Chapter 56
JIN SHOOK HER head.
“Miguel?”
The boy looked off into the distance. He’d covered his mouth again with his hand. Even so, you could see the memory of some traumatic event ripple across his face. Then he shook his head, said, “No.”
“What were you thinking about just then?” Justine asked.
Miguel shrugged, said, “It was like a dream. I don’t think it was real.”
“What happened in your dream?” Justine asked softly. “Was Stella there?”
“She was sleeping in my bed,” the boy said.
“How do you know that?”
“Because she farted when I got up to go to pee. It was horrible.”
Jin giggled, nodded. “Stella’s the smartest, prettiest girl, but she’s got the worstest farts.”
The dog’s eyebrows went up again.
Justine said, “Okay, so Stella farts in your dream, Miguel, and then you go pee, and then what?”
The boy blinked, and the repressed memory passed across his face again. “I heard noises,” he said. “I didn’t know what they were, but I knew they were bad.”
“How?”
He hesitated, hand worrying the bulldog’s neck, said, “I don’t know. But I was scared. I started to run, and I fell and hurt my legs.” He pointed to the bruises on his knees and shins. “And then I don’t remember anything.”
“When you say ‘bad noises,’ do you mean screams or—”
“Crying,” Jin said suddenly, looking off somewhere herself. “I remember a dream too. Someone was crying.”
“Where were you?” Justine asked. “In your room? At home?”
Jin appeared puzzled but then said, “No. I was in like a bunk bed, because I was lying on my back, and I could reach up and touch the bottom of the mattress. It wasn’t very far.”
“You remember seeing that in your dream?” Justine asked.
“No, it was night. I could just, like … feel it?”
“And the crying?” Justine pressed. “Where was that? Who was that?”
“I don’t …” Jin said before her voice trailed off.
Malia’s mouth hung open. “I had that same dream too. Someone was crying.”
“Where?”
“Outside of where I was,” Malia said, growing agitated, tears starting to dribble. “Only I don’t think it was a bunk bed. I was in a box. I felt walls all around me. I heard the crying through the walls.”
“Was it a man or a woman crying? Your mom or dad?”
The oldest Harlow girl shook her head. “No. It sounded like a child crying. Not Jennifer.”
“Couldn’t have been Thom?”
Malia blinked, thought, said, “But I heard men talking and that stopped the crying, and then I heard loud noises like chains clanking, and something heavy hitting something metal. And then a sound like a jet, the way the engine sounds when it starts up?”
“I know that sound,” Justine said, paused. “The men you heard talking in your dream. What were they saying?”
“I don’t know. They were speaking Spanish.”