CHAPTER 33
THE ROOM CAME back into focus as somebody called my name.
“Ella? Ella Goodman? Are you here?”
Was it him? Had he missed me the first time round? I pressed myself harder against the sofa, but it came almost to the floor so there was no chance of me crawling underneath it.
“Ella, it’s the police. Are you here?”
The police? The police were in the house? Was it really them, or was he just playing a trick on me?
A tiny bud of hope formed in my chest as I listened, trying to figure out the sounds emanating from a couple of rooms away. A bump. A squeak. A door closing.
Then I heard the most beautiful noise in the world. Beside it, birds singing in the morning, the dash of rain on a glass roof, the pumped-up tunes of Indigo Rain—they all paled into insignificance. The whoop of a
