“If you know how to count, then show me how many months you lived there using your fingers,” he asked Angela, but she only shrugged in response. She could count. It was just impossible to name such a number of months all at once, let alone show it on her fingers. In that, she was right.

  “According to my calculations, the girl ended up in the basement in 2015,” Gallagher said, poking at his phone with a thick finger. “That means she was no older than seven or eight. That’s an assumption, of course, since we don’t know her real age. She looks about eighteen or nineteen. What does Dr. Leary say?”

  “I think she’ll agree with you, Evan,” Shane replied absently.

  His hands rested on his belt, unintentionally revealing the holster on his uniform trousers. His gaze lingered on the boxes and the chair pushed up against the wall.

  “Leary is in the house talking to Angela right now. You can ask her yourself.”

  Bag stepped away from them, continuing to photograph everything in his path. Gallagher kept working his magic with numbers, while Shane approached the pile of debris.

  “Baggy, buddy, take pictures of all this. I want to take this pile apart.”

  “For the love of all that’s holy, Shane, why?” Gallagher protested irritably, already realizing he would be dragged into it too and that his pristine appearance was doomed. “The guys will come later and clear everything out.”

  “If you’re worried about your century-old suit, don’t bother helping me,” O’Halloran muttered, peering into the gaps between the boxes.

  “What do you have against my suit? It happens to be my favorite.”

  “Yes, yes, Evan, I remember.”

  Bag finished his work and went upstairs for a smoke. Shane asked him not to go far, as his services might still be needed. Evan watched O’Halloran dismantle the boxes and asked what he was looking for.

  Shane knew exactly what. A way out.

  Angela had been getting into the garden and to the lake, but clearly not through the hatch. It had been locked with a padlock, and a heavy dresser stood on the lid. The girl had a secondary exit, one she had used many times, and one the people who locked her in knew nothing about.

  He straightened up, lost in thought.

  “What is it, Shane?” Evan asked cautiously.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About how she got here. And what her goal was.”

  There were many possible versions.

  Version one. She could have been placed here secretly, without the homeowners’ knowledge. According to the neighbors, the people who lived in the house often held religious gatherings, with many people attending. One of them could have been the criminal who kept Angela here for his own pleasure, knowing the owners never used the shed. But that immediately raised two contradictory questions. Was the criminal a pedophile, and if so, why didn’t he kill the girl once he got what he wanted? And the second question. Why didn’t she escape once she found a way out?

  Version two. The little girl could have been abandoned by her parents. At that point, imagination could run wild. There were a million reasons a child could become homeless. She got lost. She wandered off. There was an accident and she was the only survivor. She was kidnapped. She ran away. The result was what mattered. The girl found a hole leading into an unused basement, settled there, and lived.

  “And so far,” Shane concluded, “this version fits the truth better.”

  “So there’s no criminal?” Evan asked, not even noticing when he began helping Shane.

  “We can’t say that for sure. There may be a criminal, or there may not. What worries me is why Angela is so attached to the house.”

  “You were right,” Evan said slowly, with a hint of amazement.

  Shane flinched and looked at the dark stain. Or rather, the hole in the wall. Clearing a path, he peered inside. Cold air blew into his face. It was so dark inside that moving forward was only possible by touch. He stretched his arm back.

  “Evan, give me the flashlight. I left it on the step.”

  A minute later, the flashlight was in Shane’s hand. He turned it on and illuminated a narrow tunnel that sharply curved upward. He tried to squeeze through, but it was too tight for his broad frame. Shane backed out and climbed back into the basement.

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  “What’s there?” Evan asked.

  “An exit.”

  “So the second version really does look more likely.”

  At that moment, Constable Anita and Constable AJ came down into the basement. Bag followed behind them. Judging by their faces, Baggy had already given them a brief overview.

  “What do we do?” Anita Foley asked.

  Shane carefully looked over her curvy figure, did a quick calculation, then shifted his gaze to the lanky AJ. He was thin and long-limbed. Shane glanced at his partner. Evan nodded in agreement. He immediately understood O’Halloran’s thought.

  After five minutes of persuasion, AJ crawled into the hole. He cursed everything imaginable. Sand, tree roots, bugs. Only Shane he cursed silently, afraid of punishment.

  “Talk to us. Tell us what you see,” O’Halloran shouted into the hole.

  Gallagher snorted and stepped aside.

  “Don’t be surprised when he asks for a raise.”

  Shane pressed a finger to his lips, telling his partner to shut up.

  “AJ? Are you out yet? What’s there?”

  There was no answer. Shane crawled inside. The constable had taken the flashlight with him, but now a thin strip of light seeped in from above.

  “Are you there? Answer me, damn it!”

  Shane backed out, and when he straightened up, the entire team, including AJ, was standing in front of him, hiding smiles in their fists.

  It was clear. While he had been calling for the constable, they had been admiring his backside.

  O’Halloran hated being laughed at. He drew his brows together to look severe and addressed AJ.

  “Report.”

  “Basically, she got outside through that passage.”

  “I’ve already figured that out, Constable. Details.”

  “All right. The exit on top was well hidden under damp grass. I had no trouble crawling out because the girl had made holes in the earth to place her foot. It feels like she dug the passage herself. The distance between the holes is very small, so I stepped over two or even three at a time.”

  “Where does the tunnel lead?”

  “At first I didn’t understand, because I ended up between the shed wall and the fence. There’s a thick tree trunk on the right, and dry branches stacked all the way up to the roof on the left.”

  AJ gestured as he spoke, illustrating what he had seen.

  “Then I noticed a plank shifted slightly to the left. Through a narrow opening in the fence, I got out onto a hill leading down to the lake. From there, I followed the path and came back here.”

  Without asking any further questions, Shane walked to the spot. He had been here once before, very close, just on the other side of the tree. Now it was clear where the singing had come from. The tunnel carried the sound to the surface.

  Fans of poltergeists might have decided ghosts lived here. But who would wander around in such wilderness? The girl bathed calmly in the lake, ate fruit and vegetables from the garden. Quite possibly, she climbed into the house when the owners were away, stole food or other things. She clearly understood the meaning of many objects.

  If one assumed she had entered the basement as a child and had no opportunity to develop normally, her understanding of many things should have been lost. Yes, she was frightened by the phone, but even that did not stop Shane from believing that Angela, or the girl whose name began with K, had built herself a dwelling and lived here until the Daniels bought the house.

  O’Halloran rubbed his face with dirty hands, thinking how nice it would be if everything turned out to be this simple. He would gladly close the case and wait for a proper crime, one with a clear culprit, instead of solving pointless riddles.

  He got to his feet, brushed sand off his trousers, then returned to the basement, instructed Bag to photograph the tunnel’s external exit, and went into the house. Before facing Angela and Orla, he asked Molly to show him to the bathroom, where he washed his hands and thoroughly cleaned his face.

  “Damn it. Crawling through a dirty tunnel, washing in a lake, only to crawl back through sand again?” Shane thought, looking at himself in the mirror. His shirt collar had turned gray. He would have to stop by home to change. He couldn’t exactly go to the station looking like this.

  He stepped out to join the women, still unsure what questions to ask or whom to address first. His mind was in chaos.

  “How are you, Angela?” he asked first, forcing a polite smile.

  The girl grew shy and turned away. Everyone was surprised. To smooth over the awkward moment, he turned to Orla Leary.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Perfectly,” the doctor replied readily. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll come for Angela with a medical professional, and we’ll take her to the clinic.”

  Shane looked at Angela. Her gaze was fixed on the floor. Her thin arms hugged the grimy teddy bear.

  Ten years.

  Now he understood where the bear had come from. It had been with her since childhood. Her best friend.

  “Will you be able to determine her real age?” he asked Orla.

  “Not immediately, but I very much hope we can determine how old she truly is. Her health is more important right now.”

  Orla stood up and gathered her documents from the table.

  “Besides, the Daniels family will finally be free of obligations and a swarm of police on their property.”

  Shane measured her with a sharp look but said nothing. He dared not interfere with her work. It was enough that he had already hidden many facts from her.

  “May I ask Angela a couple of questions?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “In private.”

  “As you wish, Inspector,” Orla snapped.

  Her face sharpened with anger. Her nose wrinkled, her chin lifted.

  When Leary left them, Shane took her seat and tried to catch the girl’s eyes.

  “Are you shy around me?”

  There was no reaction.

  “All right. Just one question. May I?”

  Angela nodded.

  “Did you start living in the basement when you were little?”

  Her black lashes fluttered upward like butterfly wings. Large brown eyes looked at the detective with curiosity and interest. Her fingers tightened around the bear’s head, then quickly relaxed. She placed the toy on the neighboring chair and set her hands on the table.

  On her right hand, her fingers were spread wide. On her left, she raised only three fingers.

  Eight.

  “You were eight?”

  A nod.

  Yes.