โCan I stay here?โ
Those four words were barely louder than the wind moving against the attic window, but they stopped me halfway up the wooden ladder.
Forty-eight hours.
That was how long the police, her parents, and nearly every family in our Denver neighborhood had been searching for Kelly Bennett.
Her photograph had appeared on community bulletin boards. Neighbors had checked their security cameras, walked the nearby parks, and driven through surrounding streets looking for a glimpse of her long blonde hair.
Her mother had barely slept.
Her father had spent two nights driving between the hospital, the police station, and the flower shop where Kelly worked.
And the entire time, the missing young woman had been hiding twelve feet above my kitchen.
Inside my own house.
I found her curled on a cream-colored mattress beneath the sloping wooden ceiling of my attic. A knitted blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, and her extraordinarily long ash-blonde hair spilled across a dusty rug beside the bed.
She wore a black satin camisole with delicate floral-lace trim and matching comfortable lounge shorts, clothing she'd apparently brought with her in a small overnight bag.
Her blue-green eyes were open.
She looked exhausted, but when she recognized me, something in her expression softened.
โJeffrey?โ
I stopped climbing.
โYes. It's me.โ
She looked around the attic.
For a moment, she seemed uncertain how long she'd been there.
Then her gaze returned to mine.
โPlease don't make me go downstairs yet.โ
I had spent fifteen years working as a clinical neuropsychologist.
My career involved helping people understand changes in memory, attention, behavior, and everyday functioning after neurological illnesses and injuries.
I knew how to ask questions.
I knew how to recognize warning signs.
And I knew that when someone appeared frightened or disoriented, the first useful response was rarely to begin demanding explanations.
But knowing those things professionally didn't prepare me for finding my missing neighbor asleep in my attic.
Especially this neighbor.
Kelly Bennett was twenty-one years old, exceptionally beautiful, with softly tanned fair skin, expressive blue-green eyes, naturally full lips, and thick ash-blonde hair that reached almost to her waist.
She lived next door with her parents, who had moved to our neighborhood the previous summer.
Most people knew Kelly as the young woman who worked with flowers.