Mistaken Hope

by Sarah Elizabeth

  I had the chance. I was so close, and I blew it. I should’ve gone out there as soon as I saw him and beaten the living shit outta him until he told me where he’s been keeping her, but I didn’t. I tried. Hell! Why do you think the window’s smashed? By the time I managed to get out there, he was long gone. Just like Alexis.

  I don’t even know how it happened. The last thing I remember was reading the note and then grabbing a hold of one of the dining chairs, smashing it against the window until it shattered down and across the ground outside. I jumped out of the window without even brushing the remaining pieces of glass away from the frame while looking all around me. I called out to him as I made my way toward the back of the yard. I charged forward, my whole body tensed as I yelled for him to come back; to face me. But, there was nobody out there. There was only me.

  Now, it was a possibility that I could’ve imagined the whole thing and I began to think that I had, but I didn’t. I know that I didn’t because the note was creased up tight in my hand. It was real. The pure evilness within his eyes was real. He was here. This whole thing is really happening.

  The next thing I knew, Rach was screaming at me. She was grabbing my hands, pleading with me to stop. She had tears rolling down her face and she held my hands up in front of me with her own. I stopped and I was dazed when I saw the blood, and it was then that I realized that my hands were bleeding. Actually, they still are. As it turns out, I trashed the place. The whole kitchen; the whole dining room. I completely lost it. I finally snapped. I finally lost all of my control. All because of him.

  While I was pacing the hallway, Rach told Paul and Diane what happened here while they were back in Salem, collecting some of their things. She’s spent the last half an hour trying to clean up the place, and all the while, I’ve been sitting here in this same seat, staring at the note he left on the window. He wants to meet with me.

  Paul and Diane didn’t say a lot, though I could see the disappointment in Paul’s eyes when I told him that I wasn’t gonna be involving the cops this time. Neil plays games and he plays them well, but he meant the words he’d written down. The words on the note are simple, and they’re enough for me to take him seriously. No cops. I’m not gonna risk it. I can’t, because who knows what that head case will do if I go against him?

  Paul was pissed, but he didn’t say another word as he and Diane headed upstairs to the spare room with their cases. I thought that he was gonna protest, that he was gonna call the cops right there and then, but he didn’t. Instead, he grabbed a hold of Diane’s arm and steered her back out of the room in complete silence.

  This piece of paper? This piece of paper right here? This confirms to me that not only was Neil watching us before he took Alexis, but he’s been watching the house the whole time since he snatched her away from me and her family. He waited until everybody else had left. He was waiting for this to happen; to catch me alone. He knew that I wasn’t in the position to go too far away from the house because Holly was here with me. Again, he had the perfect opportunity to fuck with me.

  He was right over there, no more than a couple of feet away from me. If I hadn’t taken the keys out of the damn door when I brought Holly back inside earlier, then I would’ve caught him. I missed my opportunity, which means that I failed her. I did, didn’t I? I promised to always cherish her and to take good care of her, protect her, but I broke another promise and in turn, it’s breaking me.

  “Let me take a look,” Rach’s voice is soft and she places her hand on my wrist, offering a small smile. “They’re quite deep.” She adds in a whisper before reaching up to the top cabinet and grabbing a hold of the first aid box.

  “I’m sorry, Rach,” I say as she leads me through to the living room. “I’m so fucking sorry. I just … I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with all of this. How am I supposed to—?”

  “Sit down,” she interrupts me, placing the index finger of her right hand lightly over my lips while pushing me down to sit on the couch with her left. She kneels down in front of me and reaches for some of the wipes and a Band-Aid. “I would say that you are holding it together just fine. There’s no right or wrong way.” I wince when she starts cleaning the wounds on my hands, which in turn makes her grimace. “Sorry.”

  As a loud knock on the door startles the both of us, I glance to my watch and see that’s almost eleven o’clock. Rach’s eyes lock with mine, and then I hear footsteps growing louder before the front door swings open. Though they’re speaking low and I can’t hear exactly what they’re saying, I immediately recognize their voices, which makes me instantly grind my jaw together tight. He didn’t. No. No, please tell me that he—he did. Unbelievable.

  The living room door opens and I keep my eyes firmly trained on Paul as he lets them inside, “Mr. Taylor,” Detective Land greets me with a slight nod. “Mr. Harper told us that Mr. Kelly has been in touch.”

  I narrow my eyes on Paul, but he doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to the daggers I’m throwing his way. I told him not to get them involved. I asked him to let me handle this, “Yeah.” Is all I can manage to say in reply. I don’t think that you wanna know what I really wanna be saying to him right in this moment.

  “Then we will need to see the note and put the correct plans in place,” Detective Land speaks up, and I see Paul lifting his arm out, gesturing for the detective to follow him back through to the hallway.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” I shake my head as Detective Nicolson takes a seat on the edge of the opposite couch, making herself comfortable as she takes out her notebook and a file. “He said no cops. He said—”

  “Mr. Taylor, I am sure that you are aware that it is approaching day two of this investigation.” Yeah. Yeah. How the fuck am I supposed to not be aware that my beautiful wife has been gone for almost two days? Huh? What? They think that I’m not watching the clock as each second passes by? Do they honestly believe that I have no idea that the longer she’s away from us then the less likely it’s gonna be to find her? Fuck. They’ve gotta. They’ve gotta find her. “I need to ask you to look over these for me.”

  Rach glances between the two of us, fixing the Band Aid in place before moving over to sit beside me, “What’s this?” I ask, looking up at the detective who is now standing over me, holding out her file. Instead of handing it over to me, though, she takes a seat on the other side of me as she opens it up.

  “Brandon,” she begins. “We have a copy of the paperwork that was filled out at the gun store, and we were …” No. No, she’s hesitating again. If I’ve learned anything over this past day, then I know that this isn’t a good thing, at least, not when she’s concerned.

  “Just tell me!” I snap out. “What? What is it?”

  She closes her eyes and hands over the papers without even looking my way, but I can see that she’s wearing that same look over her face that she did when she told me about Neil being in possession of a firearm. I glance down, staring at what’s resting in my hands.

  “What is that?” Rach asks, leaning over and taking the piece of paper from out of my now shaky hands. “Are you serious here?” Rach asks, and it’s as though she’s just read my mind. I lift my gaze to hers and witness the look of confusion crossing over her features. She’s confused? Yeah, well, so the hell am I. “Alexis bought the gun?”

  “That’s not possible. There’s no way that she would’ve …” I swipe my hand over my face, shaking my head from side to side with disbelief. “No.”

  “I need you to confirm whether this is your wife’s.”

  I turn in my seat to face her, “Well, yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, it is.” I blow out a breath and push myself from off of the couch before making my way out of the room. I go in search for Alexis’ purse and find it hanging up on one of the hooks by the front door. Never in my life have I ever been through her things like this. I haven’t ever had any need to, but I know that she keeps all of her important things inside here.

  Hooking out her wallet, my ey
es glaze when I see the photograph on the inside. It’s of me and Alexis, holding our baby daughter in our arms as we welcomed her into the world. A lump forms in my throat and another stabbing sensation makes its way over my chest. I check inside, finding more photographs, her checking card, and a note that I wrote for her a couple of weeks back. I shake my head when I think back to that morning. It’s the one that I left on her pillowcase beside her while she was still sleeping. It was a Saturday and I had to go into work for a few hours, though we were supposed to be going out for the day, together as a family.

  I stuff it inside one of my pants pockets because I don’t think that the detectives are really gonna wanna see that. It was a pass. I’d given her a pass, like I always do when I have to change our plans. It was her right to demand anything from me she desired when I arrived home from work that night. Yep. See? You really didn’t wanna know that either, right?

  I head back into the living room while checking through the rest of her things, but it isn’t in here. Her ID card, her driver’s license. Neither of them are where they’re supposed to be, “It isn’t in here,” I tell her, lifting my hand and scratching the back of my head, wondering if she moved them to a safer location. “She always keeps them together in here … Lemme go check and—”

  “Just as I thought,” I pause when I hear her mumbling the words under her breath, and lift my gaze back to her. Her features are much tighter than they were when she first walked in here, and I’m really not appreciating the look in her eyes at this particular moment. “Brandon, I do not think that you are going to find it here.”

  I cock my head to the side while narrowing my eyes on her, “Did you check the videotapes? Surely they have some kinda security camera installed or something? Have you checked that out? Have you—?”

  “There isn’t one,” she interrupts me. “The tape is missing.” She averts her gaze back down to her lap. Oh, he’s good. He’s got all of this figured out, hasn’t he? Right down to the very last detail.

  “I would like you to take a look at these,” she tells me, and I stand forward, reaching out and accepting the … photographs. More photographs of inside our home.

  “They’re the photographs he took while he was in here, right?”

  “That is right … only … we do not believe that it was actually Mr. Kelly who had access to your home, nor do we believe that he was the person who took these.”

  “But, you said that—”

  “Take a look at this one,” she says as she comes to stand beside me, bringing one out from the back to the front. “Your wife is in this picture, see? And from the position it was taken …” She walks over to the opposite couch, turning around and summoning for me to follow her. “From this position, there would have been no way for anybody to take this photograph without Mrs. Taylor knowing that they were present in the room with her at the time. Though she has her back to the camera, she would have known that there was somebody else in here with her.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Mr. Kelly was not the individual who took this photograph. We believe that it was his accomplice.”

  “But …”

  “It would appear that whoever is helping Mr. Kelly is a close friend with either yourself or your wife, or even possibly the both of you. It seems that whoever was in here, taking these pictures, is somebody who your wife felt comfortable with. This also leads us to believe that the person who was in here the day this was taken knew exactly where she kept her papers, and therefore took your wife’s ID when her back was turned.”

  “I don’t …”

  “At this present time, we are looking into the possibility that the individual who is working alongside Mr. Kelly is somebody both you, your wife, and he are all close to.”

  It feels like history is repeating itself all over again.

  Somebody that I’m close to, somebody who the both of us trust might be the one helping him out; betraying us. Yeah, I dunno. I wouldn’t have believed it, not again. But, I guess that nothing should really surprise me anymore, should it? I mean, I didn’t think for one moment that Neil was involved with what went down in the past, but I was wrong that time. This time? Well, I have no idea. None at all.

  I rest back in my seat and wipe my hands over my face once I’ve placed the pen back down on the coffee table. For the past hour, I’ve been noting down all of mine and Alexis’ friends names in the detective’s notebook, along with their addresses. They asked me to provide them with the details of everybody we’re friends with, or who we’ve had contact with over the past twelve months. Do you have any idea how hard that was for me? There’s a whole load of names down here. Almost thirty. Yeah, so thirty people might not sound like a lot to you, but it’s a lot for us. We normally hang out together as a family and have very few close friends. We prefer to spend our free time together, just the three of us.

  I close my eyes, resting my head against the back of the couch, “How are you feeling?” I hear Rach ask from beside me. I shrug my shoulders because there’s nothing I can possibly say to her that will answer her question. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think or feel. I’m totally conflicted. Am I glad that they’re finally starting to figure things out? Yeah, I guess I am, though this isn’t exactly the way I thought it was gonna go. I mean, I made the mistake of trusting somebody in the past, somebody I would have trusted with my own life, only for him to betray me in one of the worst ways imaginable.

  Ever since the day I find out that it was one of my best friends who was the cause for all of the pain, the hurt, the misery, and heartbreak in my life, I swore that I would be on my guard. That I would only ever allow myself and my family to be around the people I knew for sure would have our backs; who wouldn’t betray us.

  I open my eyes to find Rach watching me, tears filling hers as she places her hand lightly on my knee.

  “What now?” I ask when I see Detective Land step forward to take a hold of the notebook. “Where do we go from here?”

  He slips back into his jacket as Detective Nicolson reaches for the door. “We will have officers go around and interview everybody you have noted down on this list and take samples from each and every one of them.” He tucks the notepad inside his pocket and reaches for the pen to do the same.

  “How long will that take?”

  “That all depends on how willing they are to cooperate, though I should think that it is highly likely that they will do whatever they can in order to help with the investigation.”

  “How. Long?” I grind out, pressing him for more. I need more from them here. They’re being too vague.

  “We will start with our questioning first thing in the morning,” Detective Nicolson intervenes as they both make their way through the doorway. “Mr. Taylor, we will see you at noon tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eight

  Punching the steering wheel through pure frustration, I rest my head back hard against the headrest while trying to slow my breathing rate back down. Am I pissed? Well, I think that it’s pretty evident that I am. Yeah. Yeah, I’m pissed at him; at Paul. I’m also pissed at the cops because they chose not to listen to me when I argued with them earlier today.

  They stopped by at noon, just like they said they were gonna before they left last night, but I told all of them that it wasn’t a good idea. I specifically told them that he meant what he said in that damn note. No cops. Did they listen? To hell they did. If they had of, then I most probably wouldn’t have just wasted the best part of three hours, waiting for him to be a no show. Yeah, you heard me right. He wasn’t there. He didn’t show up. And, because of this, we’re right back to where we started. We’re no closer to finding Alexis.

  I went there. I went to the place he told me to be at. I was standing out there for one hundred and eighty minutes, glancing all around me, but nothing. Not a single damn thing. This was our one chance. I mean, who knows when we’re gonna get another opportunity like this again. Is he gonna come back? Is he gonna risk coming back
here now that he knows that I know he’s still around? He’s gotta know that I’m gonna be on high alert, waiting for him to show his face again. And, if there is a next time, then I’m not gonna let him have the chance to get away from me. Not again.

  My gaze rests on the rearview mirror, and I let out a heavy sigh as I watch them park their car up behind mine. When they get out and start walking toward me, I grab my keys and open up the driver’s side door before stepping out and onto the sidewalk.

  “Mr. Taylor,” Detective Nicolson addresses me, but I choose not to respond. I slam the door closed, hit the key tab, and then make my way straight toward the house. This is all his fault. His. Not mine. “Mr. Taylor?” She calls out from behind me again as I stride up the steps to the front porch, ripping the earpiece from out of my left ear and the microphone from out of my shirt, tossing them to the ground as the front door opens up ahead of me.

  “Hey,” Rach greets me, but I don’t say anything to her, I just shake my head because I know that this action alone will be enough to let her know that it didn’t go the way we were hoping it was gonna.

  They were communicating with me the whole time we were there. Telling me where to go, what to do, how to act. Granted, they stayed back. I mean, I couldn’t see them and because I couldn’t, I actually thought that he wouldn’t either, but I was wrong.

  I pause my steps midway down the hallway when I see the look in Diane’s eyes. She’s standing in the kitchen doorway and holding something. Something that she shouldn’t be holding. Something that wasn’t here before, and the look over her face and the silence filling the house is making me feel somewhat uneasy.

  “I saw them on the porch when I first got over here,” I hear Rye say from my side as I hesitantly make my way closer to Diane. I swallow, hard, and my stomach twists when she passes me a note that’s attached to the flowers. Yep. You’ve guessed it. Calla lilies. It’s like his symbol or something. The symbol of death. The symbol of all of his evil. I don’t need to read the words on the card to know that they were sent by him. It’s his thing. It’s what he does.