Chapter 4

The Police Station, Just Before 4:47 a.m.

The officer at the front desk barely looked up as Mirabella and Ava approached the counter, exhausted, their voices worn thin from hours of calling Anita's name through the streets.

"We need to report a missing person," Ava said. "A woman. Older. Partially blind, and she can't speak."

"Name?"

"Anita," Mirabella said. "Please, she's been missing since last night. We've looked everywhere."

The officer wrote slowly, unhurried, and Mirabella felt her patience crack.

"Can someone please come and help us look? She can't see well in the dark. She could be anywhere."

"We'll send a car out at first light, miss."

"First light? That could be hours from now!"

"Miss, we have limited units on night patrol. I understand you're worried, but we can't search the whole city on a hunch."

"She's not a hunch, she's my mother." Mirabella's voice cracked.

Ava put a hand on her back. "Bella. Let's give them the details and keep looking ourselves. We're not going to find her standing here arguing."

Mirabella took a breath and nodded, swallowing the rest of what she wanted to say. The officer took down Anita's description — her height, her slow, careful walk, the faded blue wrapper she'd likely be wearing — and promised someone would begin searching in the morning.

It didn't feel like enough. It never did.

Mirabella's Street, 4:47 a.m.

They walked home from the station in silence. Mirabella's face was pale, her eyes swollen from crying. The street that had been full of people and noise hours earlier was empty now, lit only by the weak glow of a streetlamp two houses down.

She was all her mother had left. And her mother was all she had left, too.

Twenty years ago, when Mirabella was nine, her birth parents were murdered. She had been in her nanny's room when she heard two gunshots. Anita — her nanny — grabbed her and ran, without stopping to think, straight out through the kitchen door. They escaped on a taxi, until they reached a bus station. On the way, Anita made a bank transfer to pay the driver and accidentally left her phone in his car.

She went back for it.

While crossing the road to return to Mirabella, a car hit her. It didn't even slow down.

Mirabella never forgot the sound. Or the blood on the road. Or the strangers who came running.

At the hospital, doctors told her Anita might never speak properly again — the accident had damaged her throat and her eyes. Anita's own parents came for them the next morning and took both girls to live in a small town far from the city.

That was the last time Mirabella saw her real parents. It was also the last time she heard Anita's voice.

She grew up calling Anita "Mom." She was only nine, but she never forgot any of it.

Two years ago, she and Anita finally moved back to the city.

Present

"She has to be somewhere close," one of the neighbors said, catching up to them as they turned onto the street. "She wouldn't have gone far on foot."

"Unless someone offered her a ride," another neighbor added. "Maybe she got confused and asked a stranger for help."

"Please," Mirabella said, "if anyone hears anything — anything at all — come straight to my door. I don't care what time it is."

"We will, dear," an older woman said, squeezing her shoulder. "Try to rest. We'll start again as soon as the sun's up."

"Thank you," Mirabella said, though the words barely made it past her throat. "Thank you all. I don't know what I would've done tonight without you."

One by one, the neighbors said their goodnights and peeled off toward their own homes, promising to return in the morning. Mirabella barely registered them leaving. Her mind had already drifted somewhere else — back through the years, back through the gunshots and the blood on the road — until a hand on her shoulder pulled her back.

"Bella." Ava's voice was gentle. "Your mom is going to come home. I promise you that."

Mirabella blinked, looking around. "Where did everyone go?"

"That's what I'm telling you — you went somewhere far away in your head. They all left a few minutes ago. We'll keep looking tomorrow. The police will help too."

"The police," Mirabella repeated bitterly. "They said they'd send someone at first light. First light, Aunt Ava. What if something happens to her before then?"

"Nothing is going to happen to her," Ava said, though her voice wavered just slightly. "She's strong, Bella. Stronger than you give her credit for. She survived worse than one dark night."

Mirabella didn't answer. She just nodded, too tired to argue, too afraid to believe it completely.

Ava took her wrist gently. "Come on. Let's get you home. You need to rest, even if it's just an hour."

They walked the rest of the way together, slowly, saying nothing else.