Chapter 4: The Truth Behind the Trapdoor
Lila and Mia climbed back up the staircase, their hands shaking, their hearts pounding. They found the woman’s keys in her pocket, and Lila used them to unlock the front door. She called 911, and the operator told her that an ambulance and the police were on their way. She sat down on the front steps, pulling Mia into her arms, and she cried for the first time all night. She couldn’t believe what had just happened, and she couldn’t believe that a little girl had been hiding in the restaurant for months, waiting for someone to help her.
Mia told Lila the whole story, as they waited for the police to arrive. She’d been living with her aunt, who had died suddenly six months ago. Her aunt had been a friend of the woman, who had been posing as a social worker to gain access to vulnerable children. When Mia’s aunt died, the woman had come back for her, and Mia had run away, hiding in the restaurant’s basement, living off of canned food and water that she’d stolen from the kitchen. She’d been waiting for someone to come along who would believe her, someone who would help her stop the woman once and for all.
Lila thought about the little girl who had come into the restaurant earlier that night, the one who had been waiting for her mother who would never come. She realized then that the little girl had been a decoy, a way for the woman to lure her into the restaurant so she could trap her. The woman had been watching Lila for weeks, studying her routine, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. She’d chosen the night that Lila was going to close up, knowing that there would be no other customers, no one to help her.
The police arrived an hour later, followed by an ambulance. They took the woman away in handcuffs, and they took Lila and Mia to the hospital to get checked out. Lila’s arm was badly cut, but it wasn’t broken, and Mia was just scared, with a few scrapes and bruises. The police searched the restaurant’s basement, and they found several more plastic bags filled with human remains, as well as a journal belonging to the woman, detailing her plans to kidnap and kill more little girls. They told Lila that the woman had been on the FBI’s most wanted list for three years, and that they had been searching for her for months.
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Lila went back to the restaurant the next day, to help the police with their investigation. She walked through the dining room, and she noticed the woven rug again, its faded floral pattern frayed at the corners. She knelt down, pulling up the edge of the rug, and she found the trapdoor again, hidden under the floorboards. She thought about Mia, about the little girl who had been hiding in the basement for months, waiting for someone to help her. She thought about the woman, about the predator who had been hunting for years, preying on vulnerable children. And she thought about herself, about the waitress who had just been doing her job, who had unwittingly walked into a predator’s trap.
That night, Lila closed up the restaurant early, and she took Mia home with her. She’d already called Mia’s only living relative, her grandmother, who lived in Florida, and she was coming to pick her up the next day. Lila made Mia a plate of mac and cheese, just like the one she’d been eating in the restaurant, and they sat on the couch, watching a movie. Mia fell asleep on Lila’s shoulder, and Lila held her, feeling a sense of relief wash over her. She’d saved Mia that night, but she’d also saved herself, from a life of quiet service, from a world where predators could hunt for years without being caught.
