Disappeared

by Lucienne Diver

  The guy bolted, and on instinct Jared bolted after him, leaping the stairs like they were a hurdle and racing across the driveway for the street. The cop tried to stop him, but he saw her lunge coming a mile away and swerved without slowing, evading her reach. She was yelling something, but the blood was rushing in his ears, and anyway, he didn’t want to hear it. All he wanted was to lay hands on this guy, shake answers out of him, and put the fear of God or Jared into him. He needed to learn not to go around scaring little girls. Jared’s hand clenched and unclenched in anticipation of grabbing their quarry.

  He could feel other feet pounding the pavement behind him, and knew with the instinct of a runner how far he was ahead of the cop. She was never going to catch up with him.

  The neighbors got the hell out of the way as stalker-guy Jake raced down the block. He had a head start, and he was long-legged, so he had a helluva stride, but Jared was faster, and was gaining on him until Jake took a sudden dodge between two houses. Jared zagged as well, but suddenly there was no sign of Jake. Either he’d zagged again or broken into one of the homes … No, there hadn’t been time for that. Jared kept running and burst out from between the houses. He looked left and right. No one. The cop was hot on his heels and he made a sudden decision. Jake had dodged left before. Maybe it was his default. He ran two blocks in that direction before giving it up. There was no sign of the guy. None. Maybe he’d done track in his day. Hell, maybe he still ran marathons. Old wasn’t dead.

  Jared wanted to slam his fists into something in frustration.

  Behind him, the cop’s steps slowed as well, and he could hear her talking into her radio, letting dispatch or whoever know they’d lost the suspect. Then she grabbed Jared by the arm, and not gently. “What the hell were you thinking, kid?” she asked. “You could have been hurt.”

  “Running?” he asked.

  “Catching,” she said, in a way that implied he knew very well what she’d meant. “Who were you chasing?”

  She steered him back toward home, and he told her on the way, all about Emily’s first encounter with the guy and how he’d creeped her out. He didn’t mention their Facebook research. There wasn’t anything to tell.

  “And?” she said pointedly.

  “And what?”

  “That’s what I’m asking. You don’t run down some guy because he showed up at your house.”

  “You do if your mother’s missing and you think he might have answers.”

  “Do you think that?”

  “Maybe.” He shook his arm out of her grip. “It was worth a shot. Now we’ll never know.”

  She blew out a breath through her nose so hard he expected a snot wad to come shooting out. “If he’s been watching your house, he’s a potential witness. You’ve given us a name. Provided it’s not false, we shouldn’t have any trouble finding him. And just in case, you and your sister can provide a description. But if he comes around again, you call us. You do not go running off on your own.”

  Jared’s hand shot up to his forehead, and he saluted her. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

  She didn’t appear amused. “I’m not kidding. You need to take this seriously.”

  “Trust me, I’m taking everything very seriously.”

  Detective Anderson met them at the driveway and gave him a look sterner than any of the officer’s words, but it was still nothing to Gran’s look. She was still standing on the porch, and he realized he’d left her high and dry without anyone to help her down the stairs. Well, Emily, but if Gran lost her balance, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure Emily could catch her. Gran looked like she was going to box his ears. She’d done it once when he was a kid and had run into traffic after a ball. His ears had rung for a week.

  They all went inside, where he and Emily gave their descriptions to the police, and less than five minutes after she called it in, Detective Anderson had the guy’s license photo to show them and they confirmed the identification.

  “I want to remind you that he hasn’t done anything wrong,” she said. “I don’t want you overreacting if you see him. I don’t want you to do anything but call us if you’re concerned.”

  “If he hasn’t done anything, why did he run?” Emily asked. It seemed a reasonable question to Jared.

  “If someone hollered and started running after me, I might do the same thing.”

  He didn’t like that answer.

  “Wait,” Emily said suddenly. “If you’re here with us, who’s interviewing Dad?”

  Apparently, Emily had all the good questions today.

  “Don’t you worry about that.”

  “Will he be home soon?” she asked.

  “I can’t say.”

  “But this Jake fellow,” Gran said, “you’re going to find and interview him too? He seems awfully suspicious to me. Much more so than my son.”

  Detective Anderson looked her full in the face. “We’ll find him.”

  She made no other promises.

  “Then I think we’re done here,” Gran said. “You have work to do, and I need a lie-down after all this excitement. Emily, help me to my room?”

  Jake was surprised it wasn’t him; she usually insisted on him or his father escorting her. Probably she meant it as a rebuke because he’d left her on the porch while he tore off after that guy, but it actually worked in his favor. He needed to talk to Detective Anderson alone.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he said.

  Gran gave him a sharp look, but couldn’t really say a word. He’d already been dismissed from her side.

  Nineteen

  Emily

  The house was deadly quiet. She’d heard Jared come in after seeing the police out, but he’d gone straight to his room and wouldn’t talk to her when she asked what had taken him so long. He was shutting her out. Hiding away in his room, though she didn’t know what Dad had left him to do there. Gran was napping. Dad was still at the police station.

  Detective Anderson had mentioned blood and foul play. Those three words ate away at her soul. Blood, foul play. They chased each other around like a puppy chasing its tail, snarling and snapping, only none of it in good fun.

  She thought of that Emily Dickinson poem they’d read in school that always stayed with her, parts of it, anyway.

  The Soul has Bandaged moments—

  When too appalled to stir—

  She feels some ghastly Fright come up

  And stop to look at her—

  That was how she felt, as if her soul was having a bandaged moment, and her blood was leaking through, hemorrhaging. She wished she could get to the other part of the poem, the one that always gave her hope …

  The soul has moments of escape—

  When bursting all the doors—

  She dances like a Bomb, abroad,

  And swings upon the Hours,

  She didn’t know entirely what it meant, but she liked the sound of dancing like a bomb, being explosively present. Swinging upon the Hours sounded like she owned time and was outside even physical laws. Like she was truly free.

  But then reality returned, in poetry and in life:

  The Soul’s retaken moments—

  When, Felon led along,

  With shackles on the plumed feet,

  And staples, in the song,

  The Horror welcomes her, again.…

  It could have been written for her.

  Mom was gone and they’d found blood. If that wasn’t horror, the word had no meaning. The pain of it was shackling her to the bitter earth.

  The police were questioning Dad. He was a suspect. There was no way around it. He wasn’t just “walking them through things.” Not for hours on end.

  But he couldn’t have hurt Mom, could he? Not like … that.

  She thought of the night Mom had left the first time, when Dad had grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked, and her mother had cried out in a way that went straight through her heart. When Jared had run with her to the Meyers’ house and the police had come, though she
didn’t know who had called them. The only call Ms. Carla had made was to their place, trying to calm things down, get someone talking. But no one answered. Andrew didn’t show any interest in her or Jared—he never had—but the fight was different. He raced out, either to see for himself or to try and stop it, as though Emily and Jared hadn’t already tried. Mr. Meyers ran after his son. Either could have made the call. Or Mom could have gotten free and made it herself.

  She and Jared knew about the police because the cruisers sped past the Meyers’ windows, which they’d been peering out as though they could see anything from them. Emily had been desperate to get back—she’d never wanted to leave in the first place—but Ms. Carla practically held them hostage until Andrew and Mr. Meyers returned and said the police had things in hand. And that Mom refused to press charges. Neither one looked comfortable with that. Andrew’s face was a thundercloud, and his fists were clenched, like she’d seen with their father, with Jared when he got angry. Mr. Meyers’ face was more closed off, like he’d put a lid over his feelings, locking them away. He hardly met Jared’s gaze and bypassed Emily’s altogether, but she could see the tension around his eyes and the clench of his jaw.

  She didn’t know why she always thought of Ms. Carla as Ms. Carla and Mr. Meyers by his last name, but she noticed that Jared did it too. Maybe it was their way of keeping their distance when he seemed to want to draw them closer.

  She had to be thinking of the Meyers as a way to avoid thinking about Dad, because they certainly couldn’t have anything to do with Mom’s disappearance. It wouldn’t make any sense. She could see someone having a private “talk” with Dad about keeping his hands to himself, but no one could have anything against Mom.

  Except maybe that Jake guy, if Mom had snubbed him. Or Dad, said the internal voice she was trying to ignore.

  The pain flared, and she reached for her bedside table and the envelope she had stashed there, folded over and over on itself to protect and hide the razor inside. Her razor. A straight edge taken from a box of spares for one of Dad’s cutting tools in the garage. He’d never missed it.

  She unfolded the envelope. She thought about going to the bathroom, getting a clean towel, in case … But the need was too urgent. She might see someone on the way who could stop her.

  She held the razor in one hand and ran her fingers over the blade. Not hard enough to cut. Not yet. Just enough to make sure the edge was still sharp. Still smooth. She had no idea how many times it could cut before she’d need to replace it. Skin was probably easier on the blade than what it was intended for, but she swabbed it with alcohol each time after use. She didn’t know what that would do to the metal, but she had to make sure she didn’t get infected. She wasn’t crazy. Or at least, she didn’t think so. She just …

  A sob broke out of her, and she raised the blade to her arm, just under her last cut to her left shoulder. She didn’t know why she chose there. Some people, she knew, cut their thighs or other areas easier to hide. She’d never be able to wear tank tops, and she’d have to wear a t-shirt over her bathing suit probably forever, but that was all fine. She didn’t want to be exposed. Not in any way.

  The blade dug into her skin. No, words mattered. She dug the blade into her skin, and the sharp sting made her gasp. She’d gone in a little hard. Too hard, but she needed that first shock. All of her was focused on the pain, on the slow progress of the blade into her skin. She wanted to make this last. To count. The pain would last, but not this sharply. Not immediate and real and the full focus of her world. It would die down and all she’d be left with was a scar, like the older one she could feel straining as she pulled taut the skin around it for her cut.

  Then her attention was grabbed by a sound from the front of the house. The door opening. Everyone was already inside. Except her father.

  Dad was home.

  The razor slipped in her grip, and she cried out as the blade dug deeper than she meant it to before she unclenched her hand and let it drop, making a bloody mark on her sheets.

  Oh hell.

  Holy hell.

  She was bleeding, and pretty badly. She had to get this cleaned up before Dad came to check on her. Or called a family meeting. Or whatever he might do. There was no telling.

  Emily slapped her hand over her shoulder and ran for her hamper. She was pretty sure there was a used towel there. She’d get blood all over it, but she could do the laundry before anyone else got to it. She could hide this. She yanked out clothes one-handed, dropped them to the floor. The blood was now dripping down her arm, escaping her hand which made a crap Band-Aid.

  Ah ha, the towel!

  She wrapped it around her arm, trying to make a tourniquet, but it was a bath towel, and too thick for that. She had gauze and other stuff she’d smuggled into her bedroom for things like this, but it wouldn’t do her any good until she got the bleeding to stop. She didn’t think it was as bad as last time, at least, but the blood kept her from getting a good look.

  There was a knock at her door.

  Oh, holy hell.

  She’d locked it, hadn’t she? She was sure she’d locked it.

  “Em, Dad wants to talk to us,” Jared said through the door. At least it was Jared.

  “I can’t right now,” she answered, hoping he wouldn’t hear any of the stress in her voice. She was staring at the door now, so she saw when the knob started to turn. She leapt for the door, just in case, and almost got hit in the face when it opened inward. She hadn’t locked it. How had she not checked? Panic clawed at her heart.

  She jumped back out of the way and slapped a hand over her towel, as if that might hide things. She knew she looked guilty as hell. Hopefully, Jared would be too wrapped up with his own stuff to notice.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  So much for that.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Monster zit popped. It’s kind of gross.” The lie had worked on Ms. Carla. Of course, that was with a bandage and not a towel going bloody as they spoke.

  Jared looked down the hallway. “There in a minute,” he called out. Then he fixed Emily with a no-nonsense look. “Let me see it.”

  He couldn’t know. Though he certainly would if she showed him.

  Emily backed away. “No. My business. Nothing for you to see.”

  He reached out, lightning fast, and grabbed her. She just managed to bite down on her shocked outcry. She could not let Dad hear and come running. She didn’t know what he’d do, but he’d be angry. That wasn’t even a question.

  Before she could protest, Jared had the towel unwrapped and was staring at her arm. Emily looked as well. The blood had stopped except for a tiny wetness at the far end of the wound, but her arm was still smeared with it, and the towel was trashed.

  He looked from the cut—from the half dozen or so smaller cuts and one larger on her arm—and up into her eyes. “Emily, what have you done?”

  She pulled her arm out of his hold, but not too roughly, afraid to start the bleeding off again. “Nothing. I told you it was none of your business. Let me get cleaned up and I’ll be right out.”

  “Not my business?” he asked, his voice rising. Emily shushed him hurriedly. “Not my business?” he asked more quietly. “Like what Mom was going through was none of our business? Maybe if we’d pushed it … made her press charges …”

  It was so close to what Emily had been thinking herself that a new sob broke out of her. “Go. Just go,” she said, before she could ugly cry all over him.

  “Please,” he said, gently, shocking her into listening, “let me help?”

  Her heart broke. She stared at her brother, horror and hope and pain all warring. Could she trust him?

  “You won’t tell Dad?”

  She held her breath waiting for the answer.

  “I don’t know what to do, Em. You need help.”

  She jumped at him, grabbing both his arms and squeezing, radiating the panic she felt, letting him see the terror in her eyes. “You can’t tell Dad. You can’t
. Or Gran. If you want to help me, the best thing you can do is keep this to yourself.”

  “But Em—”

  “No, I mean it. If they find out. If they … have me committed or checked into a hospital or something for my own good the first thing they’ll do is take away my phone. It’s my only link to Mom. She could try to contact us again. You don’t know!”

  “But—”

  “And something like this could follow me. I don’t know what that would do to my chances for college or … I just don’t know. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “Can we talk about this later? I told Dad a minute, and he doesn’t have any patience. He’ll be in here any second checking up on things.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you promise me.”

  “Fine,” he said, glancing toward the hall like he could see through the door. “For now. But if it happens again … Let me get a wet towel from the bathroom to help you clean up.”

  She had to pry her mouth open to tell him she already had bandages and alcohol handy. He looked like she’d punched him in the face, like hurting herself had hurt him. He was gone before she could apologize and back before Dad could come looking for them. He held a towel and a tube of triple antibiotic cream. “I didn’t know if you had this,” he said.

  She shook her head, too overcome to thank him. Jared made her sit on the bed, where his face twisted again at the sight of the bloody razor. Then he took her arm and so gently she barely felt it, swiped the wet towel over her shoulder, carefully avoiding the cut, and taking several passes to remove the blood. Then he asked her where her alcohol and everything was. She pointed to her drawer below the one where she kept her razor, and he got everything out, including the cotton balls to go with the alcohol. She bit her lips to keep from gasping at the pain as the alcohol burned away the germs and kept her lips clamped as he spread the ointment. Then he gently wrapped her shoulder in the gauze she had and secured it with the medical tape. Emily rolled down the sleeve she’d bunched up when she started, and they both eyed the spot.