Across the room, Wren was drawing while Ivy played with a wooden spoon from my kitchen drawer.
“I told them that if they ever got out of the house without Derek seeing them, they had to run to the gray bin beside your driveway.”
My throat tightened.
“Why me?”
“Because you looked safe.”
The answer was so simple it hurt.
Camille wiped her cheek.
“I’d seen you wave to people. I saw you help an older man carry groceries from his car. One morning, a delivery driver left a package at the wrong house and you walked it three doors down.”
She looked toward the window.
“I didn’t know you. But you were the only person I could see.”
Then she told me what had happened that morning.
Derek had demanded the password to her email account.
Camille refused.
He became furious and told the twins to stay upstairs.
Before he dragged Camille toward the basement, she managed to leave the back door unlatched.
She bent down and whispered to Wren:
“Wait until you can’t hear him. Take Ivy. Find Laurel’s gray bin.”
The girls did exactly what their mother had taught them.
By the time Derek realized they were gone, they were already crouched inside my trash can.
“I didn’t know whether you’d come outside,” Camille whispered. “I didn’t know whether you’d look inside.”
I remembered lifting that heavy lid.
The two frightened faces staring up at me.
“We’re not playing. We’re hiding.”
My eyes burned.
“You took an enormous chance.”
Camille looked at her daughters.
“It was the only one I had left.”
Police later discovered two packed bags in the back of Derek’s SUV containing children’s clothes, medication, snacks, and several hundred dollars in cash.
Investigators believed he had been preparing to move Camille and the twins again.
