They needed more information.
But Maeve barely spoke.
She drank some water.
A nurse cleaned her feet.
Whenever someone asked about Caleb, she gave the same answer.
“He’s under the bells.”
Nobody knew what she meant.
Then a woman arrived at the hospital.
She ran through the doors so quickly that a receptionist barely had time to stop her.
“I’m Rachel Collins,” she said, breathless. “I’m their aunt.”
Owen met her in the corridor.
Rachel looked as though she hadn’t slept in days.
“Maeve?” she asked.
“She’s alive.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
Tears immediately filled her eyes.
“And Caleb?”
Owen hesitated.
“We haven’t found him yet.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
For several seconds, she couldn’t speak.
Then she whispered, “Oh God.”
“We believe Maeve knows where he is.”
Rachel looked at him.
“She keeps saying he’s under the bells.”
The woman’s expression suddenly changed.
Owen noticed it immediately.
“What?”
Rachel stared at him.
“Did she really say that?”
“Several times.”
Rachel grabbed his arm.
“The chapel.”
“What chapel?”
“Old Saint Andrew’s.”
Owen waited.
Rachel was already crying again.
“The old chapel near Cedar Creek. It has a bell tower.”
Owen reached for his radio.
But Rachel hadn’t finished.
“When my brother bought that farmhouse, he was terrified of the creek flooding. The children were too young to understand emergency plans, so he turned it into a game.”
Owen stopped.
“What kind of game?”
Rachel swallowed.
“He taught Maeve landmarks.”
“The grain silo. The red bridge. The chapel.”
Her voice broke.
“He used to tell her that if the water ever came and she couldn’t find Mom or Dad, she had to take Caleb and find the bells.”
Owen went silent.
Rachel wiped her face.
“We all laughed about it. Maeve called it Daddy’s adventure game.”
She looked toward the hospital room.
“He made her practice holding Caleb’s hand.”
Within seconds, Owen was running.
He radioed the search teams.
Old Saint Andrew’s Chapel had been abandoned for nearly twenty years.
The building sat beyond Cedar Creek, several miles from the Collins farmhouse.
The storm had destroyed part of the access road, so patrol vehicles couldn’t reach it directly.
Owen joined a rescue team heading toward the chapel on foot.
They crossed a muddy field.
Climbed over fallen trees.
Waded through water nearly to their knees.
Then someone shouted.
“There!”
Through the branches, Owen saw it.
A narrow stone tower.
At the top hung an old church bell.
The chapel itself was badly damaged.
One side of the roof had collapsed.
Several windows were shattered.
“Caleb!”
No answer.
The deputies spread out.
“Caleb Collins!”
Nothing.
Owen entered the chapel.
Water covered the floor.
Broken wooden benches lay scattered everywhere.
He was about to leave when he heard something.
A faint sound.
He froze.
“Everybody quiet!”
The rescuers stopped moving.
Owen listened.
There it was again.
A tiny whimper.
Coming from below.
They found a narrow staircase leading beneath the chapel.
The basement door had swollen from the rain and was almost impossible to open.
Two rescuers forced it apart.
Owen shined his flashlight inside.
A little boy was curled up beneath an old wooden table.
He was wrapped in a faded curtain.
Beside him sat an empty juice bottle.
Owen rushed forward.
“Caleb?”
The boy opened his eyes.
“Maeve?”
Owen’s throat tightened.
“Maeve is safe.”
The little boy started crying.
Owen lifted him carefully.
“She found the blue lights.”
Later, investigators pieced together what had happened.
When the storm struck the Collins farmhouse, the children’s parents had rushed downstairs.
But part of the building collapsed before the family could escape together.
Maeve and Caleb had been in a small back room that remained standing long enough for Maeve to crawl through a broken doorway.
She couldn’t reach her parents.
She couldn’t understand why they weren’t answering.
But she remembered her father’s game.
Find the bells.
So the six-year-old girl took her three-year-old brother by the hand.
And they walked.
Through rain.
Across flooded fields.
Past fallen trees.
Whenever Caleb cried, Maeve told him they were playing Daddy’s adventure game.
They eventually reached the abandoned chapel.
By then, Caleb was too tired to continue.
Maeve found the basement.
She wrapped him in an old curtain.
She gave him the last of the juice they had carried from the house.
Then they waited.
But nobody came.
Sometime during the night, Maeve heard sirens in the distance.
Through one of the broken windows, she saw occasional flashes of blue reflecting against the clouds.
She remembered seeing police cars before.
Blue lights meant police.