Didn’t want to work. Period.
Knock. Knock-knock-knock.
A woman’s middle-aged face peeked through the crack of the doorway and said, “Um, what the hell—”
“Marlene, hold my calls, will you? I got to get some air.” Parker stubbed the cig out on the inside of the trash can. He carefully pushed the chair back under the desk. “Call me if Butchie can’t handle something today. Otherwise, I’m a ghost. All right? All right.”
He pushed his way between her and the door. He didn’t feel like explaining his absence. There was always something to do and, to be frank, he was the boss so if he felt like taking the day off well, then, goddamnit he shouldn’t have to explain himself. Marlene can take that snooty look and stuff it.
She stared at him all the way to the front door. He could feel it.
Outside. Parker inhaled the South Carolina morning. He regretted that cigarette now.
Pulled the pack out. Tossed it in the trash.
“Morning,” he said to the kid outside the office.
Tip of an imaginary hat.
Not recognizing him from the café.
XI
Butchie loomed over his keyboard. His meaty finger pointed at it.
Marlene pointing at the monitor.
This was their morning routine. Butchie turning on the computer. Butchie yelling for Marlene. He was good at his job. Computers weren’t it.
The front door rarely buzzed this time of the morning. So she called out when it did. She’d be right there. Figured whoever needed help could sit quietly until Butchie was back on track.
She didn’t hear the security door open.
Didn’t hear the office at the end of the hall, either.
Why would she?
No one was out front when she finished. But then she smelled smoke. Had to be the mystery guest. But the smell, it was so strong. She followed her nose down the hall, past Butchie’s, still hunched and pecking. Past the open bathroom on the right. The office at the end was closed. As usual. But then, the smell.
The door knob turned. Opened.
And that’s when she saw Parker.
There was a moment when her mouth opened and nothing came out. Then she found the words as he got up and told her, matter-of-factly, he was getting out of the office, hold his calls, and something else. She didn’t really hear the rest. Too stunned, really.
She watched him march out.
Butchie met her in the hall. She sort of shuffled next to him.
“Is that who I think it is?” Butchie’s finger was still pointed.
Marlene nodded. Sort of.
“How the hell’d he get in here?”
Marlene shook her head. Sort of.
There was a long moment of contemplation. It seemed absurd. Impossible.
Insane.
Butchie went inside his office and made a call to one of his guys.
Marlene wanted a cigarette.
XII
Parker stood on the second floor of a parking garage. Hands on his hips. Parking slot empty.
He looked at his watch like it might tell him where he parked the night before. He couldn’t remember driving it. Swear to God. But it wasn’t there. Suppose it was possible it was stolen. But with so much security on it, it was more likely it grew legs and walked off.
Parker looked around. Checked his watch again.
It was getting close to the kids’ lunch time. Sandy still hadn’t called. And her voicemail was still picking up.
He’d been sitting down at the Battery watching the cargo ships and egrets and the tide come in. His phone didn’t ring the entire time. They probably didn’t need him at the office. Maybe he should look into selling the business. Retire early. They could find a second home, do some traveling. The kids weren’t getting any younger and, like old people are always saying, they’ll be grown up and gone before you know it.
He was getting to be an old softy. Maybe a good reason to sell a business that dealt with protective services.
He tried Sandy’s phone one more time. No answer.
He took the stairs down to the street and called a taxi service. He’d go it alone.
Tell the girls Mama’s busy.
Daddy’s here.
XIII
“I’m here to eat lunch with my daughters.”
Parker dropped the bag of Chick-fil-A on the counter to prove his point.
“Last name?”
“Samson.”
The secretary woman turned on her chair and pecked at the keyboard. She pointed an exaggerated fingernail tipped with a fake diamond at the monitor.
“They’re not here today, sir.”
Parker already had the pen leashed to the counter in his hand. “What’s that?”
“They didn’t come to school.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re counted as absent.”
“Where are they?” He sort of laughed.
“I don’t know, sir. Their teachers counted them as absent this morning.”
“I’m sorry.” He dropped the pen. “Are you sure there’s not a mistake? Their mother brings them every morning. I’d know if they didn’t come to school because they’d be at home and they weren’t home this morning. Can you call the teachers’ rooms and double-check?”
She looked to her right. Then back. “I suppose sooo…”
He spit a thank you at her. “And why wouldn’t you call me if they weren’t here?”
“We put a call into your wife this morning abouttttt…” Her glittery fingernail dragged down the screen. “9:00.”
“What’d she say?”
“Who’s that?”
“My wife.”
“No one answered. We left a message but it hasn’t been returned.”
He waved his phone at her. “Could’ve called me.”
“Do we have your number?” Her lips stiffened, got ready to deal with an asshole parent that thought he owned the school because he paid the ridiculous tuition.
“Well, I don’t know, do—”
“Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?”
Another woman. Gripping a stack of papers. Her face looked surprised, as opposed to the one sitting in front of him, now pushing a stick of gum in her mouth.
“Yeah, I’m here to eat lunch with my daughters.” This time, he shook the bag as proof. “And I don’t get a call that they didn’t come to school this morning.”
“Ummm… well, give me a second and I can check.”
She walked to one of the back offices and muttered something. Meanwhile, the longnails one excused herself and left. Parker tapped his foot. He felt pressure in his chest. Panic slid beneath his ribcage, clenching his heart coldly.
No big deal. The girls were sick. Just relax. It was a little odd, but just a mix up. That’s all.
He turned his back and dialed Sandy’s number.
Please enjoy the music…
Still, a phone call to me would’ve been appropriate. Parker and Sandy spent a lot of money for a quality education. A phone call is not out of the question. Right? He had a right to know what was going on—
Voicemail.
“Sandy… darling, what’s going on? I’m at school and the people are telling me the girls aren’t here.” He looked over his shoulder, noticed a secretary woman with two other people, now. They were staring. Everyone staring, today. He pushed the phone tighter to his face and half-whispered, half-growled. “I know you’re busy, but you need to call me back and tell me where the girls are if they’re not at school. I just…” He took a breath. Tried to loosen the straps across his chest. “I just want to know—”
“Sir?”
Parker waved off the woman’s voice. Did she not see him on the phone?
“I know you’re busy, darling. Just take a second to call me back. All right? It’s no big deal, but—”
“Sir.” This time the word was demanding. A little much.
“Damnit! A little manners, PLEASE!”
&
nbsp; Cold fear poured down his neck. Spread across his back.
His thoughts seemed to crash inside his head with a metallic echo. I’m losing control. I’m losing control. Why am I losing control?
Secretary’s mouth was a frozen O. She was about to tell him something. To go home, his kids were probably there. His wife had them. And if they weren’t there, well, then… I’m sorry, sir. That’s not our problem. Now, is it, sir.
“Stay here.”
Parker put the phone down.
“Stay right here. I just want to make sure my girls aren’t here, first. Then I’ll go. All right?” He pointed at her. Wanted her to drop the ridiculous look. “All right?”
He turned. Down the hall.
He needed to see them. Just to make sure. Because, sometimes, things happen.
Because it’s a dangerous world. Especially Parker’s.
There were people that wanted to hurt him. People that knew the best way to do that. Once upon a time, he caught a guy screwing around on his wife. Parker helped her take everything from him. Everything. And the scumbag swore he’d fuck over everyone that helped her. Parker was in court when the guy said it, three rows back. And that sonofabitch swung his eyes right on him. Like it was his fault. Like he made him pound some tattooed tramp on all fours in the same bed he slept with his wife.
Parker never forgot that.
“Shelly!”
Especially in moments like this.
“Jessie!”
He quick-stepped from class to class. Throwing his head inside the open doorways. Racing to the next.
No idea what class they were in.
He’d check them all.
People didn’t take responsibility for their lives, that’s the problem. That bastard in court was looking for someone else to blame. Parker wasn’t like that. He took care of his own. He wasn’t going to wait around for someone to call back or explain where his girls were.
“SHELLY!”
They depended on him. He was their protector.
He wasn’t going to let them down.
“JESSIE!”
A buzzer filled the hallway. Vibrated off his petrified chest.
Stirred the fear in his belly.
The next classroom door was shut. The teacher was backing away from the door. The kids sitting at their desks. Staring.
What is it with staring!
More doors shut. Echoed.
That wasn’t going to stop him. No locked door could keep him out. Not if he saw his daughters behind it.
As he made his way down the hall, panic rose in his chest like an ancient creature raised from a watery abyss, spewing foul breath. He clenched his sternum. His breath shallow and quick. Like his footsteps. He tried to push it down. It only spread like an oil slick.
He peeked through another door. Kids were distracted, but the teacher was watching. Parker tried the handle, then looked around. He could see his girls’ faces in his mind, their blond hair, round cheeks. None in the room, though.
He started for the next room when a young man appeared.
He wore boots.
His steps fell unusually silent on the waxed linoleum. The same linoleum Parker was now glued to. Watching him approach. As fear bloomed like wicked flowers inside his body. He didn’t wonder why he was overreacting.
He only wanted to see his family.
“Come.” The young man held out his hand. “I will tell you about your children.”
“My…” His lips, fat. “What about them? What do you know about my…”
The young man only beckoned.
And the poisoned emotions subsided, enough to release his anchored feet. He started back the way he came. Could feel eyes upon him through each door he passed. A small group waited near the office. They parted. The young man, his hand placed gently on Parker’s back, nodded to them. They seemed to understand. No words were spoken.
Parker was guided outside, where the sun was bright. Hot. But Parker’s skin cooled from the inside where his fear began to roil like an approaching thunderstorm.
The worst, ahead.
XIV
Carla got up to make copies. Not before buzzing a man into the school. Nobody entered without a buzz.
She was heading back to her desk to check him in when the principal asked her a question. After that, she walked into the mailroom. Then she picked up her copies. And that’s when she noticed the guy she buzzed. He was at the counter. Talking to nobody.
She thought he was on a Bluetooth, maybe. One of those conversations that appeared to be with an imaginary friend. Last time Carla was standing in line at the grocery store, she almost answered the woman behind her on a Bluetooth. Do they really need to talk with someone allllll the time? This time, the man she buzzed was having a Bluetooth conversation like the person was sitting in her empty seat at the computer.
And it looked like his imaginary friend delivered some bad news.
So she asked him. “Can I help you?”
Was there bitterness in her tone? Because he looked like his head would explode. She tried to reason with him. It got worse. She went to one of the back offices, told the principal. She looked back, could see him talking, again.
Moments later, he went full-scale bonkers. The principal followed standard procedure. Teachers were called to lock their classrooms. She should’ve called the police, but, for some reason, they gathered in the hall and watched him come unwound.
Strange.
The guy was marching down the hall screaming his kids’ names. He looked dangerous, like a panicked animal. She couldn’t understand why he lost his marbles. He didn’t even give her a chance to help. He was about to turn the corner at the end of the hall. They still hadn’t called the police.
The front door opened.
A man walked toward them. She didn’t buzz him in. He walked past them. He moved like silk. Like melted chocolate.
And the man at the end of the hall, he stopped.
She didn’t hear what happened.
She only saw them come back.
The Bluetooth man’s face was pasty, like it was turning to wax with cold beads resting above his brows. He was muttering. And the other man, a young man now that she looked at him, nodded at the bunch of them gathered near the main office as he guided him out. Everything was going to be all right. She felt it. They all did. Because when he exited with the Bluetooth man, everything felt normal.
The alarm was called off.
Teachers were updated.
School resumed.
Carla went back to her seat. Before she collated her copies, she looked through the school’s database. Cross-referenced all the Jessies and all the Shellys.
Two Jessies.
Three Shellys.
None related.
XV
Sandino was the driver of the cab that dropped Parker off at the school. He looped the roundabout. Some black kid stood near the exit with his hand up. Sandino rolled the window down.
The kid didn’t say anything. Held a bill creased between his fingers, pointed at Sandino. It took a moment before he recognized the two zeroes behind the one. And he snatched it before he heard the request.
“Would you kindly wait near the front doors?” the kid said with an odd accent. Like a prince. “I will be with you momentarily.”
Sandino didn’t say shit.
He swung around. Left the cab running.
A few minutes later, the kid walked up. He didn’t go inside. Didn’t get in the cab. Didn’t talk to Sandino. He walked through the turf, into a courtyard to the left of the front doors. He stopped at the flower garden. A big sign out front, it said Mrs. Shannon’s Butterfly Garden. The kid, he stood there with his hands behind his back. He wasn’t smelling anything, just watching the large black and yellow butterfly flutter around a large spike of purple flowers. He held out his finger. The butterfly landed on it.
Listen. If the kid wanted to give Sandino a hundred dollars to sit in his air-conditioned cab to watch a
butterfly fuck his finger, that was his business. The meter ran just the same.
But then, just as casually as he had strolled through the garden, he made his way through the doors. Minutes later, he came out with a white man. He looked like he just had a gun shoved in his mouth. His hair, plastered to his forehead. Lips bluish.
The kid helped him into the backseat. “I’ll tell you more, later,” he told the man. “Go home. Rest.”
Then he came around, gave Sandino a downtown address. Walked off.
Sandino tried not to look in the rearview at his fare. Didn’t want to see a dead man in the backseat.
Halfway down the road, he said something. Couldn’t help it. “You ahright?”
The man wiped his face with a handkerchief. Folded it. Shook his head.
Sandino didn’t ask no more questions. He did his job, drove to Wentworth Avenue and let the man out.
When all was said and done, he was $100 richer.
XVI
Parker stood on the steps. His house in front of him.
The air seemed impossibly thick. Like he needed to swim from the cab just to be standing there.
The cab. He barely remembered the ride. The viscous air was in there, too.
Before the cab, there was the boy. He introduced himself as Drayton.
He remembered his eyes. Large pupils. Holes that went to the end of the universe.
He told Parker that his family was missing. But they were looking for them.
Parker wondered why he didn’t ask questions. Like who they were. And why was his family missing. He just nodded his head. His family. Missing. The words fell like comets. His body trembled.
He knew it. He felt it when he went to the school. Something was wrong. Something was off. It wasn’t just the weird morning, it was that instinctual feeling from way down. Something was missing.
The Drayton Chronicles Page 7
