by Tamar Sloan
Something on the table catches his gaze. A bowl is sitting on it, a tendril of smoke climbing up from its contents.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Reign mutters.
He grabs it angrily and storms back out, relieved he has something tangible to do.
Anger is preferable.
Anger is familiar.
Anger is the only way he can make that awful image of the Hell-face go away.
It’s what worked every other time he’s seen it.
2
Arielle
“Oh god no,” Arielle gasps as she stares down at herself. “No, no, no.”
Panic climbs up her throat with each denial, hiking her voice.
She heard the sound of glass smashing when she dropped the shopping bags, but she’d been too busy trying to stay alive as that car came at her. Now, with her heart still hammering hard against her ribs, she can’t tear her gaze from the thick red lines trickling down her legs.
She moans, feeling lightheaded. “This can’t be happening.”
“Are you okay, darlin’?” An elderly woman with pink hair totters over and peers at Arielle, the soft lines of her face crinkled with concern. “That was a close call.”
Arielle looks down, her eyes stinging with tears. “No, I’m not.”
The woman gasps, drawing back in horror. “Sweet Lord, you’ve been hurt.”
Arielle’s hands flutter down, only to come back up, hovering as she figures out what in the world to do with them. It’s too late. The damage has been done.
The elderly woman glances around frantically. “Help! This girl needs help! She’s bleeding!”
One or two people pause, but when they hear the final words, they quickly resume walking past as if a near-death experience never happened.
The woman huffs, asking under her breath whether anyone’s heard of the story of the Good Samaritan. She comes around to look more fully at Arielle’s injuries.
Arielle’s lip trembles. Nothing can make this right.
The woman shuffles closer only to reel back. She takes in the broken glass and red spatters. “It’s ketchup!” she says incredulously. “You’re covered in ketchup!”
“I know!” Arielle wails. “My boots have been destroyed!”
The woman’s gaze flies to hers. “You’re acting like this because of shoes?”
“Not just any shoes! These boots are practically an extension of my soul!”
The woman retreats, now looking at Arielle as if she’s grown horns. She shakes her head, muttering as she walks away. “The Good Samaritan never had to worry about a drug-screwed generation.”
Arielle ignores her, too distraught to point out she’s never taken anything harder than Tylenol. Not when her boots have ketchup splattered all over them.
“Jerk!” she shouts down the street, even though the silver car is long gone.
The douche who was zooming down the market street is the one responsible for this. Arielle doesn’t care how big his eyes were as he desperately swerved around her, looking horrified. Her knee-high Converse will never be the same again.
Pulling her leather backpack from her shoulders, she carefully withdraws the packet of tissues she always keeps in the front pocket. Bending over, she dabs at the pale canvas on her calf, wincing as the blood-colored blotch only expands.
“I’ve had these boots for over a year, and I’ve kept them immaculate,” she mutters to herself. “When some guy fails to kill me, he decides to ruin my one treasured possession, instead.”
Her heart aches as she catches a trickle of sauce before it treks any further down. The ketchup on her laces is the hardest to get off seeing as it’s already started to absorb.
“If this stains, so help me…”
A few feet away on the pavement, a woman tugs her child closer as she hurries past, looking at Arielle strangely.
Arielle returns to her job. “And now I’m getting weird looks again,” she mutters darkly. “That asshat is lucky he drove away.”
The piercing wail of a police car has her straightening. It turns into the street in the same way the silver sedan did, slowing when it sees pedestrians everywhere.
“Which is exactly what jerk-dude should’ve done,” she says to herself.
Arielle considers waving the cop car down so they can understand the trauma she’s endured, and what direction the no-doubt stolen vehicle went, but the car’s gone before she can lift her hand. Sighing, she goes back to mopping up the gore on her beloved boots.
“They’ll never be the same again,” she whispers dismally.
When her phone rings, Arielle fishes it out of her pocket, not surprised to see Aunt Shell’s name on the screen. That woman has a sixth sense when something’s happening to her niece.
And today has been disastrous.
She presses the connect button. “Aunt Shell, the worst thing has happened!”
There’s a pause. “You’ve heard?”
It’s Arielle’s turn to hesitate. “Heard what?”
“So, you don’t know?”
There’s something in Aunt Shell’s tone that has Arielle frowning. “I’m confused. What are you talking about?”
“Ari…”
Aunt Shell seems to lose momentum, and Arielle’s confusion morphs to fear. Her gregarious aunt could talk the legs off a millipede.
“What’s going on?”
Even to herself, Arielle’s voice sounds small. Like she’s suddenly eight and not eighteen.
“You need to come home. Something’s happened.”
Arielle freezes, her throat too constricted to talk.
“It’s your mother,” Aunt Shell chokes. “She’s missing.”
The taxi pulls away from the curb, but Arielle barely notices it. Her panicked mind tries to process what she’s seeing. The door to their townhouse is wide open, ready to welcome her.
She blinks. Her mother is almost obsessive about security. She’d never leave the door open.
Rushing up the stairs, she takes one step inside and comes to a halt. The antique hall table is where it always is, the Persian vase her mother brought back from the Middle East after a conference still sitting on it. Everything is where it should be. Like nothing’s changed.
Arielle finds herself creeping down the hall, as if she doesn’t want to fracture the normalcy. She pushes away the sense of surrealness. Like she’s stepped onto a movie set. Or some sick practical joke.
“Mom?” she calls out instinctively, only for Aunt Shell’s words to start their nauseating parade through her mind again.
It’s your mother. She’s missing.
How could her mother be missing?
Inside, the living room is like the hallway—exactly the same. Her mother’s favorite reading chair, the one all the way from Iran, faces the fireplace she tiled over. The lounge has several sheets of paper—the journal articles her mother never seems to stop reading—scattered on it. The rugs, the tapestries on the wall, the hookah she never used, are all where they were this morning.
It’s as if her mother could walk in at any moment.
“There you are.” Although the voice is familiar, it’s not the one she needs to hear right now.
Aunt Shell rushes in from the kitchen, engulfing Arielle in a thick hug.
Arielle clings to her, sinking into her familiar softness. “What happened?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” says a male voice from behind them.
Pulling back, Arielle finds a suited man standing in the kitchen doorway. His friendly, smooth features lift into a smile. “Good afternoon, I’m Detective Kane.”
“Ah, hi,” she says guardedly.
He’s a cop, which means Arielle instantly doesn’t trust him.
Brown haired with intelligent dark eyes, he schools his smooth features into a wider smile, the motion probably meant to put her at ease. “We’re going to do everything we can to find your mom,” he assures her.
Arielle has no doubt her mother
was told the same thing when her father went missing before she was born; if law enforcement had come through with their promises, then Arielle would know what he looks like.
Aunt Shell slips an arm around Arielle’s shoulder, squeezing a little as she addresses the detective. She tucks a stray blonde hair back into the bun it never stays in. “Thank you, your help is most appreciated.”
Detective Kane pulls out his notepad. “So, Arielle—”
“Why do you think my mom’s missing?” she interrupts. “Just because no one can contact her, doesn’t mean she’s been taken.”
The detective’s face softens with sympathy. “Your mother didn’t arrive at work today.” He tucks his hand into his pocket and pulls something out. “A woman fitting her description was snatched from Argyle Street earlier today.” Arielle opens her mouth to ask, but he seems to expect that. He holds out the item—a watch. “My guess is this belonged to your mother.”
Arielle’s knees go weak. The glass of the watch is cracked and the face barely legible, but Arielle recognizes it. It’s most definitely her mother’s.
“We already have officers asking people in the area if they saw or heard anything,” the detective quickly assures. “And we’ve done a thorough forensic sweep. If the perpetrator left behind any evidence, we’ll find it.”
Aunt Shell nods and Arielle follows her lead mutely. Words she’s never heard outside a TV screen have now become her reality.
Forensics.
Evidence.
Perpetrator.
Her head aches as she struggles to assimilate it all.
Detective Kane clears his throat. “Arielle, can you tell me what happened this morning, before you left the house?”
“The usual. We had breakfast. I went to college.”
Her mother was supposed to arrive at work.
He raises his eyebrows a little. “Was there anything unusual? Was your mother acting strangely in any way?”
“No.”
Aunt Shell squeezes Arielle’s shoulder again, but Arielle ignores the subtle nudge. Her throat is too tight to say more than a few words right now.
Plus, she doesn’t believe for a second that this smooth smiling detective will be able to help them.
Aunt Shell smiles apologetically. “Sierra has never bothered to follow rules and norms. She’s always been a bit...unusual.”
Detective Kane scrawls a few lines in his notepad. “Can you think of anyone who would want to cause your mother harm?”
“No,” Arielle says again, this time with more force.
Her mom is an academic. She spends more time exploring the written word than real life. Who would want to hurt her?
Aunt Shell shakes her head. “Sierra lectures at the university, in the history faculty. She’s highly esteemed by other academics in the area.”
“So, no jealous coworker? Maybe a possessive boyfriend?”
Anger flashes through Arielle, straightening her spine. Aunt Shell quickly jumps in before Arielle can point out that her mother has never even glanced at another guy after her father.
Arielle has always wondered if her mother harbors the same secret wish—that one day he’ll walk through the door, smiling, maybe a bit teary, proving that the death certificate tucked away in their filing cabinet is false.
“Sierra is single,” says Aunt Shell. “And I doubt few people have the level of expertise she does in Middle-Eastern history. She has no competition.”
“And you were at work, Michelle?” he asks her.
“Yes. I came by when I finished my shift at the hospital to chat over a cup of tea. It’s a routine we have.”
Sierra and Shell aren’t just sisters, they’re best friends. If Aunt Shell has a tough shift in the ER, she debriefs with Sierra. If Sierra wants to share her latest discovery amongst her dusty tomes, then Shell is the first to hear about it. In fact, Aunt Shell has been a second mother to Arielle as she grew up.
Detective Kane turns to Arielle. “And where were you after university?”
Arielle’s hands clench. “We’re your best suspects? A missing woman’s sister and her daughter?”
Aunt Shell is about to jump in with another peace offering, but Detective Kane simply nods in understanding. “This has all been a terrible shock. But I promise, finding your mother is my number one priority.”
Arielle clamps her mouth shut, not wanting to point out that’s highly unlikely. She may know her mother is a wonderful, caring, kooky woman, but to Detective Kane, she’s little more than a case number in a long list of case numbers.
She sighs. She’s not normally this rude and obnoxious. It’s just that she’s never had so much taken from her in such a short period of time.
“I went to the market after school to pick up the ingredients for dinner.” It was Arielle’s turn to cook, and she planned on preparing pumpkin ravioli. “I was—” she stops herself from relaying the near miss with the speeding car. Aunt Shell has enough to worry about right now. “I’d just accidentally dropped the bags when Aunt Shell rang.”
Detective Kane pauses in his scribbles. “We had an incident with a speeding vehicle on market street. Do you know anything about that?”
“I heard some commotion, but I didn’t really see anything,” Arielle hedges, conscious she’s not a great liar.
Detective Kane waits to see if Arielle will say anything else, but she gazes at him blankly. She doesn’t want the jerk on market street to be any more of a priority in the detective’s caseload.
His mouth thins. “Well, if you remember anything, let me know.”
He passes Arielle his card and she takes it, nodding. So much for her mother being his number one priority.
A few more scribbled notes and Detective Kane snaps his notebook shut. “Our next step is to see if anyone saw or heard anything, and to get the forensics report. I’ll be in contact with you tomorrow morning, either way.”
Arielle waits as Aunt Shell sees the detective out. The room is disturbingly silent. The emptiness is a suffocating weight.
Aunt Shell returns and stops on the other side of the room. She swallows, her gaze roaming over the room before it settles on Arielle. She scans her from head to toe as she approaches, as if making sure she’s unhurt.
Arielle’s lip trembles. Then her heart shudders in her chest. She’s most definitely hurting.
Her legs give out and she sinks to the floor. She runs a shaky finger over the splotches on her boots, now the color of dried blood.
“Oh, Ari,” Aunt Shell chokes as she sinks beside her, pulling her into her arms.
Arielle clasps her back, hating the grief that’s crowding around them.
“Where is she, Aunt Shell?” she whispers.
Her father disappeared and was never found. Assumed dead.
And now, her mother is gone, too.
3
Reign
Reign stomps out of his room and into the adjacent one. Just like his own, it no longer has a door, but he and Mac are long past the need to knock. Reign strides past her as he sits on the bed and shoves open the window, only getting more irate when it’s more difficult than he would like it to be.
Once it’s creaked and groaned a few inches open, he pushes the bowl through and holds it out over the street. “Someone left their bowl of weed in my room, still burning,” he growls angrily.
Mac is reading a newspaper, and she doesn’t bother to lower it as she answers, “That’s annoying.”
“Dammit, Mackenzie! It’s your bowl!”
She lowers the newspaper, arching a dark eyebrow. “I’m not using it anymore. Thought you might want it.”
Reign jerks his arm in, holding the bowl toward Mac. “So, you thought you’d leave your dope in there, too? Still lit? What if I hadn’t come back today?”
Because he’d been caught by the cops. Arrested. And was sitting in a cell, waiting for his one-way pass to jail.
The newspaper crinkles as Mac folds it in half. “Ah, the bowl’s empty, Reig
n. Just like it was when I dropped it off in your room.”
Reign’s mouth opens to correct her, only for the words to be wiped away. She’s right. The bowl’s no longer smoking.
Because it’s empty.
Reign yanks it closer, peering at the smooth interior. “What the…” He scowls, looking back up. “Is this another one of your practical jokes? Because I ain’t laughing.”
Mac shakes her head. “Not this time. Although a part of me is wishing it was…”
He blinks, his stomach contracting painfully. He’s seeing things again? First the Hell-face, and now imaginary smoke?
With a flick of his wrist, he throws the bowl across the room. It hits the wall with a thud, leaving a dent beside a faded drawing of a skull with roses for eye sockets.
“Maybe it’s time you lay off the happy herbs yourself,” Mac suggests.
Reign clenches his teeth. “So now you’re all kale smoothies and downward facing dog, huh?”
Mac shrugs. “I didn’t want it to ruin my complexion.”
Reign snorts. “You don’t want all those face creams to go to waste?”
Although Mac is a power punch of beauty with her caramel skin, thick black curls and dark eyes flashing with intelligence, she never acknowledges it. In fact, she spends more time pointing out she’s short and her hair needs to be permanently tamed into a bun. Even if they had the money for face creams, she wouldn’t use them.
Picking up the newspaper again, Mac narrows her eyes. “What’s with you today?”
Reign’s hands clench, wishing he had the bowl so he could throw it again. Harder. Maybe through the window this time.
He committed larceny.
He almost ploughed through a terrified girl.
He’s seeing things.
“Crap day,” he states flatly.
“Why don’t you go suck on a dead dog’s nose and see if that helps?” Mac arches a brow. “I think there might be one in Rico’s room.”
An unwilling smile hovers over Reign’s lips. “I think he’s under the impression it’s still alive.”
Mac angles her head. “I’m pretty sure it’s just an old sweater of his.”