Ally leans in past me. “God—have you found them?”
“No, ma’am. We’re just getting the volunteer league together. Park to the left if you’re here to help.”
“We’re here to fucking help,” I mutter as I land a spot at the distal end of the lot. Ally and I stagger the long way across the city park, across the street before finally hitting the short box of a building that houses the Boys and Girls Club. Dad volunteered to stay back at the house this afternoon. I asked him to hang around in the event Reagan and her friend came strolling back like nothing happened. Although something tells me that girl was no friend.
Ally leans in while holding my arm as if she needed it to keep her upright. She managed to run a brush through her hair, but her face is bloated and blotchy from tears.
“Who the hell do you think she was—an actress?” she asks the question as if reading my mind. “How could she not exist?” Her fingers pinch into my arm, crushing right down to the bone.
“She does exist. Maybe you misheard her name. Maybe she made it up. Maybe—I don’t know, maybe she’s in on it.”
Ally stops short and I take a quick step back while looking into the blood-red eyes of my exhausted wife. I had already put her through the ringer, and now we’re both in another fresh hell. I’d give anything for this to have been some other horror that we’d have to deal with. An illness, another affair, ten damn lovers in a row—anything but Reagan.
“There was something.” Her voice scratches below the surface.
“What?” I pull her in by the shoulders and steady my eyes over hers. “What was it?” I give a quick shake to her petite frame without meaning to and spot McCafferty in the distance, slack-jawed and taking those damn notes as if her career depended on it. A part of me wants to run over and rip that stupid notebook she’s cradling to shreds. “What happened?” I wrap my arm lovingly around Allison’s shoulders and drop a gentle kiss to her cheek for show.
“That first day we met. I—I don’t know. It was stupid.”
“It doesn’t matter—just tell me.”
“That first day—when she took off to find Reagan, the grass where she was standing—it looked pale, dried up, and yellow as if her feet had the power to kill it.”
A shiver runs through me, ice cold and foreboding as I plant another kiss over the top of my wife’s head. I glance back at McCafferty and give a solemn nod in her direction. Here we are—a happy little family minus one. Now get back to finding my daughter, you judgmental little bitch.
I dip my mouth close to Ally’s ear and whisper, “I’d keep that one to yourself for now.”
The hall inside the Boys and Girls Club is buzzing to life with an uncalled for level of jubilation and the scent of stale coffee. People of all shapes and sizes sit shoulder to shoulder as Rich takes the stage and fills them in on the anemic facts we know. The energy in the room is palpable. You could power an entire city off the tension and the undercurrent of excitement.
Rich clears his throat into the mic. “Over there are little Reagan’s mother and father.” He points our way, and I lift my finger in lieu of a wave. “We’ll be taking sign-ups for the next hour or so, and then we’ll organize into groups for the sweep. It’s looking like a storm is about to push through, so please dress accordingly.”
The meeting wraps up and bodies swirl throughout the bustling hall as people hurry to get their names down for the sweep as Richard called it. Sweep. You sweep rivers for bodies, snow fields, deserts. Who knew it would be a simple word like sweep that has the power to insight a holy terror in me?
An entire throng of bodies line up to wish us the best of luck, offer up their prayers while encouraging us to never give up hope. Every other face is more familiar than the last, which doesn’t surprise me. Hell, going to the grocery store in town has sponsored an unwanted high school reunion just about every time.
“James Price?” a female voice calls from my left and I look to find the one familiar face that I was hoping to never see again. But here she is, right where my shitty luck dictated she be.
The tall brunette with thick layers of caked on makeup, red glossy lips, eyelashes up to her eyebrows would be my old, long-forgotten train wreck of an ex.
“Monica.” Shit. Monica Phillips was the high school homecoming queen to my king, my long-time girlfriend who some might say I up and abandoned when I took off for western pastures, to Wake University. But that wasn’t the case at all, and Monica knows it. Monica Phillips is as batshit as they come, and the truth is, I couldn’t get out of Concordia fast enough to get the hell away from her destructive behavior. She is rabbit boiling insane, hack off your balls if you’re not careful psychotic—and I fake a smile just to greet her. “Monica,” I say her name once again because there are no real words I’d like to exchange with her now or ever.
“Rumor has it, you’ve been in town for weeks. Have you been avoiding me?” She digs a jovial finger into my gut and I cringe. “And I take it this lovely little thing is your poor wife?” Monica’s voice hits an all-time high as she offers a look that mimics something just this side of sympathetic. She’s not fooling anyone, least of all me. I doubt she gives a shit that my daughter has gone missing. Nope. Her little trot to the Boys and Girls Club in spiked heels was just for me, and I’m about to get ten years of pent-up bullshit tossed my way.
“Allison Price.” Ally extends a hand to the viper, and I carefully monitor the situation in the event she gets it bitten right off. But if anything, it’s Monica who had better watch out. Ally may come across as a soft little rose, but she has a bite stronger, deeper, and darker than just about any woman I have ever known. My left eye twitches at the thought because that’s not entirely true. That title goes to another woman, one I’m afraid to let invade my thoughts in fear she could hear them.
“I’m Monica Percale, nee Phillips.” She touches her hand to her chest.
Percale. I do a quick scan of my mental yearbook. Don’t know the poor sap, don’t want to.
“Jamie and I dated off and on. I’m sure he’s mentioned me a time or two.” Those hazel eyes of hers skirt my way and cut me to the quick the way they always had the capability to do. It’s only then I note the hard lines around her lips, the crow’s feet around her eyes that have infiltrated skin that once looked so pristine.
“Actually, he hasn’t.” Allison tips her head back and steals a moment to close her eyes. The fatigue of the hell I’ve dragged her through on top of Reagan vanishing into thin air is about to swipe her feet from under her. I feel the same way. “Maybe he did. I’m sorry. My mind is all over the place right now.”
“Of course, it is. It’s understandable in such situations.” Monica lifts those heavy eyes to mine and her left lid depresses just a notch.
Was that a wink? Is she fucking winking at me?
“I’ll be on the front lines. I’m not giving up on your little angel, Jamie.” She swims past Allison and dives over me with a strangulating embrace, her tits pressing into my chest as if they were hell-bent on leaving an impression. “If you need someone to lean on, I’m living at the old Ghost Ship.”
The Ghost Ship. I carefully extract her from my person and offer a brief thanks as the crowd mercifully sweeps her away like unwanted debris.
But the Ghost Ship resonates in my mind long after Monica is gone. It’s a house off Main Street that used to scare the pants off all the kids in town when we were younger. The old owner erected a statue of a ship in his front yard and it was quickly dubbed the Ghost Ship, thus the Ghost Ship House. I never did visit as a kid, and I don’t plan on knocking on its door anytime soon, unless, of course, that’s where my daughter is holed away. In that case, I’d knock down every wall, tear up every floorboard until I found my sweet baby girl.
My phone buzzes in my pocket so I fish it out. I glance to the screen and my heart seizes before I sink the phone back where I found it.
I lean into Ally a moment, interrupting her conversation with a woman I recognize a
s the old middle school librarian, grayer and far more fragile and wrinkled than I remember.
“I’ll be right back.” I head to the corner and pull my phone out once again to see the name Hannigan scrawled over the screen—a moniker that sounded like every other last name down in the district where I once held a paying job with the promise of lifetime benefits and a meager retirement. If Ally saw it, she wouldn’t think twice. But there was no Hannigan down in any district that I know of. This was and is my other nut job of an ex if you can call her that—Hailey Oden.
A tap comes over my shoulder and I quickly bury my phone in my pocket before spinning around. McCafferty stands there with her lips pulled tight, her hands behind her back as she rocks on her heels. “What is that you’re hiding from the world, Mr. Price? And who was that gorgeous woman who offered such a generous embrace?”
A dull smile comes and goes on my lips. There are some things McCafferty doesn’t need to know.
Allison is welcome to keep secrets from her.
And so am I.
3
Allison
Rich Olsen helped conduct what he called a thorough sweep of all Concordia County. Mothers and fathers, electricians, plumbers, teachers, jacks-of-all-trades came out in full force to look for Reagan and Ota in the woods, in the nooks and crannies between houses, in the ass cracks of life where you would never want your child to be in the first place. The lake shed its black smile as if mocking us. The evergreens glowered at us, their branches spread like dark wings.
“I call bullshit,” I say, trying to hold back my rage as Rich stands in our living room three days later delivering the sorry news that there was not much more they could do.
His eyes drag down like perfect ovals. “Allison, if those girls were out there, we would have found them.”
“What?” The word jackknifes up my throat like a razored claw and I don’t wait for a response. Instead, I proceed to pound the shit out of his chest.
“Easy! Easy!” Charles plucks me off and I take the opportunity to backhand him while making it look like an accident. Damn asshole. Walking around my house whistling some hippy-dippy tune while my kid is out there with who knows who, having who knows what done to her!
“Come here.” James pulls me in, his eyes just as rage filled as mine, glaring from his father to Rich. “I’m about to go wild myself. Don’t ever say those words again. She is out there, and we are not doing enough.”
Marilyn McCafferty, a short brunette with a severe bun, eyes that say I’m watching you, I don’t believe you, I’m out to get you, readjusts her notepad. Of all the bullshit I’ve seen during this investigation, she and her prehistoric note taking methods top the list. She claims to have notified the entire state school system and yet has come up empty. Really? I’d like to know how the hell she notified them. Smoke signals? Sanskrit?
“I’ve set up a press conference for tomorrow afternoon.” Her thin-lipped smile expands and retracts like a rubber band. “The national media will be present and accounted for. You’ll both dress the part of responsible parents.” She dips her chin as if admonishing us. Something in the pit of my stomach pinched when she said it. “You’ll look your best. The media, though helpful at times—well, it could turn on you. People turn on you.” She looks to James. “On each other.”
A throbbing moment stumps by, and I can’t help but think they’re having a private conversation all their own. Does she know something that I’m not aware of? Has she really dug deep enough to find that closet filled with dumb blonde bimbo corpses? Yes, James is no saint. I think just about everyone in this room can agree on that. But I’m certain he has nothing to do with Reagan’s disappearance outside of the fact he’s the stupid shit that let her out of his sight to begin with. As soon as my baby is back in my arms, divorce proceedings will begin the next day. It’s something I probably should have done eons ago but was too stupid, too naïve, too blindsided by his dark wavy hair, those white picket fence teeth. Over and over again my sister tried to warn me, and over and over again I was insistent that he would love only me.
James clears his throat, his cheeks slap red. There might as well be a neon sign that reads guilty branded across his forehead. “We will most certainly dress the part. Where do you want us?”
“Right here,” McCafferty pipes up. “I’ll have everyone arrive at noon, and we’ll hold the event in front of your home. I have the composite artist scheduled for this afternoon, and that way we’ll have pictures of both girls.”
Another moment of silence ebbs by.
“So no one’s called in about a lost little girl?” This shocks me, and I can’t help but feel betrayed.
Both Rich and McCafferty shake their heads. Their somber faces say it all.
“So Ota was part of it.” A breath hitches in my throat, and I can’t seem to catch it. James wraps his arm around me in an effort to keep me on my feet.
“Let’s sit down.” He helps me to the sofa and I don’t protest.
“Yes”—Rich pulls his pants up by the belt loops—“it’s looking like maybe she was somehow connected. But we’re going to treat her as a missing child nonetheless. If they are together, it might be best people are on the lookout for her, too.”
“Yes, of course.” My heart thumps so loud my entire body throbs in rhythm to it. Damn little bitch. She knew. She knew they—whoever the hell they are—were going to steal my precious baby. Yes, she’s young, but so help me God, I would drown her in the bathtub if given half a chance.
“They probably threatened her into playing along with it,” Rich tosses it out there as if he understood my desire to murder the girl. “Could have been gypsies. Irish travelers. Immigrants. You never know.”
“What about a biker gang?” I’m not sure why that flew out of my mouth. “I remember hearing rumors of abductions of young girls.” My mind reels for something to quantify this with but comes up empty.
“I don’t think so.” McCafferty helps herself to a water bottle James set out once they arrived. “Bikers get all the girls they want just clamoring to be a part of their world. And I’m pretty sure when they said young girls they meant of a sexual age. Reagan is a child. It’s most likely a vagrant band, pedophiles and the like.” She brings her lips to the bottle and I leap over the coffee table and tip both her and the Barcalounger onto their backs.
Pedophiles. A primal scream comes from me as she baptizes herself with the water bottle, coughing and twisting as she struggles for air.
“Allison!” James barks as he pulls me off her. We roll over the carpet, grinding our noses in its fresh from the factory scent while Rich helps bring McCafferty to her feet.
“I’ll send a doctor over and see if we can’t get some sedatives to settle your nerves,” she huffs, staggering her way to the door. I watch from the floor, from this upside down world as Charles escorts her out, rife with apologies.
“I’m taking off, too,” Rich announces. “Deanna wants to bring dinner—says fast food isn’t good for you. I think she’s got a meal train organized so you won’t have to worry about a hot meal for a while. Call me if you need anything.”
“We need our damn daughter!” My voice jags through the air like a cat on fire and I watch as the door closes behind him. “Who the hell is Deanna?” I sob into the carpet and James picks me up and pulls me onto his lap.
“His wife.” He cradles me like a child as Charles excuses himself and takes off as well.
“And then there were two,” I mumble. The room turns bleary through my tears and I don’t stop the deluge from coming. James and I hold one another, crying rivers, crying out to God, screaming, shaking, trembling, burning with heat and fury.
How could this have happened?
Who the hell has our child?
* * *
In the shadow of the day, the cursed hours between three and five is when the composite artist is set to arrive. Cursed because the darkest moments of Reagan’s life occurred within that interval. I force myself to
splash some water on my face and sit next to James on the corner of our mattress while he calls my parents and relays the horrible news to them.
“I know,” James sobs silently as my mother’s voice pitches through the receiver. With every panicked cry my stomach pinches with dread, tightening the already impossible coil twisting inside me. I told James I couldn’t do it—too emotional. In truth, I was too much of a coward to face my mother’s wrath. My mother worked her whole life as a part-time bank teller, my father a high school English teacher. I came from a good family with a good standing, but behind closed doors my mother’s wrath was something delivered straight from the devil himself. She had an in with Satan because she was him.
“Let me talk to Allison.” Her voice peaks.
My body solidifies as I shake my head at him.
“She’s too distraught right now.”
“Put my daughter on the phone, dammit!”
James passes the phone my way and I reach over and press the small red button.
His eyes round out in horror. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“I’m sorry!” I bury my head in my hands a moment. “I don’t know. It was a gut reaction. You know I can’t speak to her. She’s degrading and belittling, and I don’t have time for that kind of bullshit in my life right now.”
My first memory of my mother was of her holding up a wooden spoon, one of her many choice weapons, and that smile she shed before it came crashing down over my tiny head. By the time I was eight, she graduated to pouring uncooked rice over the floor and having me kneel on it, bare skinned, facing the wall for hours. She once held my head under water in our family swimming pool until I blacked out because I had talked to a boy on my way home from school. I couldn’t get out from under her clutches fast enough, and when the day came for me to leave for college, I gifted her the finger once she left my dorm. I never looked back, but I maintain contact with her. We see one another during Thanksgiving and Christmas and she calls a few times a month. Bygones were bygones, and I had put her prehistoric parenting skills out of my mind. I was never going to be that kind of a mother, nor was I that kind of a mother. No. I was worse because I couldn’t keep track of my child.