Chapter 3
The floor manager's pen tapped impatiently against his plastic-coated clipboard, the rhythmic clicking cutting through the distant hum of string quartet music. For three agonizing seconds, he weighed whether to call security or let the irregularity slide in favor of avoiding a scene in front of the corporate sponsors drinking three-thousand-dollar scotch ten feet away.
"Keep her off the dais," the manager finally muttered, stepping back into the crowd without waiting for an answer.
I let out a slow breath I hadn't realized I was holding, looking down at the blonde head pressed gently against my hip. Clara didn't let go of my hand. Her grip remained tight, her small knuckles white against my palm as we navigated the edges of the room toward a quieter corridor lined with velvet drapes and tall potted ferns. The warmth of the hall faded into a cooler, quieter draft of air, carrying the faint scent of old cedar and damp earth from the indoor garden courtyard just beyond the glass doors.
"Are we hiding?" she asked softly, her voice barely a murmur as she tilted her head up to look at me.
"Just taking a breather," I replied, kneeling slightly so I was closer to her eye level. Up close, I could see the faint constellation of freckles across her nose and the dark smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyelashes. "What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Clara," she answered, her thumb absentmindedly rubbing the ear of the gray stuffed rabbit. She lifted the crumpled paper she had held out to me earlier, smoothing out the jagged creases with slow, deliberate movements of her small fingers.
On the back of the paper, beneath the clumsy red crayon heart, there was a series of numbers written in a hurried, unsteady adult handwriting—a sequence that looked less like a home phone number and more like an emergency tag. I reached out, my fingers brushing against the edge of the paper, and noticed the faint smell of stale coffee and gasoline clinging to the ink.
May you like
"Did someone bring you here today, Clara?" I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral so as not to scare her back into her shell.
She stared down at the floor, her curly blonde hair falling forward to shadow her face, hiding her expression from the amber wall sconces. Before she could answer, a heavy set of double doors at the end of the corridor clicked open, and a sharp, familiar voice echoed off the marble tile, calling out a name that made Clara's entire body lock rigid in my grip.
