“Are you a doctor?”
I shook my head slowly. “Nope.”
Her voice dropped to a terrified whisper. “Then are you here because Mommy said the monster would come back before the sun?”
I felt a cold sweat prick the back of my neck. I kept my face totally neutral.
“Your mommy told you to wait here until morning?” I asked.
Maya nodded once. Then she leaned forward, glancing at the empty doorway as if the walls themselves were listening to us.
“She said if she didn’t come back, I had to tell a safe person about what’s hidden at our house.”
I didn’t move a muscle. “What is hidden at your house, sweetheart?”
Maya’s tiny fingers twisted the bear’s ear until the brown stitching looked ready to snap. “In the floor. Under the loud washing machine.”
My pulse kicked up a notch. “What’s under there?”
She looked at the window, shivering. “A heavy box. Mommy said it’s for safe people only. She said if the bad men got it, lots of kids would get hurt.”
I held her gaze, recognizing the sheer terror of a child who had seen things no adult should ever witness. “Did your mommy say what was inside the box?”
Maya’s lower lip trembled violently. “Pictures. And a plastic thing for a computer. And papers with names.”
The small hospital room suddenly felt like it was closing in on me. “How do you know that?”
“Because Mommy was crying really hard when she hid them. She told me, ‘If I disappear, this is the truth.’”
I had worked enough backdoor cases to know when simple bruises were a smokescreen for a much darker crime. My voice stayed calm, but my blood was beginning to boil.
“Did your mother ever tell you the monster's name?”
Maya leaned back against the pillows. “Corbin.”
Becca, who had been listening from the hallway, made a small, strangled sound. I looked back at her.
“You know him?” I asked.
Becca’s face had gone completely white. “Corbin Vance. No relation to you, Elias. We’ve had three anonymous reports filed on him in the past year. Noise complaints. Suspicion of neglect. Every single time, the mother retracted her statement. We never had enough proof to get a warrant.”
I stood up slowly, the joints in my knees popping. “Call it in right now. Full welfare check.”
Becca hesitated, her fingers white-knuckling the clipboard. “I can, but if there’s hard evidence at that house and he’s involved in something bigger, a local patrol dispatch will spook him. He might run.”
I knew she was absolutely right.
I stepped out into the hallway. Boone and Miller were already reading the shift in my posture.
“We need the gear,” I said quietly. “The mother might be dead or missing. The kid says there’s a box of evidence hidden under the floorboards at the house.”
Boone’s thick jaw flexed. “We going in?”
I looked through the glass at Maya, who was watching us with wide, hopeless eyes. “We’re getting that box before the sun comes up.”
Twenty minutes later, we drove toward Corbin’s address on the outskirts of the city. Becca stayed back at the hospital to stall the paperwork and quietly contact a state investigator she swore wasn’t on the local payroll.
The house sat at the dead end of a gravel road, bordered by an overgrown, abandoned lumber yard. It was a rotting single-story structure with peeling gray paint. The front porch light was burning like a beacon in the darkness.
I killed the engines a quarter-mile down the road. We walked the rest of the way in total silence.
“Lights out in the back,” Miller murmured, scanning the roofline.
Boone checked the muddy driveway. “Fresh tire tracks. Deep treads. Heavy vehicle.”
I nodded, pulling a heavy Maglite from my belt. “Stay sharp.”
We crossed the front lawn like shadows. I reached the porch and twisted the doorknob. It turned freely. The front door was completely unlocked.
That bothered me a lot more than a reinforced deadbolt ever would have.
Inside, the living room smelled heavily of old cooking grease, wet mildew, and a faint, metallic scent that I immediately recognized as dried blood. The furniture was cluttered but not overturned.