The twins ran toward her.
“Mommy!”
Their mother dropped to her knees as both girls crashed into her arms.
Lily bu:ried her face against her shoulder while Lucy clung around her neck, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.
Her name was Natalie.
At the hospital, doctors treated her for dehydration, br:uising, and a sprained wrist.
The twins were hungry and exhausted but physically unharmed.
Later, an officer explained that Grant was Natalie’s former boyfriend.
She had ended the relationship months earlier when his behavior became increasingly controlling.
When she tried to move with the girls to stay with her sister, he intercepted them.
The house beside mine wasn’t a new beginning.
It was where Grant kept them hidden.
He had made everything look normal from the outside.
He told anyone who saw them that Natalie was his partner and that they wanted privacy while settling in.
That explained the closed curtains.
It explained why I had never seen the children.
But I still didn’t understand the trash can.
I assumed Lily and Lucy had simply escaped, spotted it, and climbed inside.
I was wrong.
Natalie came to see me three days later.
Her sister, Paige, drove her.
Lily and Lucy came too, each holding one of Natalie’s hands.
The moment they saw me, both girls rushed forward.
“Carla!” Lucy shouted.
I hugged them.
Natalie began crying.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
We sat in my kitchen, at the same table where the twins had eaten strawberries.
Natalie looked toward the window facing the house next door.
“For the first few days, Grant let me upstairs as long as I did exactly what he said. He kept my phone, my identification, and my keys. He told me that if I tried to get anyone’s attention, he’d take the girls somewhere I’d never find them.”
“The day I saw you in the driveway?” I asked.
She nodded.
NEXT PAGE
