“It does not feel like a knot of thread,” I said, looking at Emily.
“It is not thread,” Emily said, her voice dropping lower. “There is something solid sealed inside the lining of the cotton.”
I held the blue towel up to the single lightbulb of the ceiling fan, but the thick terrycloth was too dense to let any light through. The shape remained a dark, heavy shadow.
“Let me see the pink one,” I said.
Grace slid the pink towel across the table, her eyes wide under the yellow kitchen light. “The exact same spot, Dad. On the left side of the sailboat.”
I took the pink towel in my hands and felt the identical section of the hem, finding another small, hard object nested deep within the double-stitched cotton.
The original manufacturer of these towels would never have sewn hard, irregular shapes into the hem of a child’s bath towel. Someone had taken a needle and heavy gray thread to these borders long after they left the store.
“Who gave these to us, Dad?” Grace asked, her fingers tapping faster now. “Did the police give them to you?”
“No,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “They were wrapped around you in the changing stall.”
“Then whoever left us there put these things inside,” Emily said, her academic precision returning as she leaned over the table. “They wanted us to find them.”
“Or they wanted them hidden from whoever was looking for you,” I said, the thought rising in my mind before I could stop it.
The kitchen was quiet, save for the steady, rhythmic click of the ceiling fan. The peaceful life I had built for eighteen years felt suddenly thin, like a sheet of paper held up to a flame.
“Get the scissors, Dad,” Grace said.
“We should wait,” I said, looking at the two bundles on the table. “We do not know what is in there.”
