Mack waited, letting the question hang between them like a loose wire.
The girl blinked at him, then looked past his shoulder toward the dark corners of the garage.
“My name is Nora,” she whispered.
Mack’s hands went still.
Every radio in town had said Nora Whitcomb was visiting relatives three counties over.
Every smiling adult had repeated it until it sounded like weather.
Mack glanced at her leg.
It was turned slightly inward, trembling beneath the thin fabric of her dress.
“My leg feels wrong,” Nora said.
Her voice was flat, almost embarrassed, as if the trouble belonged to her and not to whoever had caused it.
Mack reached for a clean shop towel and held it out.
“Can I look?”
Nora nodded once.
When he lifted the edge of the dress, he expected bruises.
He expected swelling.
He expected the kind of secret Maple Ridge buried under church bells and casserole dishes.
Instead, he saw a strip of silver tape wrapped tight around her knee, pressed over something hard beneath the skin.
Mack’s breath caught.
That was not medicine.
That was not an accident.
Behind him, the radio crackled, and the announcer’s cheerful voice filled the garage.
“Heritage Day parade begins in ten minutes, led by Mayor Whitcomb and his family.”
Nora flinched at the name.
Mack turned the radio off.
Outside, a horn blared from Main Street, followed by applause swelling in the distance.
Inside the garage, no one moved.
Then Nora reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a folded paper, damp from her palm.
She placed it in Mack’s grease-stained hand.
On it was a map of Maple Ridge, drawn in a child’s shaky lines.
Behind the mayor’s house, beneath a red X, someone had written one word in block letters.
MORE.
Mack looked at Nora.
Nora looked toward the back door of the garage.
“They said I was the last one,” she whispered.
Then, from the alley outside, came the slow sound of another child dragging one foot.
read the entire Part 3 below.”