Page 4 of The Sister's Curse

A young woman, no more than sixteen, raced toward us. A brunette braid flopped over the shoulder of her T-shirt. She was wearing sandals and a long denim skirt.

“Are you the police?” Her fingers were knotted around her cell phone. “I just called 911.”

I held up my badge. “I’m Anna. What’s going on?”

“I’m Leah. The babysitter. I was watching Mason, and I…I can’t find him. I…” Her face crumpled.

I took her by the shoulders. “It’s okay. We’ll find him. How old is he?”

“He’s four. He’s got blond hair, brown eyes. He’s wearing a blue T-shirt with the Superman logo, and red shorts. Oh my God.”

“Where did you last see him?”

“He was in the living room when…when I went to the bathroom. When I got out, he was just…gone.”

“Show me.” As we approached the house, I scanned the scene. I saw no cars whose drivers might have abducted him, heard no engines.

I spoke into the radio microphone pinned to my shoulder. “This is L4 at County Road 12. Report of a missing child.”

“Roger that,” Dispatch answered. “More units en route.”

Leah covered her mouth with her hand. “My dad’s gonna kill me.”

Gibby gazed up at her sympathetically, doggie eyebrows working up and down.

As we reached the house, I saw that the back patio door was open.

“Leah, did you come out the front door or the back door?”

“The front door.”

My gaze swept the manicured grass, punctured by severely pruned arborvitae and hydrangeas. Fireflies seeped up from the ground, casting fairy light over the scene. Bullfrogs twanged. Bullfrogs…

I froze. “Leah, is there water near here?”

“Um. Yeah. There’s a stock pond.” She pointed to the west.

Dread and intuition bubbled up in me. I sprinted toward the frog song, down an artificial slope to a pond reflecting the first stars prickling out of the night sky. Bullfrogs plopped into the water at my approach.

Something was floating on the surface. I could barely make it out underneath a sheen of algae.

Unthinking, I dived into the pond.

Cold water closed over me, shocking in the summer heat. I’d dived some in college, but I’d long forgotten the shock of cold water in an emergency. I pulled myself forward in the water, toward the middle of the pond. As I moved, algae covered me like a cloak, heavy on my shoulders, sliding through my fingers. It dragged at me, and I struggled to move.

I reached for a doll-like figure dressed in a blue T-shirt…

…but it was sucked beneath the water with a slurping splash, splattering my face with algae.

I kicked below the skin of algae, into the cold depths. My pulse beat like a drum in my ears. The sky above was a lighter darkness than the blackness below me. I flailed, searching for the child. I swept my arms before me, stirring up soft silt. I could see nothing, but I searched, hoping to hell that the child was close.

My fingers brushed against something fleshy, a limb. I wrapped my hand around it…a child’s arm. It was heavy in my grip, and I pulled, swimming toward the surface.

But I couldn’t pull the boy with me. It was as if he were caughtin a steel trap. I pulled with all my might, lungs burning. My heel landed in the silt at the bottom of the pond, and I braced myself to tug him free of whatever held him fast.

I would not let this child go, I vowed.

I wasn’t gentle. I ripped with all I had, heedless of dislocating or breaking limbs—those could be repaired; oxygen deprivation could be fatal.