Page 61 of The Newcomer
“Bad Ellie,” Maya scolded, shaking her finger at the elephant. “You runned away from me.”
Letty fetched a towel and her hair dryer from the bathroom. She held the elephant over the small kitchen sink and did what she could to squeeze out some of the rainwater, then placed her on the towel and began to blot her dry. When she switched on the hair dryer and began running it over the toy, Maya stood right beside her, one handpatting the toy, as if to reassure herself that the elephant would not stray again.
It was slow work. She was running the dryer over the elephant’s head when she felt something hard and solid beneath the plush fur covering. She switched off the dryer and examined Ellie closer. Part of the toy’s leatherette collar formed a headdress that mimicked the kind worn by circus elephants. Several of the brass studs that decorated the headdress had been lost over the years, but now, she realized, there was something hard beneath the hole left by a missing brass stud located squarely between the elephant’s eyes.
Letty fetched her eyebrow tweezers from the bathroom and poked at the hole. There was definitely something there, metal or maybe plastic?
“What you doin’, Letty?” Maya asked.
“I’m, uh, fixing Ellie. She’s got a boo-boo right here on her head,” Letty said.
The rain continued all day. Her plans for grocery shopping followed by a beach day with Maya were put on hold. Instead, they sat on the floor of the motel room and had a peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich pretend picnic, followed by watching what seemed like endless episodes of Nick Jr. shows.
At four, Maya yawned and put herself down for a nap.
As soon as she was convinced her niece was sleeping, Letty picked up the still-soggy elephant. She probed again at the object beneath the plush, then retrieved a pair of nail scissors from the bathroom. Working slowly, she moved aside the leatherette harness, then carefully cut a slit in the fabric just large enough to insert her fingers through to extract the object.
The hidden object was small, maybe an inch square, and made of black plastic with what appeared to be a tiny lens in the center.
“My God,” Letty breathed, turning the object over in the palm of her hand. Ellie, it seemed, had a secret. And it was yet another of Tanya’s secrets, hidden in plain sight.
She glanced over at the bed.
Ellie had been Maya’s constant companion since the day she’d received it as a birthday gift. The elephant went wherever Maya went. Always.
“Oh Tanya,”Letty thought, placing the camera aside.“What have you done now?”After some thought, she texted Isabelle.
Are you busy?
Isabelle’s response was immediate.
No! So freaking bored. What’s up?
I could use some electronics tech support. And a needle and thread.
Isabelle texted back a series of question marks and a wink emoji.
I’m not so good with tech, but I’ll call my friend Sierra. Total computer nerd.
Thanks,Letty texted. She put the phone down and waited. Ten minutes passed.
Sierra’s coming over. See you in fifteen.
23
ISABELLE’S FRIEND ARRIVED ON Alime-green Vespa scooter. She shook the rain off her helmet and left it on the chair in the breezeway.
“Hey, Letty, this is Sierra,” Isabelle said, ushering the girl into the room.
Sierra was a slight-figured African American girl with enormous dark eyes hidden behind steel-rimmed granny glasses with pink-tinted lenses and hair that had been dyed fuchsia and cropped close to her skull. She wore an oversize army fatigue jacket and had a shiny vinyl backpack slung over one shoulder.
She didn’t look old enough to ride a Vespa, or drive a car, Letty thought, but her opinion of the teenager soon changed.
Sierra held the plastic object in the palm of her hand and looked up at Letty.
“It’s a nanny cam,” she said. “Where’d you find it?”
Letty nodded toward Maya, who was now stretched out on the bed watchingPAW Patrolwith Isabelle, the still-damp and newly mended Ellie tightly tucked beneath her arm.
