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The sound of his footsteps coming closer was a comfort. He reached her and took her elbow. “What is it?”
“See if you can reach whatever that is back there.”
He added his light to hers. “I’ll get it.”
She squinted as it came into sharper focus. It was clearly an old chest. “Can you reach it?”
“I think I need a ladder. I saw one over at the foot of the stairs.” He retreated into the dim light and returned with the ladder.
Carly’s pulse pounded. The chest probably held tools or something else mundane. But she couldn’t stop the hope thatwelled in her chest. Maybe this would all be over soon. She could leave Lucas and the police to figure out who had been behind it. All she cared about was that her family was safe.
Lucas propped the ladder against the old furnace. “This is an old octopus coal burner. It was gravity fed. They don’t make them like this anymore.”
“Thank goodness,” Carly said.
He reached the top rung and leaned over the top to grab the chest perched atop a rough-hewn shelf. He grunted as he pulled it toward him. “Got it.” It banged onto the top of the furnace, then scraped across the top until he could get it onto his shoulder.
She stood at the bottom of the ladder and reached toward him. “You can hand it down to me.”
“I don’t think you can lift it. It’s pretty heavy. I’ve got it.” He descended the ladder carefully, rung by rung. “Let’s look at this upstairs.”
She nodded and followed him to the stairs. They’d soon know what had been so carefully hidden all these years.
Thirty-Four
Lucas set the chest on the floor of the kitchen and knelt beside it. The stench of the basement still filled his nose. “It’s got a lock. I’ll need something to break or pick it.” He glanced up at Elizabeth and her family.
“There’s an old ring of keys hanging on the wall to the basement.” Lainey went to the utility room but came back almost immediately. “It’s gone. Maybe the burglars took it. It’s a good thing they didn’t find the chest.”
“Probably. It won’t do them any good without a lock to try, though.” Lucas yanked on the lock, but it was built to keep intruders out. He’d need an axe or something.
His phone rang, and his brother’s face lit up the screen. “Hey, Ryan.”
“Lucas, do you guys have Caroline?”
“No, she was sleeping. Isabelle was taking care of her.”
“They’re both gone. Caroline’s diapers, clothes, and formula are missing too. Isabelle wouldn’t have just gone for a walk and taken all the baby’s necessities, including Noah’s bouncy seat.”
Carly crowded closer, and he put his arm around her. “Check the security cameras.”
“I did. They don’t show a thing.”
“How’s that possible?”
“I haven’t looked closely enough to tell, but everything has been wiped out. Isabelle didn’t call you to say anything about taking the baby somewhere?”
“Nope. She didn’t have access to a car, right?”
“Right, and she doesn’t have a license. Both our vehicles were gone, and Carly’s is here. I have no idea where they went or why. I had a phone call about a problem at the house, and when I was done, our house seemed quiet, so I started searching for her. That’s when I discovered she and Caroline were missing.”
“Be there as quickly as we can. Call the police.” He hung up and told the family crowding around what had happened. “I’ll take the chest with us, but we need to find Isabelle and Caroline.”
Carly bit her lip. “C-could someone have taken them?”
“Maybe. We don’t know a lot about Kelly. She claims the baby is Eric’s, but we don’t know if that’s true or not. If a member of Kelly’s family decided to take Caroline and Isabelle stood in their way, they could have taken her too.”
Carly’s brown eyes were huge in her white face. “What about my other sisters?”
