"And how long has your daughter been missing?" The cop finally raised his eyes from the desk, watching Genie through a pair of smudged bifocal spectacles perched halfway down the bridge of his nose.
"Since last night," Genie said. "She didn't come home after work. She always lets me know if she's gonna be late, but she never showed, never called neither. And that just ain't like her. So I want to file a missing person's report."
The sergeant took a form from a drawer.
"Name?" he said.
"My name's Geannette Prescod. But everyone calls me Genie."
The cop gave another long sigh. "The name of the missing person," he said slowly, as if talking to an idiot.
Genie smiled with embarrassment. "Ophelia. Ophelia Prescod. She's only twenty-two."
The cop wrote the details on a sheet of paper, regurgitated a slew of questions about height, weight, distinguishing marks before he asked, "Got a recent photo?"
Genie reached inside her coat and pulled out a photo of her daughter that she'd removed from the frame she kept on the sideboard.
"We live together, my daughter and me," Genie said, offering the photo to the police officer.
The cop took the four-by-six photo and looked at it appreciatively. "Pretty girl," he said, thawing slightly.
Genie smiled. "My pride and joy. A good girl." Genie had taken the photo just last Christmas. It showed Ophelia sitting on the sofa, smiling into the lens of the camera as she opened the present Genie had bought her. She was a beautiful girl, slim, a dazzling smile with damn good teeth, her shoulder-length hair sleek and shiny. She was lovely. She was Genie's baby.
Truth was, she was the spitting image of her mom when she'd been that age. Not now of course, with almost thirty years between them, and about an extra seventy pounds, give or take. Still, that's all part of getting old, Genie thought, and while she knew she no longer turned the heads of many men, she held herself well. And she was happy. At least, until today.
The cop disappeared into a small room off the waiting area. He came back a minute later with a color photocopy of Ophelia's photograph and handed the original back to Genie. He fastened the photocopy to the missing person's form with a stapler, signed the bottom and added it to a three-inch tall pile of similar reports sitting on the right side of his desk.
"We'll be in touch," the cop said, his eyes already back to the report he was filling out. "Next."
•••
Genie left the police station and headed back in the direction of her apartment. It was a thirty-minute walk. Even though it was drizzling rain and heading toward dusk, Genie did not mind because she was going to put the walk to good use. From beneath the folds of her coat she took a roll of flyers she had had printed at the local FedEx Office that afternoon. She walked toward the light of a 7-Eleven just a little farther down the street, the roll of flyers clutched tightly in her hand.
The store's night clerk was the exact opposite of the surly desk sergeant Genie had just dealt with, in both age and demeanor, although both shared the same tired look in their eyes as though they had been worked close to their limits.
She held out one of the flyers. "Can I post this in your window?" she asked, then added, "She's my girl."
The kid stared at the flyer. There was honest sadness in his eyes when he looked back up at Genie. "Sure, go ahead. But it's not like anyone's going to see it for the next couple of days, what with the storm, and all. You're only the second person I've seen since three this afternoon, and I don't expect many more." The kid had a southern twang to his voice; Alabama, maybe, Genie guessed. "Leave a few on the counter here, too, while you're at it," he said, pointing at the roll of posters Genie still clutched in her hand.
By the time Genie left the store she felt a little better, touched by the kid's honest concern and kindness. But that lasted only as long as it took her to walk out of the glow of the 7-Eleven's lights. The streets beyond were dark and deserted. Genie had never seen them this way before. It was like everybody had just up and left and not bothered to tell her. Well, to hell with them if they had, because she wasn't going nowhere until she found her baby girl.
Genie walked a little farther then stopped at a streetlight. The light at the top of the post was not working. Genie had noticed that a lot over the past couple of days. It seemed like every night there were fewer and fewer streetlights. She took a small LED flashlight from her handbag, flicked it on, then pulled a poster from the roll hidden beneath her coat, carefully shading it from the rain with her body to eke out a few extra dry seconds. She wiped the cold metal post with the arm of her raincoat then used a roll of sticky-tape to paste the poster to it. Genie stepped back and inspected her work: MISSING, the title read in bold black letters. Below that was a black and white copy of the photo Genie had handed the cop at the front desk, then Genie's cell phone number. She looked at the image of her daughter for a moment, smiling back at Genie like she almost always did. You can see the smart in that girl, Genie thought, wiping a tear away from her cheek before the rain could do it for her. If she could have, Genie would have had the posters laminated to protect them, but that was just too expensive. Still, it would last through the night, maybe, if the rain eased up a little, but Genie knew that by this time tomorrow evening it would be nothing but a blurry mess. But that was okay, though, because by tomorrow night, Jesus willing, she would have found her Ophelia. And if she hadn't, well then she would be out here again until she did find her. Her kid was a good girl, and Genie had worked hard, given up oh so much to make sure she had the best start in life a mother could give her child, or at least a better one than Genie had gotten.
And Ophie, God bless her, Ophie had grabbed at that chance. She was working at a store three days a week, then community college to study computer programming for the other two days, and a couple of evenings thrown in for good luck, as well.
So something like this was not supposed to happen to good girls like Ophelia, no sir. Not supposed to happen at all.
For the umpteenth time that day, Genie's mind drifted back to the previous morning, trying to drag a little more understanding of what had happened. Ophie had set out for work as usual over at the boutique on Topanga where she worked. Six-thirty that evening, the time Ophie would normally have arrived home, came and went, but Genie wasn't concerned. Ophie could be late sometimes; all it took was a missed bus or backed up traffic because of an accident and she could expect to get home an hour or so later. Just to be on the safe side though, Genie had put both their dinners in the oven to keep warm.
By nine o'clock that night, Genie was beginning to feel the first queasy hints of panic in the pit of her stomach. Ophie had a cell phone but hadn't used it to call her momma, so Genie called her.
The phone rang several times then went to message. And it was then, right at that moment, Genie knew with heartbreaking certainty that something dreadful had happened to her daughter. She felt it as surely as if someone had dropped a black cloth over her heart and condemned it to never see the light of her sweet girl's face again.
Genie called twice more over the next hour with the same result. Then she called all of Ophie's friends that she knew. They hadn't seen her, but they would be sure to let Genie know if they did, they had all promised. There was no boyfriend, not that Genie knew of anyway, and she was certain that her daughter would have told her if there was.
At ten o'clock on the dot that first night, Genie had called the cops.
"Is your child a minor?" the cop on the other end had asked.
"No, she's twenty-two."
"Do you think maybe she's gone to a friend's house? Or her boyfriend's?" the cop asked.
"I called all her friends, and there's no boyfriend. And Ophie wouldn't go nowhere without calling her momma."
The cop sighed. "Well I can take her details over the phone, but my advice to you is to wait until the morning, just to be sure she's not out with some new friends. Come down to the precinct with a recent picture of her and file
a report in person. Assuming she doesn't turn up in the meantime."
Genie had not slept a wink that night. She sat the whole night in the chair facing the front door of their apartment, waiting for it to open, waiting for her child to walk back into her life.
It never happened.
In the morning Genie took a taxi to the store where Ophelia worked. She sheltered from the rain in the doorway until the manager showed up. Genie explained who she was to the middle-aged white woman named Sandra. Sandra, who looked like she hadn't slept very well herself, told Genie the last time she had seen Ophelia was when she left the store around six the previous evening.
"Have you been to the cops?" Sandra asked.
Genie shook her head. "That's my next stop."
Sandra seemed genuinely concerned. "Let me know when you find her," she had said after Genie thanked her for her help.
Genie had gone straight home, rushed to the bathroom and thrown up in the toilet. No one who knew Genie would ever describe her as an overly emotional woman, she was tough but fair, never one to overreact. But laying there next to the commode, Genie felt a wave of despair the likes of which she never imagined she could ever have experienced. She sobbed into her vomit-speckled hands, caught by a wave of nausea-inducing fear and sadness.
"No!" she spat, "Not going to happen." She forced back the tears as she pushed herself to her feet, embarrassed at her momentary weakness. The only person who was going to help her daughter was staring back at her from the bathroom mirror. She quickly washed the vomit from her lips and hands then headed into the living room.
From the top of the bureau Genie had taken the Christmas photograph of her daughter from its frame, then headed to the kitchenette where she pulled out all of the emergency cash she kept stashed in a fake can of Heinz beans on the top shelf of the pantry.
Genie walked to the nearest FedEx Office store where the man behind the desk had spent the next hour helping her put the missing person flyer together, and then given her a discount on five hundred copies. Genie would have preferred to have had the flyers printed in color but it would have cost so much more. She had decided to go with quantity rather than quality.
From the FedEx store Genie took a bus the short trip across town to the police station. The bus, usually standing room only, seemed almost as deserted as the streets. Maybe there's something going around, Genie thought as she settled in for the twenty-minute journey. As the bus rattled its way through the wet LA streets, Genie could not help but connect the missing passengers with her missing daughter. And as she had stood up for her stop a block away from the police station, Genie had wondered if there was some kind of a link.
•••
Thirty minutes after filing the missing person report with the cop, Genie had begun to regret not giving in to her urge to call a taxi to take her home. The rain was coming down even harder and a cold wind had kicked up, digging through the layers of her clothing and laying siege to her bones.
She had stopped at almost every streetlight and stuck one of the missing posters to them, but now the rain was coming in almost horizontally, driven by the biting wind, which howled and raged, buffeting Genie left and right, threatening to tear the roll of posters from her hand. It was almost as though the storm was working against her, as though it did not want—
Genie's phone buzzed against her thigh. It was probably ringing too, but the pounding rain and howling wind drowned out all other noise. She dug the phone out of her pants pocket, looked at the screen... and gasped. Genie's hand flew to her mouth to smother the sob that had sprung to her throat.
HOME CALLING the phone's display flashed. It was all Genie could do not to drop the phone, her hands were suddenly shaking so much.
"Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus," she whispered, her head turned skyward. There was only one other person that would call from her apartment... Ophie.
"Ophelia? Baby. You're home," Genie all but shouted, pressing the phone tight against her.
There was silence on the line for a moment, then Ophelia's voice was in Genie's ear: "Momma, where are you? I came home for you, Momma, but you're not here?"
Genie let out a little cry of joy and clutched the phone hard to her breast, her eyes cast skyward as she again thanked Jesus for returning her child to her.
Genie placed the phone to her ear and spoke: "I'm coming home, baby. I'm coming home." Already Genie's feet were moving with a newfound purpose as she headed through the ever-growing darkness, the beam of her flashlight swaying from side to side. The driving rain and wind seemed suddenly less powerful as Genie half-ran half-quick-marched in the direction of home. Her mind was filled with so many questions. But only one was truly important, "Ophelia, are you okay, baby?"
"Are you coming home now?" Ophelia asked, avoiding the question. "I'm waiting for you, Momma."
Genie wasn't sure, but she thought she detected a subtle change in her child's voice that she could not quite put her finger on; a flatness to it, maybe, something forced that she had never heard before. Genie knew that there was no way Ophelia would have knowingly put her through the fear and emotional pain Genie had gone through since Ophelia had vanished. She also knew that whatever had happened to her child, it had been forced on her, against her will. And God knew what had happened to her. But none of that mattered, not now. Scars could heal, Genie knew this from her own past. There was nothing that love could not make better, given enough time. And what did matter was that Ophelia was alive, and she was home, and anything else, anything at all, they could fix together.
"Yes, baby," Genie said, "I'm coming home."
Abruptly, the call disconnected.
Genie huffed and puffed, her body sweating from the exertion of running like she hadn't done in twenty years or more. But she barely noticed, because in her head angels were singing.
"I'm coming home," she repeated into the night, and cut across the road toward the entrance of her apartment building.
•••
Despite the driving rain and the biting cold of the wind, Genie was a hot sweaty mess by the time she arrived at the door of the ground-level apartment she shared with Ophelia. Perspiration ran down her back, soaking the thin blouse she was wearing beneath her raincoat. The shirt's material stuck to her skin like cold, clammy hands. The rain had done a number on her hair, too. It adhered to her forehead, loose strands occasionally breaking free and falling into her eyes.
Genie noticed none of this, she was concerned only with reaching her child. She fumbled for the key she kept in the inside pocket of her jacket where she kept the roll of missing posters. Her cold fingers found the keychain and pulled it free, dislodging the roll of posters at the same time, sending them flying from her pocket. They spewed into the air and fluttered to the corridor floor like giant confetti. That's okay, Genie thought as she looked at a hundred copies of Ophelia's face staring up at her from the concrete, because she did not need them anymore, her baby was home. She would pick them up later; she and Ophelia. Together.
Genie went to push the key into the lock... and stopped. The door was ajar. She eased the door open with the flat of her hand. Inside, the apartment was dark except for a narrow beam of illumination that extended halfway up the hallway from the overhead light in the ceiling of the corridor she stood in.
"Hello?" Genie called out, her voice quieter than she expected because of the unexpected lump that had lodged halfway up her throat.
"Ophelia? It's Momma. Where you at, darlin'?" She sniffed the air. Something smelled... off. Like someone had thrown up then cleaned it up, the smell lingering in the air.
"Ophelia?" Genie called out again. She stepped over the threshold, reached for the light switch; the switch moved beneath her fingers but the apartment remained dark. "What's going on?" she asked, then took another step inside. Something crunched beneath her feet. Illuminated by the dim light filtering in from behind her, Genie saw the shattered lamp fixture and the remains of its bulb on the floor. Genie's heart began to t
hud loudly in her chest and she gasped a deep breath, her nose wrinkling at the faint but very real fetidness.
Something was terribly out of place but it was all too confusing for her to process. There was no doubt in Genie's mind that the voice on the phone had been that of her child, no doubt whatsoever, but this was not like Ophelia. Ophelia was a good girl; she would never get mixed up with drugs or gangs or anything like that. If something had happened it was because of someone else's interference, Genie was certain. And that meant that someone might be here in the apartment, holding her daughter against her will. Waiting for Genie. But if that was true the next question would be why? Why would someone kidnap her daughter, hold her captive, then bring her home and try and lure Genie here? They weren't rich, they had next to nothing. So that only left one other thing that Genie could think of, and she had met enough sick bastards over her life to know that the possibility that some monster had diabolical plans for the both of them was not as farfetched an idea as it might sound.
"Ophelia?" she called out again. This time Genie's voice was barely above a whisper. She reached into her pocket and found the small flashlight. Pulled it out and switched it on.
Genie's heart leapt into her mouth.
Her daughter waited at the end of the hall, illuminated by the white glow of Genie's flashlight. Genie took a step toward her then stopped, something inside, some ancient, primeval instinct that still remembered what it felt like to be prey warned her to not move. She needed to stay perfectly still. Her child was... wrong. Genie took a second and looked, really looked at Ophelia.
Ophelia's hair was a disheveled mess, clumps of dirt and even a couple of leaves were caught up in its tangles. Her mouth was covered with what Genie first thought was dirt but after another second she wasn't so sure; it was black and smeared and flaky. Dried blood, Genie realized, it's dried blood, but she instantly rejected that thought. Ophelia's jeans were soaked and smeared with grime, her blouse ripped in two places, covered in blotches and more stains. Her exposed arms and face were so pale, so cold looking. Two raised bumps on the side of Ophelia's throat caught Genie's attention. Were those puncture marks? It was so hard to tell in the meager light, and Genie's eyes just weren't what they used to be.
The Darkening Page 11
