Page 41 of City of Liars

Holy cannoli? I had to repress a snort. I’d been dead-on when I assumed she’d been raised not to curse.

“Keep going,” I said, low-voiced.

Liv scrolled further. A day later, there the story was again: this time, an interview with a maid who said a man had contacted the Carters, demanding a ransom for Ella. They’d agreed to pay, and the man had said he’d be back in touch with the time and place. But he’d never called again. The reporter had questioned Charles, whose only response had been, “No comment.”

I placed my hand over Liv’s, letting the warmth of her skin chase the chill of my rage away. “Did you know about this?”

She shook her head, wide-eyed. “I never heard anything about a ransom. Why would someone ask for money, then just not show up and dump the child they’d kidnapped at an orphanage?”

I was about to reply when an eagle-eyed librarian rounded the corner and hissed, “Shhhhhh!” giving us such a dirty look, it was like she’d caught us defaming the Rose Room the way we’d done to Atomic. A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth at the thought. But my smile faded as I stared at a black-and-white photograph of Ella sitting on her mother’s lap in a frilly, oddly familiar dress, looking saucer-eyed and innocent. Just like Lily had been.

I put my lips to Liv’s ear, taking a certain dark satisfaction at the shiver that ran through her. At least I wasn’t the only one fighting the pull between us.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think we need to find out.”

25

Liv

Struggling to hide my reaction to the heat of Theo’s mouth against my skin, I stared at the screen. Ransom revelation aside, I was struck by what wasn’t there as much as by what was. There’d been no mention of Lily or of May’s search for her daughter. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume that Ella was the only small girl to disappear in December 1927. Sorrow curled through me as I scanned through the microfilm.

Two little girls, both lost, one never found. What if my bio mom had kept me, but spiraled into the abyss of addiction, anyway? Would I have become just as lost, slipping between foster homes or shunted from one family member to another? I wouldn’t have wanted someone to give up on me. I owed it to that lost little girl, wherever she was, not to give up now.

And I owed it to Theo, who had been abandoned by his father and raised by a mother who was present in body but absent in every way that counted. He’d tried to hide it, but I hadn’t missed the tension that gripped his body as we scanned one article after another. It bled through the smile he forced onto his face, through the touch of his hand on mine. His pain was unmistakable, echoing deep in my heart as if it were my own.

More determined than ever to find answers, I ejected the USB and reached for one containing newspaper archives from December 1928. A sensationalized version of Ella’s disappearance had run in the Times and been syndicated throughout the country. Vanished Into Thin Air—And Miraculously Recovered, one headline read. Another read Lost and Found: A Christmas Miracle. There were more pictures, this time of an older child who bore a striking resemblance to the earlier photos of Ella, her arms around Charles Carter’s neck. Back in the Bosom of Her Family, the article read. Little Girl Lost Comes Home at Last.

Then came the stories of the legal battle. Here, at last, was May Dressler: her assertions, the Carters’ denials. Jewish Garment Worker Claims Miracle Girl as Her Daughter, the headlines read. Lower East Side vs. Gramercy Park: Culture Clash Over Purported Kidnapping. And Lies or Licentiousness—Whose Daughter Lives at One Lexington Avenue? There was a photo of May at the courthouse, looking thin and desperate, captured mid-plea.

Theo’s jaw set, hard. “We should finish up,” he said, not bothering to keep his voice down.

“Theo—”

He shook his head, refusing to meet my eyes. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late for our appointment.”

Ten minutes later, Theo and I were sitting at one of the long tables that lined the room, the records of St. Jerome’s and Divine Grace spread across its scratched surface. I drew a deep breath, inhaling the musty scent of old paper, as Theo opened the first folder, marked ‘Divine Grace Home for Children’ in black Sharpie. It held an assortment of papers: maintenance receipts; notes about facility improvements; copies of state and federal censuses—which were of no use to us, because 1927 fell between census years. Theo thumbed through the stack, setting it aside. Then he reached into the box and pulled out something else: a small notebook, marked ‘Records Kept by Head Matron Kissinger, 1925-1928.’

“Maybe there’s something in here,” he said, flipping through the pages.

The entries were scrawled in old-fashioned, elegant cursive. “God,” Theo whispered, staring down at them. “This woman wrote everything down. Who cares that she had stringy mutton for dinner?”

I stifled a laugh, but part of me thought Matron Kissinger’s attention to detail was a good thing. Someone who perseverated over minutiae like this seemed more likely to remark upon the appearance of two lost girls on her doorstep.

There was nothing on December 19th, the date of Ella’s disappearance. Nothing on the 20th or 21st, either. My heart began to sink. But then, on the 22nd, there it was.

A most unusual circumstance transpired this past week. Today, one of our volunteers, the esteemed Mrs. Linzer, found a young girl in the street, just yards from our doorstep. She was quite bedraggled, poor thing, and Mrs. Linzer brought her to us at once. We set about warming her, expecting that she would be able to tell us from whence she had come, but alas, the little one was mute. Given her tattered state and her proximity to Divine Grace, we can only assume that her mother brought her to us, hoping we would take her in, then fled. Perhaps she feared that, if we knew the little one could not speak, we would reject her; perhaps that is why she sought to part with the girl. We shall never know. It is a travesty how many women find themselves unable to care for their children in this fair city; we at Divine Grace do the work of the Lord.

Theo and I stared at each other. “Why would they assume that?” he muttered. “Why wouldn’t they call the police?”

I’d been wondering the same thing, but played devil’s advocate. “I guess because she was so close to the orphanage, they assumed she’d been left there on purpose?”

His fingers traced the faded ink. “Okay, so Mystery Girl #1 came in on Thursday, December 22nd,” he said, pitching his voice low. “We know Ella disappeared on Monday, the 19th. What the hell are the chances that she survived for four days in the snow?”

“Unless James took her and kept her somewhere,” I argued, earning a glare from our neighbor. “And then left her on the doorstep of the orphanage, so he wouldn’t get caught.”

“What…like he asked for a ransom, then had a change of heart and just dumped her? It doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head. “I don’t know the exact day Lily disappeared. I’m going to ask my grandmother about it tonight. Hopefully, she’ll remember…although she was so young, who knows. But if it turns out she disappeared on Thursday, the same day Mystery Girl showed up at Divine Grace, then I think the chances are pretty good that it’s Lily, Liv.”

We flipped through the pages to see if the matron mentioned the unexpected arrival of a second girl, but there was nothing. She didn’t mention Grandma Ella—Mystery Girl, I corrected myself—until she rhapsodized about her adoption several pages later.