Hush Little Girl by Lisa Regan (best chinese ebook reader txt) 📕

Emily’s lips pursed momentarily as she regarded Josie. Then she leaned in and in a hushed tone, said, “Do you have a gun?”

“I do,” Josie said. “I don’t have it right this second, but yes, I own a gun. Are you worried about that?”

With one hand, Emily stroked the top of her stuffed dog’s head. “I’m worried you won’t be ready for the bad things, like Mama and Holly.”

The breath seemed to rush out of Josie’s body all at once. She took a beat to make sure her composure didn’t crack. “It’s my job to be ready for the bad things, Emily. I promise that I will do everything I can to keep you safe, and so will all the other police officers here today. Okay?”

Emily reached out and touched Josie’s face, her small fingers, as light as a butterfly’s touch, tracing Josie’s scar. “You didn’t tell me what this was from,” she said. “But now I know. It was from the bad things, wasn’t it?”

Josie swallowed over the growing lump in her throat. “Yes,” she croaked. “It was.”

“You’re still here.”

“Yes.”

Emily turned and started walking down the hallway. “Come on. I’ll show you our hiding place.”

Eight

Josie heard Gretchen climb the stairs behind her as she followed Emily to the girls’ bedroom. What had they missed? Emily walked over to the section of wall that formed a chalkboard and wrapped her fingers around the string holding the eraser. She tugged at it, hard and fast, and the trim surrounding the chalkboard paint popped out of the wall, swinging like a door. Across the room, Gretchen gasped.

Josie looked at the other side of the trim to see that the hinges had been painted purple to blend in with the wall. One would have had to look very closely to notice anything off about it. Josie touched the inside of the makeshift hatch. Whoever had built it had been pretty creative. It was made of drywall and wood. Plus, it wasn’t in the shape of a door. The bottom of it was at Emily’s knee level which meant she had to climb in and out of it, almost as if it were a window. Josie poked her head inside, but it was dark.

“Just a minute,” said Emily. Tucking her stuffed dog beneath her armpit, she deftly climbed inside the large hole in the wall. A few seconds later, a light snapped on. Josie leaned her upper body inside once more. The space was the size of a large closet, the walls unpainted drywall. Josie tried to visualize what was on the other side—Lorelei’s closet. Had her closet originally been a walk-in closet? Had she or someone else walled it off to make a hiding place?

“We don’t have plugs in here,” Emily said. She pointed to a small battery-powered lamp on the floor in the corner of the space. There were two sleeping bags, each one with a pillow. A pile of books sat between the two bags. Next to those was a pile of flashlights and book lights. In another corner was a camping toilet with a roll of toilet paper beside it. The smell of urine wafted toward Josie. Another scent, this one rancid, filled Josie’s nostrils. Her eyes searched the tiny space until she saw its source: a half-eaten column of string cheese, a browned apple core, and a banana peel. Next to that was a half-eaten cup of yogurt with a plastic spoon poking out of it. Josie pointed to the food. “Did you bring that with you today?”

“No, I put it in here the last time we had to hide.”

“When was that?” Josie asked, wondering how long the food had been there and if Emily was going to get food poisoning from having eaten it.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “But when I tried to eat the food, it didn’t taste very good.”

“How does your belly feel? Do you feel sick?”

Emily shrugged. “I don’t know.” She walked over and stood on top of the blue sleeping bag. “This one’s mine.”

Josie nodded and held out a hand, waving Emily back out into the bedroom. “Okay, very good, Emily. You can come back out. Thank you for showing me.”

Emily climbed back out and stood staring up at Josie. “I hide in other places, too, but that’s our special hiding place.”

“Why is it special?” Josie asked.

“’Cause only me and Holly and Mama know where it is. No one ever found us there. Not ever. I also hide in the cabinets in the kitchen sometimes, and behind the beanbag chairs in the living room and under the dining room table.”

“Why do you have to hide so much?” Josie asked her.

Matter-of-factly, she said, “I already told you.”

“Because of the bad things.”

She nodded.

“Okay.” Josie pointed toward Emily’s dresser. “I’m going to need you to pack a few things. Some clothes, and anything else you want to bring with you. Maybe some books or plushies? Also, you’ll need two socks and a pair of shoes. Can you find those things for me?”

Emily shrugged again. “Sure.”

Josie and Gretchen watched as she walked over to her dresser and began taking clothes out, lining each folded item up on the bed. When she finished, she reached under the bed and pulled out a duffel bag. Gretchen walked over to Josie’s side and muttered, “We’re going to have to call child services.”

“I know,” Josie said. “But I think we should take her to the hospital first and have her evaluated. We need to try to locate Lorelei’s next of kin as well.”

Gretchen waved her phone in the air. “I’ll be in the hall making some calls.”

Josie nodded. Once Gretchen was out of the room, Josie walked over to Emily, who had made four piles of clothes on her bed. Each pile had a shirt, pants, underwear, and socks. Under her breath, Emily counted the piles. “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.”

“Can I help you?” Josie asked.

Emily paused and without looking at her,