A buzzer sounded, signaling that someone was at the front door, wanting to come inside.
Caroline felt seeds of panic sprouting in her chest. “What do you mean?”
The buzzer sounded again.
“Someone’s at the door,” Michelle said. “We have to let them in.” She crossed over to the big red button on the wall by the front desk and pressed it, holding it down until the lock on the outside door released and a man and a woman stepped inside the glass foyer. Michelle held open the inner door into the reception area. “If you wouldn’t mind signing in,” she told the couple, who obliged without comment before heading down the main floor corridor.
“What are you talking about?” Caroline asked as soon as they were gone. “You couldn’t have had anything to do with Samantha’s disappearance.”
“I resented her,” Michelle said, her eyes brimming with tears. “She was so pretty and perfect. She never cried. She never did anything wrong. You’d get this dreamy look on your face whenever you saw her. Like you couldn’t get enough of her. I remember wanting you to look at me like that, and thinking it would be so nice if she just went away…”
“You were a child. Just because you wished she’d disappear didn’t give you the power to make it happen. You can’t blame yourself…”
“You don’t understand.” Michelle shook her head in frustration.
“Then tell me. What am I missing here?”
“I was awake.”
Caroline fell back against the desk as if she’d been struck. “What?”
“The night they took Samantha. I was awake.”
“You were awake?” Caroline repeated, her brain struggling to catch up to her voice. “You know what happened? You saw who took her?”
Michelle’s voice got very small, as if she were five years old again. “I don’t remember what woke me up, whether I’d been dreaming, or whether I heard the door open and that’s what woke me. I just remember lying in bed, and hearing someone moving around in the next room, and I was scared because, somehow, I knew it wasn’t you. And they came into the room and I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I felt someone brush past my bed and I opened my eyes just a tiny, tiny bit and I saw them take Samantha out of her crib and put her in some sort of carrying case. And then I closed my eyes again and kept them closed, even after I heard the door shut. I could hear the music coming from the restaurant outside, people laughing. I kept waiting for them to bring Samantha back. I didn’t understand what was happening. Eventually I fell asleep. And next thing I knew, you were screaming.”
Caroline fought to make sense of what she was hearing. “You saw someone take Samantha? Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I did.”
“What do you mean, you did?”
“Not to you. You were beyond hysterical. So was Daddy. He was yelling. Everybody was running around, shouting that Samantha was missing, and then the police came and the room was full of people. Your friends were there, and Uncle Steve and Becky, and people from the hotel. Everybody was talking at once. I was scared. I was confused. And…and…”
The volunteer receptionist suddenly reappeared, opening the glass door and poking her head slowly through the doorway, like a turtle cautiously emerging from its shell.
“Go away,” Caroline said without so much as a glance in her direction.
The woman promptly withdrew.
“And then Grandma Mary came and took me home,” Michelle continued without prompting.
“You told her,” Caroline said, her voice flat. “You told your grandmother what you’d seen.”
“She insisted it was all a dream, that I’d been traumatized by what happened, that I was confusing fantasy and reality, and that I shouldn’t say anything because it would only upset everyone even more. And time passed, and what can I say? I was a kid. Part of me was actually glad Samantha was gone. No more sweet little baby for everyone to fuss over. Just me. Somewhere in my twisted little five-year-old brain, I actually thought that with Samantha gone, I’d have you all to myself. So I pushed her out of my mind, convinced myself that Grandma Mary was right, that what I thought I’d seen was just a dream, a story I created after the fact, that what I saw happen hadn’t really happened at all. At some point, I guess I just repressed the whole thing altogether. Until yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“It all came rushing back. What I’d seen that night, what I heard. It wasn’t a dream.” Michelle stared at her mother. “I know what happened that night, Mommy,” she said, a name she hadn’t called her mother since she was a little girl. “I know who took Samantha.”