Page 3 of Little Last Words

Not wanting to startle her, my approach was slow and steady.

If she heard me coming, she showed no indication of it, her head remaining buried as her whimpers grew louder. I got within a foot of her and froze. On the side of her pale-yellow nightgown was a red stain—a stain that looked a lot like blood.

CHAPTER3

Ibent down, meeting the child at eye level, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She was shocked to see me squatting in front of her, and she gasped, jolting back.

So much for my subtle approach.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. My name is Georgiana. My friends call me Gigi. What’s your name?”

She blinked at me but said nothing.

“I live up there.” I pointed at the house I shared with my boyfriend, Giovanni. “See that big white one, the one with the gate around it?”

She looked in the direction of where I was pointing, then back at the ground again. She seemed disinterested in making conversation, which meant I needed to find a better way to connect.

I thought about the best way to get her talking. I lifted my cell phone out of my pocket and scrolled through a few photos, stopping on one I’d taken the day before.

“I have a dog named Luka,” I said. “He’s a fluffy, white Samoyed. Do you want to see what he looks like?”

She blinked at me for a moment and then nodded.

It was a start.

“Sometimes he walks with me in the morning,” I said.

Her focus shifted from Luka’s photo to the street, her eyes darting left and right like she hoped he would spring out from behind one of the bushes.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. Luka was too tired to go walking this morning. If you’d like to meet him, I could stop by tomorrow. What do you think?”

She offered a slight shrug.

“Do you have any pets?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Is your mommy or daddy home?” I asked.

I was starting to think I wasn’t going to get any answers out of her and that the best course of action might be for me to knock on the front door to make sure an adult was present. If they were, I’d let them know the child had wandered outside.

I approached the door, and she whispered, “Daddy's not here.”

At last, she was talking.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He’s at his house.”

“Where does your daddy live?”

“Far away. I don’t see him anymore.”

She didn’t see him anymore.

I wondered why.

“Is your mommy home?” I asked.