“I remember that robe,” Natalie said, running her hand over the fuzzy purple fabric. “I was so jealous of it. It still fits you the exact same.”
Cel sat next to Natalie, and Yesenia placed a migas-rich plate and mug of tea in front of her. She thanked her abuela, and then looked at Natalie, at Omar. “What are you guys doing here?”
Natalie briefly eyed the scratches on Cel’s cheek before replying. “I tried to call and text late last night after Craig’s cousin—Dennis, you remember him? He’s been on the Oak Mott PD for about six months now.” Cel nodded. “Called and told us the cops were searching your house, but you didn’t answer or text back. So when I went by your place this morning and you didn’t answer the door, I came here.” Natalie patted Cel’s thigh. “Are you okay?”
Cel pinched her lips together and nodded, a lie she didn’t expect them to believe and could tell neither one of them did.
When she didn’t elaborate, Omar said, “I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch sooner. I wanted to come yesterday after Natalie called and told me about Parker, but I had to finalize some reports at work before I left town.” Omar lived in Halo, a suburb east of Austin. He and his partner of eight years, Kris Ashton, lived in a two bedroom apartment, and both worked at the Dell corporate offices where they’d met. He and Natalie had remained close over the years, texting and chatting regularly, but Cel only communicated with him once every couple of months or so.
Cel met eyes with Omar, reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “It’s fine. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Have you heard from the cops since the search?” Natalie asked. Then she shook her head in apparent disgust. “I can’t believe they did that. Dennis said Parker’s mom demanded Chief Sterling do it.”
“She’s always been a bitch,” Omar said. With a cheek full of migas, he cut his eyes mischievously back and forth from Natalie to Cel, and smiled a closed lip smile, eliciting chuckles from both of them. For a flash, Cel glimpsed the boy he used to be. The boy who rode an electric motor-assisted bike and always carried a calculator in his pocket.
“All Detective Hart said when he called last night was that I could go home if I wanted, and that they needed time to examine Parker’s laptop and stuff.” Cel looked down at her plate, jostled the food around. “I think they think I have something to do with it.”
“That’s stupid,” Natalie said. “They know he’d been at work all day, and they found his cell phone and briefcase in the car, so they know he never went home afterward, too.”
Cel’s heart leapt into her throat. So much for relief. One of her last remaining hopes was that the cops would be able to track him via his cell phone. If he didn’t have his cell phone, that sliver of hope was lost. “I didn’t know they’d found his phone.”
Natalie’s eyebrows rose in an apologetic expression. As if she’d done something wrong. “Yeah, Dennis said it was in passenger seat of the car with a book and his briefcase. I don’t know why they wouldn’t tell you that.”
Cel felt her eyes heating up, filling with moisture.
Yesenia pulled out the chair next to Omar and sat down. “Because they want to see if she’ll admit to knowing something about the scene that she couldn’t know unless she was there.”
Natalie’s eyes tightened. “They’re such assholes,” she said.
Cel bit at her lip in an attempt to steel her emotions. “They’re just doing what they need to do. The spouse is always the first suspect when anyone goes missing or…you know.”
“I understand the percentages,” Omar said, his voice suddenly tight with indignation. “But they need to fucking hurry up and eliminate you so they can find out what really happened.”
“Right,” Natalie agreed.
When Cel looked down and picked at her food without responding, Natalie and Omar followed suit, fiddling with what little food remained on their plates in silence. Cel scooped migas into her mouth but struggled to find the desire to chew. Usually salty and spicy, the food was tasteless, like a glob of moist Styrofoam. She wanted to spit it out. She wanted to cry. She wanted to grab her phone and earbuds and go outrun the pain. But she could feel her abuela’s eyes on her and didn’t want to worry her any more than she already had. She also wanted to avoid another lecture about how she needed to rest and eat and stay strong like she’d received after refusing dinner the previous night. She forced the glob down and managed six more forkfuls before downing half of her tea in large gulps. “What are you guys’ plans for the rest of the day?” She looked at Natalie. “Do you have to show any houses?”
“I showed one this morning, hence...” She waved her hand sarcastically over her shirt and skirt. “But I have the rest of the day off.”
“Do you think you can take me to my house so we can see what it looks like? I don’t have my car, and I don’t want to go in alone.”
Natalie smiled and touched Cel’s forearm, and Omar nodded. “Of course,” they answered in unison.
“Thank you.” Cel stood and pushed in her chair. “I’m going to brush my teeth and change real quick then.”
Yesenia stood, too, and began clearing the table, waving off Omar’s and Natalie’s offers to help. “Your clothes are on top of the dryer with your phone, mija.”
My chanclas are out in Hunter’s Haven though, aren’t they? Cel’s inner voice responded, bringing the hairs on her arms to attention as she nodded and left the room.
Chapter 25 - Cel
Cel sat in the backseat of Natalie’s Scion with Mila on her lap, a pair of Yesenia’s chanclas on her feet. She met eyes with Natalie in the rearview when the car stopped at a red light at the Sylvia and Yankee Road intersection, tipped her head toward Omar in the passenger seat, and mouthed He knows, right? The baby.
She could only see Natalie from the nose up, but she could tell Natalie smiled when she nodded. She guessed Omar was the first one Natalie had told about her pregnancy, but she wanted to be sure before speaking up. “How have you been feeling? Still nauseated?”
“It comes and goes,” Natalie said. “Hopefully I can hold those migas down. They were pretty spicy.”
“You better,” Omar joked. “I’ve cleaned up enough of your stinky ass puke for two lifetimes already.”
Natalie elbowed Omar’s arm and laughed. “Shut up. If I do puke, you will clean it up, and you’ll do it with a smile.”
Somewhat jealous (she and Parker used to banter like that) but at the same time grateful (she loved that they hadn’t lost their connection), Cel chuckled at their back and forth, a welcome calm before the storm she expected to find inside her house. She stroked Mila as the light turned green, and Natalie’s attention returned to the road. She stared out the window and tried to fight off any thoughts about their destination as they zoomed past familiar fast-food franchises and car dealerships, churches and houses. She wanted to hold onto this moment of normalcy, a moment with her friends where friendly banter was okay, laughter was okay, feeling safe was okay, for as long as she could.
When they reached 216 Matador Lane, Natalie parked in the driveway behind Cel’s Envoy. She twisted sideways, facing Omar, and cocked her right leg up in the seat. She glanced at Omar before meeting eyes with Cel, and Cel saw something pass between her two friends. An invisible nod of encouragement. Omar knew what Natalie was about to say. “I know this is bad timing, and it may seem stupid because of everything that’s going on with you, Cel, and I’m sorry, but we are rarely all three together, and I wanted to talk about this with just you guys, in person.” Her eyes moved nervously back and forth from Omar to Cel. “As you guys know, Craig and I aren’t church people, but we still wanted to know if you guys would be our baby’s godparents? In a symbolic way. Like if something happens to us…” She flapped her fingers in front of her teary eyes. “Sorry.” She chuckled. “Hormones, I guess.”
Cel leaned into the gap between the front seats and hugged her. “It’s not stupid. Of course. Of course.”
Omar took Natalie’s hand
in his and smiled a proud smile. Another unspoken message passed between them before he let go and looked at Cel. “Ready?”
On the front porch, Cel paused after twisting the knob. She feared the house would no longer feel like a home if the cops had ransacked it like in crime shows. Mila meowed at her feet, eager to enter and restore her ownership of the place. When Omar placed a friendly hand on Cel’s shoulder and Natalie touched her lower back, she mentally recited her go-to calming spell and opened the door.
They made their way down the hall, searching the living room, spare bedroom that served as an office, hall bathroom, kitchen, and every closet they crossed. The place was far from ransacked. For the most part, they found the same mess Cel had left in her wake after searching for evidence that Parker had been communicating with Lauren.
The pillows and cushions on the couches and chairs appeared to have been lifted and checked under, unzipped too, maybe, but they weren’t sliced open, their billowy guts torn out. Clothes and coats hanging in closets were abnormally slid all the way to one side or the other but not tossed onto the floor. Some drawers and kitchen cupboards were still open or only partially closed, hinting at an intrusion, some of the contents stacked on the floor or furniture nearby, but nothing was unorganized. Some of the furniture and pictures on the walls also sat askew, but not drastically.
Not until they searched Cel’s bedroom and bathroom did they perceive the sincerity of the search. The bedspread, sheets, and pillowcases had been removed and piled on the floor at the foot of the mattress, which had been flipped (Cel rotated it regularly to prevent sagging, and last week the tag had been facedown, not visible.), and a watermelon-sized section was crudely cut out. Similarly, two swatches of carpet in front of bathroom door had been excised. The cops had obviously detected the blood stains on both the mattress and carpet, stains that would match Cel, not Parker, when tested. Reminders of dark stints they went through after her third and fourth miscarriages.
Natalie put her hands on her hips and cursed the cops when she saw the missing carpet, and Omar backed up the sentiment as he ran his hand over the damaged mattress. But what stung Cel the sharpest wasn’t the carpet or mattress, or anything else that had been taken or moved or rifled through. It was what Natalie found wedged in the heap of linens moments later. When Cel walked out of the bathroom after checking the cupboards under the sink, she found Omar and Natalie standing at the foot of the bed, staring at a book in Natalie’s hand.
“What’s that?”
Natalie cocked her head in a gesture of pity, like a teacher about to show a failing grade to a hardworking yet mentally-challenged kid, and passed the book to Cel.
It was Parker’s abused copy of The Illustrated Man—the same copy she’d found on the floor of the computer room closet two days earlier and placed back on the shelf with his other books. The same photo of Abby on Table Rock was poking out of the top—the photo she’d wedged inside the center of the book before re-shelving it.
“Why would they bring it in here?” Cel whispered to herself. She kept her eyes glued on the book as she backpedaled to the mattress and shrunk down. Her mind was knotting up with question and possibilities like it had too many times in the last forty-eight hours. Would this fucked up roller coaster ride ever end? “Did Hart want me to see it? Was it an accident? A coincidence? Or…is…”
“Cel,” Natalie said. “Are you okay?”
To Cel, Natalie sounded as if she were speaking from the bottom of a deep hole, far away. “Was Buela…” Cel whispered. She looked up, her eyes aimed at Natalie but not seeing her. “Abby…” Cel’s eyes fell on the book again. “But she couldn’t have…”
Natalie sat next to Cel. “Cel. You’re scaring me.”
Omar squatted in front of them and put his hand on Cel’s knee. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
As her stress-laden eyes seesawed from Natalie to Omar, Cel pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, handed it to Natalie, and told her to open the gallery. She described her trek into Hunter’s Haven in long, run-on sentences as Natalie flipped through the photos. She told them everything. The yellow police tape. The finding spell. The connection with Parker’s aura. Table Rock. The maybe-Abby’s–ghost in maybe-Abby’s-dress. The giggles. The running home barefoot, scared out of her mind.
Natalie handed the phone to Omar, who began scrolling through the pictures as she gestured at Cel’s cheek. “Is this how you got those scratches?”
Cel nodded.
“I wish you would’ve called me. I would’ve gone out there with you.”
Cel’s non-reply reply was to hold up The Illustrated Man and unleash another string of run-ons. She told them about hearing the strange noises in the house the night Parker vanished. Finding the book and picture on the floor. She pulled out the picture and gave it to Natalie and asked if she’d ever seen it, and she said no. When Omar passed Cel her phone back, he looked at the picture and said he’d never seen it either. Then she told them about finding all the crickets in the sinks and tubs the morning after finding the book and picture, and how Yesenia thinks Abby’s spirit wants something from her, or is trying to contact her for a specific reason. Maybe something to do with Parker.
“And now this book, out of all of his books stacked in the computer room closet, his favorite book back then, is in here when I come home. With Abby in it.”
Cel inhaled deeply. It felt good to uncork. “What do you guys think?” But not so good to see the expressions on her friends’ faces when they looked at one another in response to her question and shared a silent conversation with their eyes. A conversation she read as: Do you believe this could be Abby’s ghost? I really don’t either. Everything that happened can be rationally explained. She’s just stressed and upset, probably relating the two disappearances out of desperation. She’s been through a lot. Poor her.
Before they could respond, Cel answered her own assumptions. “I know you guys think I’m stressed out, and that to still believe in all this aura and spirit and spell stuff is childish and stupid, but—”
“Wait,” Natalie interjected. “You’re right. We do think you’re stressed. And for good reason.” Omar nodded in agreement. “But it’s not fair to say we think your beliefs are childish or stupid. We’ve never said or thought that.” Natalie searched Cel’s face with heartfelt eyes. “You’ve known me since third grade. You know I believe in powers beyond our full understanding just as much as you.”
Cel bit at her bottom lip for a moment before nodding. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.” She gulped. “I just get the feeling you guys think I’m crazy, that I’m grasping for answers and connections that can’t exist.”
“We don’t think that,” Omar assured.
“We’re just trying to process everything,” Natalie added. “I mean, Abby disappeared fifteen years ago. Now thinking about her ghost being in Hunter’s Haven…and those pictures you took…and the crickets…and Parker vanishing… It’s a lot to filter through and try to connect.”
Cel cracked a weak, knowing smile. It was a lot. Too much. She hung her head, letting her hair shield the sides of her face, and opened her phone’s photo gallery. As she scanned through the pictures, worried she might be over analyzing, she sensed Natalie and Omar meeting eyes again, talking without talking. When Natalie brushed Cel’s hair away from her face, Cel closed the photo gallery and looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said again, this time softer and slower. “This whole thing is just so fucked up.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Natalie said, smiling a motherly smile that touched her eyes.
Cel squeezed Natalie’s hand. “You’re going to be such a great—”
A series of loud thuds cut her off. Four jarring knocks on the front door. The same as when the cops had arrived yesterday. Cel, Omar, and Natalie looked back and forth from each other, waiting. Four more knocks echoed through the house. “It’s the cops,” Cel said.
Omar and Natalie followed her to the front door. Omar stepped int
o the living room and peeked through the blinds. “There’s one guy in a suit. He’s tall and skinny and has a goatee.”
“It’s Detective Hart,” Cel said. If they’d found Parker’s body, there’d be more of them, she thought. But if they found him alive, or a clue that he was…She flung the door open. “Did you find something? Is he okay?”
Detective Hart studied the scratches on Cel’s face before making eye contact. He looked exhausted and dehydrated. His lips were flaky, eyelids heavy. “We didn’t find him. Yet.” He glanced over her shoulder at Natalie and Omar, locked eyes with her again. “We’d like you to come down to the station to answer a few questions that might help, though.”
“How can I help? I told you everything I know. He went to work and never came home. You found his car. Now you need to find him.”
“These questions aren’t about Parker’s disappearance per say.”
Cel’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“I need to talk to you about Lauren Page.”
Chapter 26 - Cel
Detective Hart escorted Cel to a small cold room that was as colorless as the hospital room Tia Dillo had taken her last breath in. There were no windows, no pictures on the white walls. Only a black camera perched in the corner opposite the door, aimed toward the center of the room. The uncomfortable chairs resembled giant plastic ice-cream scoops, the table between them a chunk of wood covered in the cheap faux-wood paneling that covered walls in the eighties. To combat the vent shooting cold air directly at her, Cel sat across from Hart with her knees pinched together, her arms folded across her chest.
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