“Are you sure she doesn’t have a kid?” Roderick is asking.
We are standing in what looks like a toddler’s room after having searched the rest of the house.
“According to all her friends she doesn’t,” I say.
“Then this may be one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen.”
On the drive over we had discussed the legality and morality of breaking into Brooke Wakefield’s home if no one was there to let us in, which is what we had expected to be the situation.
After debating whether any judge or jury in the world would consider these exigent circumstances, I concluded that the best thing to do was for me to break in, and, seeing evidence of a break-in, Roderick could enter to investigate.
“Okay,” he says, “say she really wants to have a baby or adopt a child, do you do all this before you even have the prospect of having or adopting?”
I think about it.
“What alarms me more than the fact that she would do all this before having a child is the fact that it looks like a child has stayed in here.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” he says. “I couldn’t figure out what else was bothering me about it, but that’s it.”
As clean and pristine as the room is, the things in it are not brand-new and unused.
“I suppose it’s possible that she bought everything on eBay or at yard sales,” I say, “but she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would do that, and nothing else in her house seems secondhand.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he says. “She’s always so put together, like she just stepped away from a fashion photoshoot—and her shop and the rest of her house look the same way.”
“One possible explanation is that she took Magdalene and kept her in here for a while and then killed her or she died somehow and she placed her body in a freezer. That would explain why she has the room and why it is slightly used.”
“If that’s the case,” he says, “Magdalene’s DNA will be in here.”
“But if that was the case, Taylor would be in here now,” I say.
“Unless she’s keeping her somewhere else until the searches are complete.”
“But I’m not,” Brooke says from the doorway.
We startle and spin around toward her.
“I haven’t kidnapped anyone—not Magdalene, not Taylor, no one. I’m not a monster. I’m just a woman without a man who wants a child. Did I jump the gun on creating a nursery? Maybe, but I also use it as my nieces and nephew’s room when I keep them.” Her eyes lock onto mine. “I understand you’re desperate to find your daughter. If I were lucky enough have a child and she went missing I would be too, which is why I’m not going to report you two breaking into my house and violating my privacy and defiling this room that is sacred to me. That is if you leave right now and don’t come back.” She turns to Roderick. “And you. Consider yourself in my debt. Just know that if I never need a law enforcement–related favor in the future, it’s you I’ll be calling.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was wrong to break in. And you’re right it was the act of a desperate person. I’m running out of time and I have no idea where Taylor is. Thanks for being so understanding and please forgive me. But know it’s all on me. I did this. Not him. He just came in to make sure I wasn’t doing anything else stupid and to take me out.”
“He owes me a favor nonetheless,” she says. “And I will collect on it one day. Now, if you two are serious about finding that poor little girl, you need to look somewhere else. Because she’s not here.”