Chapter 3

A month later, the apartment started to smell.

Winter was easing a little, and the old stairwell was getting damp.

At first, Mrs. Novak from downstairs just frowned whenever she walked past our door.

"The pipes again?"

She came by and knocked a couple of times.

"Sadie?

"Are you home?"

I stood behind the door and shouted.

"Mrs. Novak, I'm here!

"I can't get out!"

But she couldn't hear me.

Then the smell got worse and worse.

Finally, Mrs. Novak got scared.

She called the building manager, Kyle Brennan.

Kyle stood outside our door holding his nose, looking sick.

"That's not a sewer smell."

Mrs. Novak called Dad right away.

"Mr. Dawson, you need to come home. Something smells very wrong in your apartment, and nobody's seen Sadie in a month."

I could hear typing on Dad's end.

His voice was ice-cold.

"She went to you again?"

Mrs. Novak was stunned.

"What do you mean, 'again'?"

Dad sneered.

"Did she cry to you and say I don't take care of her?

"Tell her to quit the act."

Mrs. Novak's voice shook with anger.

"I haven't seen her at all! That's exactly why I'm calling you!

"Your door's locked, and the smell coming out of there isn't normal!"

Dad sounded impatient.

"Old buildings smell like all kinds of things.

"If she's really home, she can open the door herself."

Kyle cut in.

"Sir, it looks like the door was locked from the outside."

The line went silent for a moment.

But Dad quickly said, "Then she did it herself.

"She's full of tricks."

Mrs. Novak couldn't hold back.

"She's seven! Thomas, have you lost your mind?"

Dad's voice turned to ice.

"I'm warning you. Stop hanging around my door, or I'll call the police and report you for trespassing."

Mrs. Novak hung up on him.

Her eyes brimmed with tears.

"Break it open."

Kyle hesitated.

"Shouldn't we call the police first?"

Mrs. Novak gritted her teeth.

"Break it down first. If something's happened to her, every minute we wait could cost her."

The old steel door boomed under the blows.

On the third hit, the lock finally gave.

The moment the door swung open, a horrible smell rushed out.

Mrs. Novak clapped a hand over her mouth and almost threw up.

Kyle covered his nose and walked in.

The living room was a mess.

A cup lay tipped over on the floor.

Dust covered the coffee table.

One of my little slippers was by the couch. The other was by the kitchen door.

They looked over, and they both froze.

On the floor outside the kitchen lay something small.

There was nothing left but bones. You couldn't tell what it had once been.

Mrs. Novak let out a piercing scream.

"Sadie!"

I stood beside her and said softly, "It's okay, Mrs. Novak. It doesn't hurt anymore."

But she couldn't hear me.

Hands shaking, she called Dad again.

"Mr. Dawson, come home right now! Something's happened to Sadie!"

Dad's voice was still cold.

"She put you up to this again?"

Mrs. Novak broke down and screamed.

"She's dead! Don't you understand? She died in that apartment!"

Dad was silent for two seconds. Then he laughed.

"Carol, she's seven, and she's already got you saying things like that?

"You people really play right along with her.

"Tell Sadie that playing dead won't work."

Sobbing, Mrs. Novak called the police.

The officers arrived, sealed off the apartment, and contacted Dad.

His first reaction was still to yell at them.

"Now the scammers are coming after me?"

Even after the officer gave his department and badge number, Dad just sneered.

"My daughter's at home.

"She doesn't want to go to school, so she got the neighbors to help her trick me."

In the end, two officers went straight to his office.

When they brought him downstairs, he still looked annoyed.

"Do you have any idea I was in a meeting?

"A kid throws a tantrum, and you make this big a deal out of it?"

The officers' faces were grim.

"Mr. Dawson, please come home and see what's going on."

Dad cursed the whole way there.

"If she's fine, you all owe me an apology.

"I told you she likes to put on an act. Her mom spoiled her rotten when she was alive, and now everybody spoils her."

When the car pulled up outside our building and he saw the crowd gathered there, his expression finally changed a little.

But it quickly hardened again.

"Sadie!"

He ran up the stairs, stood in the doorway, and roared.

"Haven't you had enough?

"You got the police involved. Happy now?"

No one answered.

The officers let him inside.

Dad stepped into the living room. His eyes swept over the mess, and his face was still full of anger.

"Where are you hiding?

"Come out!"

He walked to the kitchen doorway.

When he saw the tiny skeleton on the floor, he froze for only a second before flying into a rage.

"What is this?

"Sadie, you'd drag in something this disgusting just to scare me?"

Mrs. Novak sobbed and screamed at him.

"Are you even human?"

Dad ignored her.

He took two steps forward, as if he was about to expose the whole thing as a hoax.

Then he saw what lay beside the tiny skeleton's hand: a filthy rattle.

Dad stopped dead in his tracks.