Near the University of Washington waterfront, Lake Washington, Seattle
Fortunately for Eva, she possessed a good deal of both her father's resourcefulness and her mother's toughness. Her feet flew across the ground as she ran away from the car. It was dark already and the quiet buildings loomed up all around her. Gradually, she got farther and farther away from the waterfront and her footsteps slowed. Her dad had taught her how to use a cell phone and a payphone, but she had neither. All she had was her jacket. Eventually, the waterfront buildings gave way to houses. Still, Eva kept walking. Eva scanned every block, as her Uncle Alec had instructed, but she couldn't find what she needed.
As the night grew darker, the cold air pressed in around Eva. In the front yard of one of the houses, she spied a few tricycles and a wooden playhouse. Exhausted and cold, she crawled into the playhouse. She curled up on the floor and crawled under an old blanket, abandoned months ago. In a few minutes, she was asleep.
Eva awoke several hours later. It was early morning now. The air smelled of damp grass as it always did in the mornings. Soon, the car exhaust and food smells would take over, but for now, Seattle still smelled fresh and hopeful. Eva reached a hand inside her pocket to check its contents again, a couple of pretzels, her school ID card, and a smooth pebble she had found yesterday on the playground.
Eva bit her lip as she thought of her dad, alone with that evil-looking man. She closed her eyes, wishing her mom would appear before her, to rescue her. Slowly, she opened one eye and looked up at the ceiling of the wooden playhouse where she had spent the night.
No mom. But, she would try that trick again later, she thought. She munched the stray pretzels and rubbed her cold hands together.
Eventually, Eva stood up. Her dad was counting on her. She brushed off her clothes and set off resolutely. She walked past the first five or six blocks, seeing some stores and restaurants replacing the rows of houses. The sidewalks quickly filled with commuters walking to work and other schoolchildren with backpacks. Eva ran over her Uncle Alec's instructions in her mind. Wrapping her jacked a little tighter around her body, Eva tried to look more like a child walking to school, instead of a kid wandering around the city without her parents.
Eva turned her mind to the task at hand. Uncle Alec had told her how to find her way home. Now, if she could only find what she was looking for. She crossed the street carefully, following right behind another girl and her mother.
There it was.
It looked all right. It was the same kind of little booth with the computer screen and the buttons like a phone. And the sign looked right. It had the blue symbol Uncle Alec had told her to find with the three letters, A-T-M. Eva pulled the school ID card out of her pocket, and, standing on tiptoe, pushed it into the slot. She looked at the keypad and quickly started pressing the numbers. Heart pounding, she kept pushing them. Across the screen, words were flashing and the automated voice said, "Incorrect PIN number, please try again." The machine slid the car out again. Eva pushed it back in.
Eva pressed her lips together and started pushing the buttons again. The machine spit the card out again. She tapped it back in and continued pressing.
"Hey, little girl, the ATM is not a toy, stop playing with the keypad!" a woman shouted, just as the words and voice flashed for the third time and final time.
"Sorry, your correct PIN number was not received. Please contact your bank to retrieve your automated teller machine card." The machine made a whirring sound and sucked the card in one last time. Eva's school ID card slid down into the inner workings of the teller machine. Deep inside, a sensor scanned the card, but instead of activating a security hold on someone's account, the scanner sent a signal across town to a small research facility in Bellevue. The message informed the owner of the facility, a Sebastian Montague, that Eva's card had just been used at an ATM in the university district.