In the Dark

by Chris Patchell

“I saw your message on Facebook, and well, here’s the thing. Brooke wasn’t in class this morning.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The teakettle whistled, steam gushing from its spout. Marissa stepped away from the counter and angled her head to the side so she could hear what Tess was saying.

  “Well, I actually haven’t seen Brooke since Saturday night.”

  Marissa’s knees turned to water. A nauseating wave of heat washed over her, and she slumped against the wall, grateful for its strength.

  Behind her the kettle wailed, but she couldn’t hear it over the pounding pulse in her ears.

  “Saturday night? Are you sure?”

  Two days? That can’t be right. How could two days go by without word, without a call? Where the hell is Brooke?

  “Marissa,” she heard a voice snap behind her, and she swung on her heels.

  Paige Benoit filled the doorway. Her red lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl. With a clawed hand, she reached out and plucked the kettle’s plug from the wall. The shriek of the whistle dipped into a low, plaintive cry before falling silent.

  Marissa swallowed the knot of fear in her throat.

  “Tess, can I call you back?”

  She dropped the phone from her ear and straightened away from the wall. Angry red splotches stained Benoit’s gaunt cheeks.

  “Marissa, the kettle. Didn’t you hear it?”

  She shook her head slowly, barely understanding the words coming out of Benoit’s mouth. Benoit snapped her fingers.

  “Tea. Now. Elizabeth Holt will be here any minute.”

  Marissa’s lips parted, but it took a full two seconds to find her voice.

  “I can’t.”

  And suddenly she didn’t give two shits about what Benoit wanted or the upcoming meeting, and she cared least of all about Ms. Holt’s tea. She had to get out of here.

  Marissa brushed past Benoit and raced down the long hallway toward reception as fast as her heels allowed.

  She arrived in the lobby in time to catch Elizabeth Holt’s grand entrance. She swept into the lobby along with her large entourage. Mr. Regis smiled. He gripped both of Holt’s hands in his own and planted a kiss on the old woman’s cheek.

  Benoit’s heels clicked close behind.

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  As Benoit grasped Marissa’s elbow, her long nails dug into the soft flesh of Marissa’s arm. She spun Marissa around until they stood face-to-face. Inches away, Marissa could smell the rank stench of coffee on Benoit’s breath. A fierce bolt of anger flashed through her, and she wrenched her arm free of the other woman’s grip.

  “Look, I don’t have time to explain. I have to go.”

  Hunkering down, Marissa grabbed her purse and jacket from beneath the desk.

  “Go? Now?”

  Benoit reached for Marissa’s arm again, but this time Marissa was faster. She whirled away, her hair whipping around her cheeks. She fixed her hot stare on Benoit’s pinched face.

  “Don’t you ever touch me again. Do you understand?”

  Benoit’s dark eyebrows scrunched so close together on her forehead they almost touched.

  “You listen to me, Ms. Rooney. If you walk out of this office, don’t bother coming back,” Benoit said, her shrill voice carrying through the lobby.

  The lobby fell silent. Suddenly all eyes were on Marissa. She looked up in time to catch Elizabeth Holt’s curious gaze. Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she glared at Paige Benoit.

  “Do what you will. I have to find my daughter.” She turned toward Mr. Regis. Shock and concern were reflected in his lined face. “I’m sorry, Mr. Regis, the conference room should be ready for your meeting. Ms. Holt, the kettle is boiled. Perhaps Ms. Benoit can make your tea.”

  Without another word, she marched out the door.

  #

  Rain drizzled down in a fine gray mist from the sky. A murder of crows flapped overhead, their black wings smudged against the low ceiling of clouds, like pooled mascara beneath a woman’s eye. Marissa plowed through the heavy doors to the student union, looking everywhere for Tess. This close to lunchtime, torrents of students flooded the hall, all talking, yelling, and laughing. The sound of their eager young voices echoed off the high ceilings.

  Tess was nowhere to be found. Marissa paced the perimeter of the hall, trying to make sense of this crazy situation. There had to be some explanation. Maybe Tess knew more than she was saying. Someone had to. Brooke hadn’t just vanished.

  Pacing the student union wasn’t calming her frayed nerves. With each step frenzied thoughts filled her head, choking out all rational thought. Despite her throbbing feet, she couldn’t stop. Anxiety thrashed inside her like a trapped bird, barely contained, desperate to get out.

  Her gaze passed over the message boards, looking but not really seeing. Colorful flyers pinned to the surface announced study groups, yoga classes, meet-ups, and a multitude of other on-campus events. Her eyes skimmed across the flyers, her thoughts filled with Brooke, until her eyes locked onto the face of a young woman staring out from a missing-person poster.

  She stopped. Kim Covey had disappeared from a party four weeks ago, and suddenly Marissa recalled the local news stories about the missing girl. She’d thought about the girl and hoped she was safe. She’d thought about the family and the hell they must be going through.

  But she really hadn’t understood anything about the girl’s disappearance until now.

  Heart pounding, she stared into the girl’s photocopied eyes. The realization struck her with crippling force. This girl looked like her daughter. Same blonde hair and blue eyes. Same slender build. Kim Covey was two years older than Brooke, but the two girls could have passed for sisters.

  Marissa’s pulse throbbed at the base of her throat.

  Without thinking, she stretched out her trembling fingers and ripped the missing-person flyer off the message board. She stared at it horror-stricken, no longer seeing a stranger’s face, but seeing her own daughter staring back at her.

  She spun on rubbery legs and swung toward the entrance, stuffing the flyer into her pocket just as Tess Turner burst into the hall at a run.

  Chapter 6

  Tess led the way across campus, from the student union toward the dorms. Despite her diminutive size, she set a blistering pace, and Marissa struggled to keep up. The cold drizzle chilled her to the bone. She couldn’t look at the faces of the other students they passed. They were safe. Their parents knew where they were. She kept her head down, shoulders hunched against the rain. All she could think about was her burgeoning fear.

  “I figured Brooke spent the night at your place and I’d see her in class this morning. When I saw your message, I knew I had to call.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Tess unlocked the door to their room. “Saturday night at the Chapel.”

  Two days ago, and not a word? How could that be? Frustration and fear welled up inside Marissa. She shook her head, overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. If she let herself get carried away by the spiraling trail of what-ifs crowding her brain right now, she’d be lost. Instead Marissa focused on Tess, desperate to learn something that might help clear up this mess.

  “You went to a bar?” Marissa asked, her frantic gaze bouncing around the room.

  Dirty clothes trailed across Tess’s half of the room while Brooke’s was as neat as a pin. Nothing looked missing. Nothing looked out of place.

  “That’s right. Brooke wanted to go,” Tess said, sliding a balled-up pair of leggings across the imaginary boundary from Brooke’s side of the room to her own.

  “It was Brooke’s idea?”

  She could hardly believe it. Brooke wasn’t the type of girl to break the rules. Tess, on the other hand . . .

  “She went there to see her ex.”

  “Who?”

  “Some dude named Jesse.”

  Jesse Morgan. She remembered him, all right. Brooke’s case of puppy
love had bordered on obsession. While Marissa had been relieved when Jesse moved away, Brooke had gone through a grieving period that made Bella from the Twilight books look fickle. She’d spent weeks moping in her room, playing depressing music on her iPod and shunning calls from her friends. When Brooke had finally snapped out of it and started dating someone else, Marissa had been relieved.

  It seemed more than mere coincidence that Jesse’s reappearance coincided with Brooke’s disappearing act. If there was one person Brooke might take off with, it was him.

  “Did she leave with Jesse?”

  “I don’t know. I went to the bathroom, and she was gone.”

  “She didn’t tell you she was leaving? Not a text? Didn’t you think that was weird?”

  “Not really,” Tess said. “She doesn’t always share her plans.”

  Tess averted her worried gaze, picking away at the frayed strings hanging from the knee of her ripped jeans.

  Marissa brushed her hand along the straight line of clothes hanging in the closet. Sweaters and tank tops, jeans and sweat shirts slid against her open palm, and she caught the scent of Brooke’s perfume. Sweet. Vanilla. Like she was standing beside Marissa instead of God knew where.

  Marissa pulled the hem of a dress aside and saw Brooke’s gym bag on the floor. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it.

  “She would have taken something with her.”

  “What?” Tess asked, hovering close by.

  “If Brooke was leaving, even overnight, she would have taken something with her,” Marissa repeated, whirling toward the bed. “A sweat shirt. A jacket. Something.”

  The lavender quilt looked crisp and untouched. Even Brooke’s UW nightshirt was folded beneath her pillow. It was like at any minute her daughter would come bursting into the room.

  Marissa sank onto the bed, her hand drifting across the soft pillowcase, the silence of the room surrounding her. Tess fidgeted by the window, arms folded, a worried look on her face.

  “Where does Brooke keep her insulin?”

  No sooner had she said it than she spied the dorm-size refrigerator tucked underneath the desk. She hunkered down and opened the door.

  She saw the open box of insulin pens and counted them. Each box held a dozen. There were five left. She grabbed the vial of insulin off the top shelf.

  Brooke needed daily shots from the vial to keep her blood sugars steady overnight. As she stared at the vial in her hand, another thought struck her. Marissa wrenched open the nightstand drawer and there it was.

  She saw Brooke’s insulin travel kit stowed neatly in the corner beside her glucometer, small and insulated, about the size of a pencil case. Marissa picked it up in her hands, and she knew.

  She knew there was no way Brooke would leave without taking this with her.

  Chapter 7

  “You say she went to the bar with her roommate,” Officer Reardon said in a monotone, like he’d heard this story a hundred times before.

  Perched on a hard chair in the middle of the bustling squad room, her back ramrod-straight, Marissa nodded.

  “That’s right. The Chapel on Capitol Hill.”

  The keyboard clacked as Officer Reardon recorded her answers. Marissa fidgeted with the leather strap of her purse. The squad room stank like sweat and bitter coffee. She breathed in the stale air. Unbidden images surfaced in her mind, and she remembered the last time she’d been in a squad room. Instinctively her tongue probed the top row of smooth, even teeth, searching for jagged edges and gaps. She kept her gaze focused tight on the officer, pushing the memories back. Not wanting to remember.

  “And the roommate says she was there to meet her ex-boyfriend?”

  “Well, yes. He tends bar there.”

  “And what makes you think she’s gone missing?”

  Marissa squirmed in her chair. She knew she sounded like an overprotective mother reporting her kid late for curfew, but that wasn’t it. Her every instinct was telling her that something was very wrong. What kind of mother would she be if she didn’t do what she thought was right?

  She drew in a deep breath and released it slowly before answering.

  “Brooke’s not answering her cell phone. She’s missing classes. Her medication travel kit is still in her dorm room.”

  Reardon cocked his head. His sharp brown eyes met Marissa’s. “Hold it. But didn’t you say she had her medication with her?” He scanned the computer screen, checking the report.

  She’d already said this. Wasn’t he listening?

  Marissa pushed back the waves of frustration crashing over her and explained it to him. Again.

  “She probably does have an insulin pen with her, but she would pack her vial of insulin and a syringe in the kit so it wouldn’t get damaged.”

  “But she could still carry that stuff with her, right? The kit just makes it more convenient. So you don’t know for sure she doesn’t have her insulin.”

  “It’s possible, yes, but . . .”

  Marissa’s words trailed off when Reardon’s gaze stayed focused on the screen. By the look on his face, she could tell he didn’t buy her story.

  “Any other reason to think something has happened to . . .” He paused to check the screen. “Brooke?”

  He doesn’t even remember her name.

  It was too much. Her jaw clenched and she glared at him with burning eyes.

  “You mean other than jeopardizing her life by not taking her medication as prescribed? Look, I know my daughter. She wouldn’t just disappear.”

  A condescending smile appeared under Reardon’s bushy moustache, and Marissa sprang from her seat. She couldn’t waste another minute of her time waiting for him to take her seriously. Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she spun away from the desk. His voice stopped her.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Rooney. I don’t mean to make light of the situation. I know you’re very worried, what parent wouldn’t be?” He leaned forward, his elbows propped on the desk. “But looking at the situation with objective eyes, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe she reconciled with her ex and they decided to spend a few days together. I know it’s hard to accept, but college girls aren’t high school girls. They don’t have curfews, and they don’t always check in with their parents. They’re free to make their own decisions.”

  “Why would she leave without taking her clothes or her medication?”

  “Do you know for a fact there is nothing missing from her room?”

  It had sure looked like there was nothing missing from Brooke’s dorm room, but could she swear to it? No. She didn’t know how many vials of insulin Brooke usually kept on hand. She didn’t know if Brooke had makeup and clothes stashed in an overnight bag.

  But her gut was screaming at her that something was wrong. After two days without insulin, her daughter could be dead by now. She couldn’t ignore her intuition. She had to act. Two days was an eternity.

  Reardon continued, more gently now.

  “Look, Ms. Rooney, there’s a good chance she’ll show up tonight or tomorrow on her own. We get twenty thousand missing-persons reports every year. Most of these people show up all on their own with no intervention. When you were a kid, didn’t you do anything crazy and impulsive?”

  She knew firsthand that rash decisions made in the heat of the moment could change your life. Brooke was living proof of her first crazy, impulsive act, going to bed with the first guy who paid attention to her.

  “Can’t you just check her cell phone to find out where she is?”

  “Your daughter is an adult. She has a right to privacy. We would need a warrant to check her cell phone records, and for that, we need some sort of evidence indicating foul play. It will take time.”

  “We don’t have time,” she said. Marissa could feel eyes boring into her, but she didn’t care. Let them look. “This isn’t a normal case. This is a kid with a very serious medical condition. We at least have to find out if she’s okay.”

  “Here’s what I think we should do,
” Reardon said. “I’m going to file the missing-persons report. It will get assigned to a detective who will conduct a preliminary investigation. He can check in with the ex-boyfriend. From there we’ll decide how to proceed.”

  “And how long does that take?”

  “I can’t give you a specific time frame. You’re going to need to trust us.”

  Trust? How could she trust him when he clearly wasn’t taking her seriously? But what choice did she have? Bone-tired and emotionally drained, Marissa stood. Without another word she marched out of the police station and back out into a gray blanket of rain.

  #

  Traffic bled out of the downtown core in a sluggish trickle of flashing red taillights. Cars slithered in an unbroken line heading south, like a monstrous snake all the way down Interstate 5. Marissa gripped her steering wheel tight. The slick roads made for slow going, and a drive that should have taken no more than forty-five minutes took a grinding hour and a half in the rain.

  It was well past dark when Marissa turned onto her street. It wasn’t the best neighborhood. In the yellow glow of the streetlamps, the small houses crowding the sidewalks looked grim and dirty. A far cry from Logan’s hilltop home in Redmond, it was all she could afford within commuting distance of the city.

  The house lights were on and Kelly was home. Raucous music blared from the speakers in the living room. Back in her day, they would have called it punk, or maybe grunge, but Kelly called it something else. Alternative. Kelly’s new favorite band, G-String Jesus, grated like an electric shock on Marissa’s frayed nerves.

  Marissa found her fifteen-year-old daughter hunched over the kitchen table, ignoring the stack of books strewn around her, texting on her phone. Marissa marched into the living room and turned the music off. Kelly looked up, shooting her mother an indignant glare before turning back to her phone.

  “Any word from Brooke?” Marissa asked.

  Kelly shook her head, still typing into the damned phone.

  Feeling a thousand years old, Marissa dropped into the chair opposite Kelly. She stared at the dark rings of eyeliner that circled Kelly’s eyes. Kelly’s high school friends probably thought dark makeup made their eyes pop, but Marissa thought it made Kelly look cheap. It was a phase. She would grow out of it. Somehow the knowledge didn’t make it easier to bear.