Chapter 4
I didn't have to wait long.
Two days before my first full month, it was past eleven at night. Mom was sound asleep, and Dad was still at the factory working late.
Mary Watson had gone to bed early. I was the only one awake in that little room. The silence felt thick enough to touch.
I lay there with my eyes open, counting my own breaths. One. Two. Three.
Click. The front doorknob turned. Nobody locked doors much in Millbrook.
A shadow slipped inside. The footsteps were soft, careful. Bare feet on linoleum. Almost no sound at all.
The shadow moved toward my little wooden crib.
I couldn't make out her face, but I caught a smell I knew. Cold cream and fried potatoes.
It was Lucy. She'd lived next door to Grandma for over twenty years. They were thicker than sisters.
She bent down, reaching for me.
The moment her hand grazed my blanket, I let out the loudest scream of my short life.
Mary called out first. "Who's there? It's the middle of the night!"
Adam Clark from two houses down stepped onto his porch. "What's going on over there?"
Under the harsh porch light, Lucy's face went pale as milk.
Within two minutes, Dad came roaring back from the factory in his pickup, the tires kicking up gravel.
He burst through the door and found Lucy standing in the hallway. "Lucy? What are you doing here?"
She was shaking, her hand still raised in midair. "I heard the baby crying. I came to check on her."
Dad's voice went cold. "You came to check on her."
Lucy sank to her knees on the linoleum floor.
By then, half a dozen neighbors had gathered on the lawn, all of them staring through the screen door.
Mom woke up to the noise and rushed out holding me. Her face lost all color when she saw what was happening.
Lucy held out for five minutes before she cracked.
Then Dad said, "I'm calling the sheriff."
That broke her completely. She dropped to her knees, sobbing. "John, I'm so sorry. Somebody gave me five hundred dollars.
"They wanted me to hand the baby out the window tonight. There was someone waiting in a car to take her."
Five hundred dollars was real money in 1982.
"Who gave you the money? Who was waiting outside?" Dad demanded.
Lucy's hands trembled as she pulled five crisp hundred-dollar bills from her coat pocket. The serial numbers were in sequence. "Somebody sent a middleman.
"I never saw who it came from. But the person waiting in the car... I saw the plate. County tags."
Dad's expression went hard. It was not an outsider. It was somebody local.
Lucy was taken away when the deputy showed up.
Grandma came hurrying over from her place on Oak Lane when she heard the racket. She stood on the lawn looking upset. "What on earth is going on? All this noise in the middle of the night?"
Dad looked at her. "Lucy tried to sneak in and hand Hannah out the window."
Grandma paused half a beat, then frowned. "Lucy has been my neighbor for twenty years. She'd never do a thing like that. There has to be some mistake."
"Half the street saw it. She admitted it herself."
Grandma was quiet for a moment. "Then somebody tricked her. I know Lucy. She's not that sort of person."
Dad said nothing, but I caught the way he studied Grandma's face.
Mom held me tight, trembling. "Grace, Lucy has always been right beside you. You're telling me you had no idea she'd do something like this?"
Grandma's face shifted. "What are you saying? You suspect me? I'm her grandmother! Her own blood! Why would I harm my own granddaughter?"
Her voice climbed, carrying across the lawn.
Grandpa showed up then, wearing his old flannel coat and boots, having walked over from Oak Lane.
He looked toward the deputy's car pulling away, then back at Grandma's face.
Then he walked over and reached to take me from Mom's arms.
It was the first time he'd ever held me. Nobody expected it. I stayed quiet.
"Investigate it. Dig up every stone. I don't care whose name turns up. Find out everything." Grandpa looked hard at Grandma. "No exceptions. Not for anyone."
Grandma's lips pressed together. She didn't speak. She turned and walked back toward Oak Lane.