope,” said the man in the coat.

Miranda looked toward me.

“Now you have to open it.”

I put the sealed envelope on the table. My copper compass trembled in my pocket, as if its little needle were losing its mind.

“Drew,” Soni told me, “before you see this, you should know that I did not bring Scout here of my own will.”

“Then by whose will?”

“Hers.”

She looked at the camera monitor hanging on the wall. Miranda quickly started the recording. Scout appeared on the screen. She was coming in through the back door, frightened and wet. No one was visible behind her.

Then she looked directly at the camera and said:

“If Dad comes, tell him that I asked Soni for help. I can’t return to my mother’s house. I am not hiding from Dad, but the man going after me is already hunting me.”

The video stopped.

I looked at Soni.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because they were listening to your phone.”

“And you thought lying to me would be better for me?”

“I thought it would leave you alive, and Scout too.”

Miranda opened the envelope. Inside were a statement written by Scout, copies of bank transfers, and one recording device.

“Scout took all this from her mother’s office,” she said. “Money was being transferred from her father’s account to people who were conducting surveillance on her.”

“Whom do you mean?” I asked.

Miranda pushed a document toward me.

“Your former wife, Nina Kane.”

The name fell on me as if a stone had struck me in the chest.

“Is Nina looking for Scout?”

“She is not only looking for her. She was the one who paid for the girl to be used against you and then disappear.”

Soni went dark.

“That woman was using Scout as a weapon of pressure against me.”

We turned on the recorder.

Nina’s voice sounded clearly:

“If Drew comes, tell him that the child will not return to him. If he gets in my way, his life will cost me money.”

Everyone in the room fell silent.

The man in the coat stepped back. The one with the iron box froze at the door.

I could hear my own heartbeat.

“Where is Scout?” I asked.

Soni answered me quietly:

“In a safe place. But Nina is still free.”

At that moment Miranda’s phone rang. She looked at the screen and her face changed.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“The police station.”

She answered.

After a few seconds she handed me the phone. On the other side of the line was Scout’s voice, weak and trembling.

“Dad, don’t come where I am. Nina knows my address.”

“Scout, tell me where you are.”

“Dad… she had another plan for me. And this time she isn’t alone.”

The connection broke.

Miranda looked toward the window. Below, on the rainy street, a familiar black car stopped.

Soni said quietly:

“Nina is here.”

But she did not yet know that the heaviest blow was waiting for her not in this house, but in the police records room…