by Mary Head
After a moment, he shifted off of her, pushing to his feet. She wondered vaguely if he was leaving, if they were maybe going to leave her here, but then he bent down and grabbed her ankles, dragging her across the rug. He knelt beside her, lifting her arm around his neck, and then slid one arm around her waist and the other under her legs.
“No,” she mumbled when he picked her up, slapping weakly at his chest before her arm fell to dangle limply underneath her. She could barely move, her head lolled against his chest, and the last thing she heard before she passed out was, “This bitch is gonna get blood all over the van.”
Chapter 6
Eli stepped into his apartment just before seven o’clock, absently pulling the key from the lock as he used his finger to flip through the mail in his hand. There was a letter from Ben on top, and Eli smiled as he pushed the door shut. He hadn’t heard from his best friend since Christmas, and figured that if Ben was using regular mail to contact him, he was currently in an area with no access to reliable cell service or a computer.
A quick twist of Eli’s fingers locked the door, and he walked to his bedroom, dropping the mail and his phone on the coffee table as he went. He returned to the living room after changing his clothes and flopped onto the couch, reaching for the TV remote to chase away the silence.
The burgers at The Pint were big, and came with an extremely generous serving of fries, so Eli wasn’t even remotely hungry, and was, in fact, almost too full. He now understood why the menu listed separate lunch and dinner portions.
After finding something passable to watch on TV, he grabbed his phone from the coffee table and tapped his parents’ number in his recent calls list, leaning against the back cushions and lifting his feet onto the coffee table.
His mother answered after a few rings, and Eli could hear the smile behind her greeting.
“I was hoping you’d call soon,” she continued. “Your father left this morning, and this big house is much too quiet without him around.”
“Oh, yeah,” Eli murmured. “He’s got that conference thing in L.A.”
“Mmhmm,” Miriam hummed. “So, how are things? Are you settling in okay at work?”
“Yeah, it’s not so bad. I finally got to meet Agent Cole yesterday.”
“How is he in person?”
Eli laughed softly as his eyes flicked to the TV, where some show about aliens was playing on The History Channel.
“I dunno. I guess he’s about what I expected. I didn’t spend very long with him.”
“Have you made any friends yet?”
“Yeah, most of the guys are nice. One of them, his name is Chris, we went to lunch together yesterday, and then to dinner tonight. I just got home.”
“There’s something else.”
Eli realized he was smiling, and shook his head; even over the phone his mother could read him like a book.
“I met a girl today.”
“Oh, yeah?”
The evident interest in Miriam’s voice made Eli’s smile widen, and he nodded.
“Yeah, she’s actually, um, Agent Cole’s daughter,” he said with a quiet laugh. “She came by to see him, and I ran into her in his office.”
“What does she look like?”
“A little shorter than me, long blonde hair, hazel eyes, she’s got this little dimple in her chin. . .” Eli shook his head. “Mom, she’s gorgeous. And smart, she’s in grad school, studying psychology.”
“Did you ask her out?”
“Mom!” Eli said sharply, and shook his head again when Miriam laughed. “We sort of made plans to hang out this weekend, but it’s not like, a date or anything.”
“Uh huh.”
“It’s not,” Eli insisted. “It’s just hanging out. Maybe lunch.”
“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
“Shut up, Mom,” Eli groaned, though he couldn’t stop himself from laughing again when his mother did.
They talked a little while longer, and the call ended with Eli promising he’d see about coming up for a visit soon.
He lowered his phone, staring thoughtfully at the screen a moment, and then pushed to his feet to walk into his bedroom. His trousers were on the floor, and he picked them up, reaching into one of the pockets and pulling out Hannah’s number.
A smile curved his lips once he was on the couch again, his eyes on the scrap of paper in his hand. They traced the neat letters of Hannah’s name, and he found he loved the way she wrote her numbers, crossing the seven and writing the four with a closed top. It struck him as old-fashioned, and somehow that seemed to fit her, from what little he knew about her.
Unsure of what exactly he intended to do, he started to enter her number into his phone, and then paused. Part of him wanted to text her, or maybe even call her, but another part of him worried that she might think it was weird for him to contact her so soon, even though she had given him her number so they could set their plans for the weekend.
A third, somewhat insecure part of him wondered if this could actually turn into something more. If she wasn’t interested in someone like Chris, with his tall stature, broad shoulders, bright green eyes, and easy smile, what kind of chance did Eli have with her? When they had talked earlier that day, he had thought she was interested in him, but maybe she was just being nice, and he was reading too much into it.
That didn’t mean they couldn’t still be friends, but he decided that tonight was too soon to contact her, so he sighed and just made an entry for her in his contacts. Once it was saved, he dropped his phone onto the coffee table and grabbed the remote to see what else was on TV.
Chapter 7
Juliet Grayson walked toward David’s office, not questioning if he would still be there, even though it was nearly seven o’clock. She raised an unconscious hand to her hair as she walked, smoothing and tucking it behind her ear, and adjusted her blouse before she entered the office.
“Rest of the incident summaries,” she said softly as she laid them on his desk.
“Thanks, Jules,” he murmured, glancing at her before returning his gaze to his computer.
She looked at him for a moment, noticing he had switched to his glasses and taken off his suit jacket; it was hanging on the back of his chair and his sleeves were pushed to his elbows, his tie tugged loose around his neck. His brown hair was mussed from him running his fingers through it repeatedly, and as she watched, he raised a hand to stroke his neatly trimmed beard as he stared pensively at the screen in front of him. She sighed very quietly.
“You look tired,” she said, pulling out a chair and sinking down into it.
“I am tired,” he replied, leaning back in his chair as he swiveled to face her.
“So go home.”
David sighed, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.
“I want to finish my report, and then read over these summaries,” he said, reaching for them, but Juliet snatched them out of the way before he could touch them.
“Look, we caught the bastards. They’re in custody. They’ll still be in custody tomorrow. This stuff?” she said, rustling the summaries in her hand. “Can wait. Go home, David. Hug your daughter; I’m sure Han’s got a wonderfully healthy dinner waiting for you –” David laughed quietly, and Juliet grinned, “– watch some TV, and go to bed at a decent hour.”
She raised her eyebrows and stared intently at David, refusing to back down.
“Oh, all right,” he said, replacing his glasses, and then added, pointing sternly, “That means you have to leave too, though.”
She held up her hands. “I practice what I preach.”
David grinned as he stood, saving his report and shutting down his computer.
“We still on for Friday?” he asked as he fixed his sleeves before shrugging his jacket on.
“Aren’t I always?” Juliet replied, waiting while he checked his briefcase. “A burger and a beer at the end of the week always does me good.”
David grinned. “Who else is coming?”
“Should see if the new kid Eli wants to come. Sort of as a welcome,” David suggested, placing his hand at the small of Juliet’s back as he guided her towards the door.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if Chris already invited him,” Juliet said, feeling a little breathless as she watched David lock his door. She was frustrated at the way he always touched her like it was nothing, even though it meant so much more to her, and missed the brief contact of his hand on her back.
“Yeah, probably,” David replied with a short laugh, and Juliet smiled as he turned to look at her. They fell into step, heading for Juliet’s office so she could gather her things together as well before they made their way to the elevator.
A short while later they were in the parking garage. David saw Juliet to her car, waiting until she was inside before lifting his hand in a wave and walking to his own.
The streets were wet and shining from the afternoon’s rain showers, the streetlamps reflecting brightly on the pavement, and when David emerged from his car once he arrived home, he could feel the damp chill in the air.
The house was silent as David stepped through the front door, and though he didn’t immediately acknowledge it for what it was, it was an empty silence, and somewhere deep in his mind an alarm began to sound very quietly.
“Han?” he called, setting his briefcase down so he could flip through the mail. Nothing seemed to need his immediate attention and he dropped it back to the table before shrugging off his coat and hanging it on one of the hooks on the wall.
“Han?” he called again as he picked up his briefcase and stepped around the divider that separated the entryway from the living room.
When he stepped closer to the couch, he noticed her laptop open at an odd angle on the coffee table, and as he drew nearer, he saw the screen was black, a large crack running the width of it.
The alarm bell in his mind began to grow louder, but the part of his brain designed to protect him was telling him she must’ve just dropped it.
He continued forward and finally noticed her purse and its contents strewn across the floor, makeup and keys and a packet of gum spilling out in a small trail on the rug. Her phone wasn’t in sight, and he pulled his from his pocket, checking the display. She’d texted him earlier to ask what he wanted for dinner, but he’d been busy and hadn’t seen it right away. He didn’t text her back until he returned to his desk, an hour before he left work, and he now noticed she hadn’t replied.
He tapped the screen to call her and raised the phone to his ear, trying to ignore the worry rising within him. He was sent straight to her voicemail, and three truths flashed through his brain in that instant: she always replied to his texts when he told her he loved her, she never ignored his calls, and she never turned her phone off.
A sharp stab of panic pierced his chest as he ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket. He knew now something was very wrong, no matter what his brain was trying to tell him, and instincts borne from spending half of his life working for the FBI were kicking in.
The briefcase in his hand fell to the floor, and he unfastened the safety strap on his holster as he moved carefully into the room. He touched nothing, a nauseatingly strong sense of unease sweeping through him as he stepped over her glasses case.
“Hannah?” he yelled, taking his gun in his hands and holding it low as his eyes swept over the living room. The coffee table was pushed askew, he now noticed, and psychology books and scientific journals lay in a jumbled heap on the floor.
Making his way gingerly across the living room, he moved to the back hall, careful not to disturb anything, and poked his head first into his office, then stepped across the hall to check the basement before continuing towards the bathroom and laundry room. He continued to call Hannah’s name, as though he knew the silence held the truth and he couldn’t bear to hear it.
It was when he emerged from the hall and stepped around the stairs that he noticed the shattered glass in the archway between the living room and the kitchen, amber shards glinting dully in the low lighting, surrounded by soda and what looked like melted ice cubes.
Now desperately fighting the panic spreading within him he moved closer to the mess. There were small dark circles leading away from the ruined glass, towards the back door, and without thinking, David flipped the kitchen switch with his elbow.
Light flooded the room, and the dark circles were suddenly a trail of blood, red droplets each no bigger than a dime, and he followed them with his eyes to the back door, noticing for the first time that it was cracked slightly. He stared at the remains of the door’s window where it lay on the floor, feeling as though there was a vise in his chest, squeezing his heart tighter and tighter. There were a couple more drops of blood on the glittering shards of glass, shining and impossibly red.
“No, no, no,” he muttered, shaking his head as he turned away, barely registering the droplets of blood between the kitchen and living room rug. He rushed towards the stairs, shouting Hannah’s name as he climbed to the second floor and praying to every imaginable deity that his daughter would step out of her bathroom, dressed in pajamas and shuffling towards him in bare feet as she toweled her hair. She would apologize, saying she simply hadn’t heard him over the sound of the shower, and everything would be fine, but this fantasy didn’t explain the mess downstairs.
He crept down the hall, gun held level now as he checked the guest room and her work room, her bedroom and bathroom, his bedroom, and even the attic, his voice still ringing out her name.
Still seeing no sign of her, he headed back downstairs, and in a last ditch attempt to avoid facing the truth hurried into the kitchen and back to the pantry.
When Hannah was a little girl, not long after David’s wife left, he spent an afternoon playing hide and seek with her. She hid herself so well at one point that he spent nearly twenty minutes looking for her, growing more and more panicked until he finally found her in a hidden compartment inside the pantry. He’d scolded her, scaring her and making her cry, and then hugged her fiercely, trying to explain that she’d scared him too. She apologized and he took her out for ice cream, and that was the end of it, but later that night, after he’d tucked her in to bed, he found himself contemplating the small space in the kitchen.
A few months later he’d redone the entire pantry, expanding the compartment into a proper room and fitting it with a steel reinforced door, turning it into something of a safe room for Hannah in case anything ever happened, and it was this room he was desperate to check now.
So certain he would find her in there, scared but safe, he actually started to smile as he yanked the door open, but when he saw the empty space, devoid of any trace of his daughter, his face fell and whatever hope he’d still been clinging to dissolved.
Slowly, he sank to the floor, staring into the room which had been his last hope, and his hands fell limply between his knees, his gun slipping from his fingers with a muted clatter. He wanted to scream but felt as though he could barely breathe, and when he opened his mouth all he could muster was a strangled whisper of just one word.
“Hannah.”
Chapter 8
Hannah opened her eyes and winced, the light from the naked bulb hanging overhead seeming far too harsh for its size. She turned her head away, trying to raise her arm over her face and feeling as though she could hardly move. Her head throbbed and her whole body ached.
A wave of nausea swept through her and she groaned, pulling her legs in closer to her body. She clutched her stomach and closed her eyes as she fought the urge to vomit.
A dim memory flashed through her mind of darkness and being sick. Whether it was minutes or hours ago, she didn’t know. Far away, there had been muffled swearing, and closer, the sound of someone whispering soothingly to her and a hand gently stroking her hair before she passed out again.
At the time, she had thought it was her father, thought she h
ad gotten sick at home and he was taking care of her. But as she opened her eyes again and looked around the space, she realized it couldn’t have been. Her vision was slightly fuzzy, but it was clear enough for her to make out part of her surroundings, and she was definitely not at home.
Bits and pieces came back to her as she struggled to sit up. A man in the living room, another man grabbing her, the struggle that followed, and then a sharp pain in her leg just before everything went dark.
Tears stung her eyes, spilling over and down her cheeks, and she lay back down, curling into a tighter ball as nausea swelled within her once more.
She took a gasping breath when it passed, squeezing her eyes shut as tears streamed down her face, and a choked whisper escaped her lips.
“Daddy.”
Chapter 9
“Sir – Mr. Cole.”
David pulled his gaze from the kitchen – no, crime scene, he reminded himself – to focus on the Arlington police detective standing in front of him.
“I’m sorry, what?” His mind was a million miles away, trying to separate him from everything that was happening, from everything that was suddenly very wrong with his life.
“When was the last time you saw your daughter?”
“Earlier today,” David murmured with a small frown, “just before noon, I think. She came by my office to bring me lunch.”
“And you work for the FBI, correct?” the detective asked, flipping through his notes. David couldn’t remember his name. “The D.C. field office?”
David nodded wearily. “The CID – Criminal Investigative Division. Violent – violent crimes.”
The detective nodded, dutifully scribbling away on his notepad. “And do you know what she did once she left your office?”
David sighed, trying to organize his thoughts. “She was going to come back here to do some work, and then she had class at three.”
“And where does she go to school?”
“George Washington University. She’s in the social psychology Ph.D. program.”
