Elaine looked through the café window.
Nora was laughing at something a customer had said.
I hadn’t heard my daughter’s laugh in eight years.
Elaine lowered her voice.
“I used to run a small women’s shelter about forty minutes from here.”
Michael and I stared at her.
“Nora came to us four years ago.”
I felt the air disappear from my lungs.
“Four years ago?”
“She was twenty.”
“Where was she before that?”
Elaine closed her eyes briefly.
“With a man she couldn’t easily leave.”
My stomach turned.
“What man?”
Elaine looked at both of us.
“I think you should sit down.”
And for the first time in eight years, I realized something terrifying.
Finding Nora might not be the end of the nightmare.
It might be the beginning.
PART 2 — THE YEARS WE LOST
We moved to a small patio around the side of the café where Nora couldn’t easily see us.
