The Substitute

Chapter 14 — What the Fire Hid

Rachel took one look at the lockbox and said, “We’re going to the police. Right now.”

“Which police?” Nora asked. “Boyle? The man who buried Pete Kowalski’s statement?”

“The state police. The attorney general. Someone outside Greyport.” Rachel was already on the phone. “I know a detective in Augusta. She’s clean. She’ll listen.”

While Rachel made calls, Nora sat with the documents spread across the kitchen table. Insurance papers. The diary. Eleanor’s letter. Thomas’s letter.

Something nagged at her. Something about the dates.

She pulled out her phone and called Diane.

“Diane, it’s Nora. I need you to check something in my file. The note — the one my birth mother left. What exactly did it say?”

“I told you. ‘Keep her safe. Her name is Lena.'”

“And the date I was surrendered — March 3rd, 2009. Are you sure?”

“It’s in the file, Nora. Why?”

“Because if I was born in 1997, I would’ve been eleven in 2009. Not three.” Nora’s voice was tight. “Diane. How old was I? Really?”

A long pause. “The file says three. The hospital estimated three.”

“Estimated. Based on what?”

“Size. Development. She was small, Nora. Malnourished. The doctors said —” Diane stopped. “They said she could have been older. Much older. But she was the size of a three-year-old.”

Nora closed her eyes. Malnourished. A child kept — where? In a house with no windows, Milo had said. The girl who visited him had said Daddy kept her in a house with no windows.

“Diane,” Nora whispered. “I think I was eleven. I think I was so starved I looked three.”

“Oh, honey.”

“Thank you, Diane.” Nora hung up.

Eleven years old. Surrendered at a hospital. With a note: *Keep her safe. Her name is Lena.*

Not left by Thomas. Left by — someone who wanted her safe. Someone who knew her name.

*Had Lena — the brave one — escaped?*

Nora’s phone buzzed. Rachel, from the other room: “Detective will see us tomorrow. Bring everything.”

But Nora was staring at Thomas’s letter again. At the postmark. 2008. Canada.

“Rachel,” she called. “Can you check something? This postmark — where in Canada?”

Rachel came over, squinted. “It’s smudged. Looks like — Nova Scotia? Yarmouth, maybe.”

“Yarmouth.” Nora pulled up a map. “That’s — that’s right across from Maine. The ferry.”

“So he was close. All that time, he was close.” Rachel sat down. “Nora. If Thomas has been in Nova Scotia for twenty years — if he’s still alive —”

“Then Lena might be there too.” Nora’s heart pounded. “Or — she might have gotten away. She might be anywhere.”

“We need to be careful. If Thomas sees us coming —”

“He won’t. Because I’m not going to Nova Scotia.” Nora stood up. “I’m going to find out who surrendered me at that hospital. The note was handwritten. Someone wrote it. Someone carried an eleven-year-old girl to an emergency entrance and left her with a note. I want to know who.”

“Hospital records from 2009 —”

“Security footage is long gone. But the note — Diane said it’s in the file. I want to see it. I want a handwriting expert to look at it.” Nora was pacing now. “And I want to compare it to Eleanor’s letter. And to Thomas’s letter. Because someone wrote that note, Rachel. And I think — I think it wasn’t Thomas.”

Rachel studied her. “Who do you think it was?”

Nora stopped pacing.

“I think it was Lena,” she said. “I think the brave one saved herself. And I think —” Her voice caught. “I think she saved me too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you see?” Nora turned around. “I’m Nora. The quiet one. The one Thomas left in the basement. But I survived. I got out. Someone got me out. What if — what if it wasn’t luck? What if Lena came back for me?”

Rachel was quiet.

“The girl who visited Milo,” Nora continued. “She said Daddy kept her in a house with no windows. She said she was going to get help. What if she did? What if she got me out — out of wherever Thomas had us — and brought me to that hospital? What if the note — *Keep her safe* — what if Lena wrote that?”

“She would’ve been — what, twelve? Thirteen?”

“The brave one,” Nora whispered. “She was always the brave one.”

They sat in silence.

Then Rachel’s phone rang. She answered, listened, and her face changed.

“It’s the detective,” she said. “She ran Thomas Ashford’s name. Nora — you’re going to want to hear this.”

She put the call on speaker.

“Ms. Calloway? Detective Sarah Lindqvist, Maine State Police. We pulled everything we have on Thomas Ashford.”

“And?”

“He’s dead.” A pause. “Thomas Ashford died in 2010. In Nova Scotia. Car accident. Single vehicle, went off the road at night.”

Nora sat down hard.

“I’m sorry,” Lindqvist continued. “But there’s more. The Nova Scotia police found something in his car. A child’s drawing. A house on fire. And on the back, in an adult’s handwriting —”

“What?” Nora breathed.

“Three words: *She’s still in there.*”