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“The hot chocolate?” Mrs. Thomas asked, turning toward Vance. “I didn’t even think to mention it before.”
“What hot chocolate?”
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sp; “We always have hot chocolate after dinner. Our children always like it, and it’s good to have a routine. That’s what my mother always says, and she’s ninety. Still sharp as I am, too. If it worked for her, it’ll work for me and mine.”
“Can you show me the hot chocolate?”
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas led them into the kitchen and pulled down a tin of powdered chocolate. As the group chatted more about the night before, Lila opened the lid and looked inside.
Nothing seemed off about it.
“We also had tea with our dinner, but only my husband and I had some.”
“Which tea?”
Mr. Thomas pointed to the mug he’d put on the counter, nothing but dregs in the bottom. While everyone’s back was turned to examine the tea, Lila withdrew a vial from her pocket and dipped it into the chocolate powder. After capping it one-handed, she stuck it into her pocket and brushed her gloves against her trouser legs.
No one had noticed.
“The lady at the FPS office just happened to have some handy?” Lila asked.
Mrs. Thomas shook her head. “No, Ms. Royce always peddles a little tea on the side. Silver Shark is one of our favorites.”
“Can you grab the packet? I’d like to test it,” Vance said.
While Vance and Shaw snatched sample containers from the Sioux Falls militia, Lila turned on the group and peeked from the small kitchen window. Or at least, that was what everyone thought she had done. Instead, she tipped the abandoned mug of tea into a second vial.
She slid it back onto the counter without anyone being the wiser, just as Vance capped their own samples from the tea and chocolate.
“Do you really think we were drugged?” Mrs. Thomas asked.
“I’m certain of it,” Lila said. “After all, Rebecca didn’t scream.”
“Rebecca is six years old,” Vance reminded her. “If an adult tells a child to be quiet, she’s going to follow that direction, especially if a weapon was involved.”
“Perhaps.” Lila found it hard to believe that Rebecca wouldn’t scream and fight, not when there were armed patrols only a few meters away. After all, she’d been kidnapped once before, though it had been for show.
The couple led them upstairs into Rebecca’s room. Since the girl had only been there a few days, there was little of hers inside. A blue bedspread lay atop the bed, with little yellow ducks quacking in wavy lines. A second bed sat nearby, stripped and empty, lonelier in the empty room. Someone had piled a few tattered books on the bedside table between them, the pages crinkled at the edges due to too many small hands turning them. A box of broken colors sat beside it. The Thomases had placed a few wooden toys on a shelf in the back, toys that might have been antiques, if only they hadn’t been so roughly bashed against one another. An electronic train track ran under the beds and along the walls.
“We set up the track yesterday. She liked connecting the pieces.” Mr. Thomas stood at the door awkwardly, his arm around his wife. “Her bag is in the closet. We didn’t make her unpack. She cried when we asked her to. She said she shouldn’t have to, that she’d return to her mother’s compound soon.”
A hovering guard took the couple downstairs so the group could work.
“Have you dusted?” Lila asked after she’d peeked into the girl’s bag and found nothing but clothes, a few stuffed animals, books, and pictures.
“We’ve dusted everything, even the window,” Vance said. “We only found Rebecca’s prints and the Thomases’. The couple said that they cleaned the room as a family when they first got her home. They did a good job of it, too. It saved us an awful lot of time comparing fingerprints from past children and guests.”
Lila opened the window and ducked underneath the sill. A maple shade tree had grown near the window, and Lila could reach out and shake its branches. “They didn’t go through the window, not that it wouldn’t be an easy move.”
“How do you know?”
“The whole family had been knocked unconscious. Why risk breaking your neck or dropping the girl when you don’t have to? A six-year-old is still heavy, especially when she’s dead weight.”
“There are security cameras—”
“Yeah, I saw the security cameras on the way in. You didn’t see anything on the footage, I take it?”
