Psychological Thriller Boxed Set

by Addison Moore

  “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 as 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.

  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 ar
rived. “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.

  The phone buzzes in his hand and I take it from him. “I’ll handle this.” I head to the guest bedroom, pick up, and hang up. Instead, I pull out my own phone and dial the correctional facility that holds my sister. Welders Correctional Facility in Northern California is about as anti-prison as you can get. It’s more Club Med meets Camp Lockdown, and Jane has never been happier. I know this because those were her exact words once she was transferred over from a state-run facility. Jane Greer never took her husband’s name, but she took his life. That was a part of the prosecution’s closing argument. I secretly thought it was a cute play on words—cute being the irony, of course.

  “Jane Nicole Greer, please,” I say as the operator at the facility picks up the line. “This is her sister, Allison Leigh Price.” I’ve never understood the rationale of adding the middle name, but the correctional facility insists we use them as some sort of code to verify who we really are. Jane is my older sister by four years, same face, same dark head of hair, same general distrust of the world—a parting gift from our mother.

  “Is this a family emergency?”

  “Yes, it most certainly is.” I wait patiently as the operator cues my sister and moody rock music from the seventies fills my ear. James steps in and I mouth the words my sister before he heads back out. It feels like a relief when he’s gone. Like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I know that I haven’t been an angel in this legal contractual obligation of ours, but besides that, it has always felt as if James and I were warring with one another long before Reagan arrived on the scene.

  The music stops abruptly. “Ally from the valley,” Jane chirps on the other end. She’s not worried for me in regards to the family emergency because it’s the same excuse I use to speak with her on a regular basis.

  “Reagan is missing. She’s gone.” My voice hurtles before my thoughts like machine gunfire. The bullets hit you before you know what’s happening. That about sums up this nightmare. “She disappeared three days ago. I don’t know who’s taken her. There was a girl and she was evil. She was in on it and there was no house at the end of the damn street!”

  A dizzying conversation ensues between the two of us with her volleying emotionally charged questions at me and with me adding more confusion to the situation by way of convulsive sobs.

  “Did you tell Mom?”

  Ironically, it’s the mention of my mother that quells me enough for me to regain my composure. “Yes. She knows the facts.”

  “Shit.” Jane’s voice is huskier than my own, hardened like tires on gravel as if she were a longtime smoker, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just her way. Life has always made her a little rougher around the edges than it did me. As much as I put up a front that everything was fine and dandy at home, Jane took my mother’s abuses and wore them like a badge with pride. She rode around with the bad boys as soon as she was old enough—as soon as she figured out how much it pissed off our monster of a mother.

  It wasn’t poor Jane’s fault. My mother had carved her existence out in stone with each crash of the wooden spoon. In Jane’s mind, danger had linked itself to excitement and she sought after men who would treat her ten times worse than our mother ever did. But finally, her patience wore thin and so did her twice broken arm. The third break was the charm—her attorney coined the phrase—and she snapped. Jane pulled a butcher knife from the kitchen and slit her husband’s throat in bed. The prosecution argued he was asleep, but Jane insisted he was watching television, a show about an Alaskan family who lived in the wild. Poor Donny wanted to live in the wild far away from civilization and his stark raving mad wife. But he was an abuser, and in the end, he suffered the ultimate abuse. Jane later told me he really was sleeping, but that was the only way she knew for sure she could pull it off. He was stronger than she was by
over a hundred pounds. And now she gets three hots and a cot for the rest of her life. Her words, not mine.

  “I need my baby.” I moan as I rock myself over the floor. “Help me, Janey. Help me, please.”

  “You better believe I’m going to help you.” The line goes silent, and I can practically see my sister’s wheels spinning. “You don’t think this has anything to do with the Cronelle family, do you?”

  “No.” I’m emphatic about it. Martha Cronelle was our neighbor back on Walker Avenue when we lived in Woodcrest. Jane and I were in elementary school when we witnessed Graham Cronelle bash his wife’s head into their built-in barbeque. Jane and I were prone to spy on any and everyone, and this was one time it bit us in the ass. Once Martha Cronelle turned up mysteriously dead, we confessed to our father the heinous thing we had seen and he marched us right down to the police department and had us relay every grizzly detail. He was not tolerant to men who beat their wives, just wives who beat their children. “I don’t think so. It would be weird.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. His boys tortured me for years in school. Garret and Ginger.”

  I blink to the ceiling, suddenly regretful I ever called my sister. “I don’t think his name was Ginger. That’s just what you called him.”

  “He was a shit. They both were. And they’ve always been bitter that we took away their father.”

  “I know.” It’s true. They cornered us one day and told us off. Their aunt had to raise them. She denied them the video game trance they were accustomed to and cut off their supply of dirty magazines that their father kept them fresh in. “They were shits, but they didn’t do this.”

  “How about that idiot that made your life miserable?”

  My blood runs cold. She doesn’t even have to say her name. I don’t want her to. I don’t want to think it. She’s like a demon, easily conjured to life and hard as hell to get rid of.