by Andrew Grey
“But he has keys,” Ella said.
“We’ll put the chain on the front door, and the back lock is an interior dead bolt, so we should be okay.” There was little else we could do. Jeremy could break through the chain, but that would alert the whole house and give us a chance to react. I wished a police officer could stay with us until they found Jeremy, but that didn’t seem like a possibility. I thanked Officer Dutry for all her help and escorted her to the door.
“We’ll step up patrols in this area as we continue looking for him. Like I said, if you see or hear anything, let us know right away. We’ll do the same once we find him.”
I opened the door, and Officer Dutry left the house. I locked up right after her. “You might as well go up to bed, Ella. There’s nothing more you can do tonight.” Not that I expected either her or Mom to get much sleep, unless Mom took one of her pills.
Ella hugged me and went upstairs, leaving Dieter and me alone.
I turned out some of the lights and sat on the sofa to watch television. It was going to be a long night. “You might as well go. I don’t think Jeremy is going to come back. He knows the police have been here and that we called them once and will do it again.” There was no need for him to be part of this mess.
Dieter sat next to me. “I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re safe, and that means sitting here watching awful movies all night if I have to.” He crossed his arms over his chest, displaying his determination.
“I appreciate that, but it really isn’t necessary.”
Dieter reached for the remote and changed the channels on the television until he found Blazing Saddles. He giggled immediately as Cleavon Little came to town as the new sheriff, and then Dieter reached over to turn out the light. I guessed I didn’t get a say in this after all, not that I was complaining.
“Come here,” he said gently, and I shifted into his arms. He hugged me close, and we watched the film.
I admit I didn’t actually see much of the movie. My mind was elsewhere, and the comedy wasn’t exactly what I was in the mood for. My mind kept jumping tracks, from where Jeremy was, to Ella and Mom and what I was going to do. Lastly, I kept wondering how all of us were going to get through this, and if, at twenty-two, I was ever going to be able to have a life of my own.
I wanted one, badly, and wanted it with this man holding me in his arms protectively as if he could put up an invisible force field around me. I felt cared for and protected even though everything else around me had been ripped apart. Hell, in only a few hours, my world had been turned on its ear.
The movie came to an end, and I blinked as Dieter turned off the television. I leaned against him in the dark room, closed my eyes, and must have fallen asleep. I came to with a start, and Dieter soothed me gently.
“It’s all right. The house is quiet and your mom and sister are asleep. I put the phone on the coffee table so you can get to it quickly.” He slipped out from under me and pulled the blanket up around me. My head still spun, but I was too tired to do anything about it.
“You should really go,” I told him, thinking it might be best if I went up to bed. Then I remembered why we were here in the first place and closed my eyes, listening as Dieter sat in the chair next to me. I kept my eyes closed, not really sleeping yet not fully awake either. The television blinked on, the volume low. I paid little attention, drifting into a light doze that grew deeper until I suddenly came to, sat up, and listened.
Dieter was still in the chair, the television off, his head back, sound asleep. I listened for what had woken me and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Then it came again, a scraping from under us.
Shit, I had forgotten the crawl space under the house. In this area of Maryland, the water table was very high, so homes didn’t have basements and were built on shallow foundations. This house was no different, except that there was an access under the porch in front of the house. It was a few feet deep, and maybe Jeremy had gotten under there to hide out.
“Dieter,” I said quietly, and he lifted his head. “Listen.”
The scrape came again after a few seconds, and he groaned. “Sounds to me like an animal under the house.” He stomped on the floor, and the scraping sounded once again and then grew quiet. “Scared it off.”
“You don’t think it was Jeremy?” I asked, but Dieter shook his head.
“The police checked all around the house, and I saw them looking down the side of the house. I don’t think Jeremy is lying in wait under there. Besides, it would be pretty creepy under there, I think.”
I had to agree with Dieter’s assessment. I’d crawled under there once years ago, and it had been creepy and dark as hell even during the day. The pipes ran through there, and if you weren’t careful, you’d whack your head and no one would ever find you. “Maybe I’m overreacting.”
“If we hear it again, we’ll call the police.” Dieter shifted to the sofa next to me and lay down. I did the same, and he held me tightly in his arms. There wasn’t a lot of room, but I felt safer and more comfortable. Within a few minutes, I fell into a restless sleep.
Chapter 9
I WOKE to a gunshot.
“What the hell was that?” I asked before looking around. Dieter was asleep on the sofa and hadn’t even awakened. I blinked and listened for the sound to come again. Maybe I had dreamed it. I was sure beginning to think so as Dieter continued snoring lightly without even a pause in his breathing pattern.
A sharp rap on the door made me jump, and I tripped over the blankets, which had tumbled to the floor, nearly falling on my face in my rush. I peered through the curtains and saw a police officer looking back. I undid the chain and opened the door.
“Mr. Cinderson?” he asked softly. “I’m Officer Harding. I’m sorry to be here so early, but we need to speak with you.”
I nodded. “What’s happened?” Dieter’s hands slid along my shoulders, resting there as I tried to breathe. My head spun with a million possibilities in a nanosecond. “Have they found Jeremy?”
“Not yet, sir.”
I released the breath I’d been holding. I’d feared he was here to tell me that Jeremy was dead.
“I’d like to see your brother’s bedroom. We’re hoping there might be some clue as to his whereabouts. We’ve checked with his friends and colleagues, and no one has heard from or seen him. His car was impounded and we haven’t had any reports of stolen vehicles, so we’re assuming he’s still on foot unless someone has picked him up.”
“Of course.” I wished I knew something to help, but I was beginning to realize just how little I really knew about my brother’s life. I had been immersing myself in my own life for long enough that I’d lost contact with the people closest to me. “It’s right at the top of the stairs.” I stepped back to let him inside. “I’ll take you up, but please be quiet. My mother and sister are still asleep.” I hoped they were, at least. “And the longer they stay that way, the better.”
I led him up the stairs and showed him Jeremy’s room, then peeked into my mother’s room. It was dark, and I heard her steady breathing. If she’d taken one of her pills, she’d sleep for a good twelve hours. That was probably the best thing at this point, though I’d wake her if I heard anything more about Jeremy. I closed the door, and Ella came out of her room as I passed. She and I went back down the stairs, leaving the officer to do his work. If he had questions, he could ask, but I was too damn tired and bleary-eyed to function unless I got some coffee in me fast.
“The police are going through Jeremy’s room to try to find some clue as to where he went.” I thought about the noises last night and left Dieter and Ella in the kitchen to go see Officer Harding. I found him in the hallway outside Jeremy’s room, looking confused. “Can I help you?” I pointed to Jeremy’s room, and he walked back inside. I followed him and stared at boxes of things on the bed. “Those are mine,” I told him.
“I was curious why I was finding things with your name on them in his room. I thought maybe I’d been
mistaken.”
I went over to the boxes, peering inside at awards and even some drawings I’d done in high school that had won ribbons in the various competitions I’d entered. I hadn’t remembered where they’d gone, but now it seemed I had my answer. “I don’t understand.” I stared at the other boxes, all things that I’d thought I’d lost, but there they were.
“It seems to me your brother was jealous of you and the good things that happened to you and wanted to make them go away.”
“O-kay,” I said slowly. “Then why keep them?” It didn’t make sense to me.
Officer Harding shrugged. “Maybe he wanted them for himself. It’s hard to say. But it looks like some of this stuff goes back years.” He sighed and continued his search of the room. He found an address book and showed it to me. “I’m going to take this.”
I nodded, my attention on those things of mine that Jeremy had had. None of them were valuable or all that important any longer, but at the time, each of them had been an accomplishment, something I had worked for… and Jeremy had stolen them. Yes, they were only things, but it was what they represented that bothered me. Jeremy had been trying to steal the accomplishments themselves. “Sure,” I said absently. “I came up here because I heard some noises last night under the house. I think it might have been an animal, but I wanted to mention it.”
Officer Harding set aside what he’d been doing and motioned. “Show me.”
I led the way down the stairs and outside, then around to the access beside the porch. It didn’t look like anything had been disturbed.
Officer Harding looked around and flashed a light underneath. “You’re going to want to call animal control. You’ve got possums under there, and if you don’t get them out, they’ll make one hell of a mess.”
At least it wasn’t Jeremy. I would have felt pretty dumb if it had been. I made a mental note to call the guy who took care of the critters for us, and we went back inside. Dieter and Ella had made coffee, and he handed me a cup. I sat at the table, hands cradling it, trying to get my thoughts around what Officer Harding had found in Jeremy’s room.
“Is Officer Harding back upstairs?” Ella asked.
“Yeah. He found boxes of stuff under Jeremy’s bed that he’d taken from me. Stuff I’d thought I’d lost. Awards and presentations.” I still didn’t understand it completely, but maybe Officer Harding was right and Jeremy had been jealous of me. I’d never considered myself worthy of being jealous of.
“But nothing about where Jeremy might be?” Dieter asked, placing his hand gently over mine.
I closed my eyes, shaking my head, then stopping when it began spinning. “You should go,” I told Dieter. “You’ve been here all night, and who knows how long it will be until we hear anything.”
Dieter kept his hand steady. “I’m fine. You need someone to support you.”
“Yes, he does,” Ella said. “Florian always helps everyone else. Even Jeremy and his mother, even after they weren’t nice to him. He helps me too and is always there for everyone, and it’s time there was someone there for him.” I opened my eyes as Ella met my gaze. “You’re always putting yourself second until they all push you too far. Then you still help them.” She stood and went to the refrigerator. “I might as well make us something to eat. Your mom will be starving when she wakes up, and feeding her is the one way to keep her sharp tongue in her head.” Dang it, Ella was becoming a smartass. Good for her.
I groaned. “This is going to be a long day.”
“Then you go upstairs, clean up, and shower. Ella and I will be here if anything comes up or if your mother comes down. Then I’ll go back to Dante’s and do the same, get changed, and come back. I also have a meeting that I’ll try to reschedule.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I didn’t want to seem needy and shit, even though knowing Dieter was going to come back kept the worry and despair that threatened at bay.
“Stop that,” Ella said. “He’s being really nice, and he cares about you.” She turned from the stove to glare at me. “You need someone like him to help take care of you for a change. So let him help.”
“See? What she said,” Dieter agreed, and I knew when I was beaten. Not that I minded in the least.
I took my coffee and went upstairs to check on Officer Harding, who was still searching. I wasn’t sure he was having much luck, but the number of shoeboxes of things he’d placed on the bed had grown. I wondered just how much Jeremy had stolen from me over the years.
I continued to my room, got some fresh clothes, and went to the bathroom, where I shaved and brushed my teeth, and jumped into the shower. I didn’t know how much time I’d have, so I washed quickly but felt better when I was done. By the time I was dressed and had joined Ella and Dieter downstairs, Ella had eggs, sausage, and toast on the table, and I sat down to eat.
“What’s going on in Jeremy’s room?” Mom demanded as she shuffled into the kitchen. She looked like hell, and I handed her a mug.
“Looking for any clues as to where Jeremy might have gone.” I left out what we’d found. It would only upset her, and we could deal with Jeremy’s thievery later. “Just leave him alone to do his job.” I pitied the poor officer if my mother decided to throw a fit of epic proportions. Besides, Mom had enough worries already.
“So they don’t know where he is?” She seemed happy about it, which worried me and fed my suspicions that she’d help him if given the chance.
Dieter stood and leaned close to me. “I need to take care of some things, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He kissed me in front of everyone. “You have my number. Call me if anything happens, and I’ll come right back.” He squeezed my shoulder and left the house in a hurry. I was more than a little floored by his care, and my heart swelled and heated from the tenderness.
“He’s going to leave in a few days,” my mother groused. Thanks, Mary Sunshine. “Then where will you be?”
An insult stopped on the tip of my tongue. My mother was the person she was, and there was nothing I could do to change her or, frankly, to help her. I swallowed hard, turning to Ella. “Thank you for breakfast.” I finished the last of mine and took care of the plate. “Mom will take care of the dishes. Why don’t you go get cleaned up and changed? It’s going to be a busy day, and we’re going to all need to be ready for it.” What was coming next, I had no idea, but I was determined to be ready for it.
Mom grumped at me, but I didn’t care. She’d eaten some of what Ella cooked, and I had to deal with the police and everything else, so she could damned well help out.
I went to check in with Officer Harding again. “Anything helpful?” I asked without going into the room.
“Not much. I found some pictures on the desk. Do you know where they were taken?” He handed me one, and I looked it over.
“That’s Oakeys’ beach house. They live down south maybe five miles, by the Bay. Jeremy used to be friends with their son, but he passed away a few years ago. I’m sure someone could look up the address. It’s close enough that Jeremy could get there, even after dark. He’d know the way.”
Officer Harding called in what he’d found and asked a few more questions about Jeremy’s friends, but I didn’t have any more answers for him. He spoke with Mom, but she didn’t seem to have anything helpful either. “I think I’m done here. This isn’t going to tell us any more.” He left the room in slight disarray, but compared to the original mess we’d found, hell, his search might have been an improvement.
“Okay.” I wished they’d find him already. I really did. This whole situation had everyone on edge, and it was only going to wear on my mother the longer it continued. “Please let us know of any progress.”
“We’ll let you know as soon as we know anything. If he contacts you in any way….”
“We have the number and we’ll call.” I didn’t see that happening, but who knows? I walked him out and locked the door once again.
Officer Harding hadn’t been gone ten minutes when Mom�
��s phone rang. It was a strange number, and I let her answer it.
“Jeremy, is that you? Where are you? I’m so worried.” She began to sob, and I took the phone. She tried to take it back and I moved away from her.
“Where are you?”
“Like I’d tell you anything!” he snapped.
I carried the phone to the living room and picked up my cell phone to call the number I’d been given. I wished Ella was down here to help.
“It’s your fault I’m in this mess. If you had just left things alone, I’d be fine….”
“I didn’t do anything to you.” I needed to keep him talking as I carried the phone through the house and upstairs. Thankfully, Ella was coming out of the bathroom. I handed her my phone, gave her the card, and motioned for her to call. “I never talked to anyone at work about you at all.” This whole “blame Florian for everything wrong with your life” shit needed to end. I was getting more than a little tired of it. “You have your work and I have mine. I never even see you.” Not that I didn’t hear what went on.
“Bullshit! You should have left everything alone.” He sniffled, and I figured the weight of what he’d done had settled on him by now and he was scared half to death. “I need Mom to get me some money so I can get the hell away from all of you….”
Ella signaled that she had the police on the line, and I grabbed a pen from my desk and wrote down the number Jeremy was calling from. My mother tried to get the phone, and I glared at her, prepared to slap her hand, and she gave up. I was determined she wasn’t going to help Jeremy get away.
“…She’ll help me, I know she will. She….”
As he went on, I let Ella relay the information. I figured the more he rambled and stayed in one place, the easier it was going to be for the police to trace the number and locate him.
“He’s talking to him now,” Ella said. “Yes, at that number.”
“You know, it would be best if you just came in. They’d take that into account, and you wouldn’t get hurt.” I kept my voice gentle even though I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle him. “Mom is really worried about you and needs to know that you’re okay.”
