NEARLY Trilogy

by Ashley, Devon

  My sister was gone. Taken. And I feared she never saw it coming.

  “You sure you want to keep reading that?” Nick asked me softly.

  I could suddenly feel the folder weighing down my other hand. I had completely forgotten it was there. I let it drop onto the table, right next to the bouquet of mixed hydrangeas he got me for Valentine’s Day. Obviously, we hadn’t celebrated the occasion, but he couldn’t let it go by without acknowledging it somehow. We’d have to make up for it later.

  “He took her,” I replied quietly back. My vision slowly sharpened as my mind began to wake up again.

  I’d cry but I was all cried out. I was so numb my body couldn’t even feel the inner turmoil anymore. It was kind of cathartic in a way. Without those emotions to hurt me and keep me weak, anger was allowed to build within me. But I didn’t feel blind-sided by it. Or overwhelmed. It was like my anger was a drip, supplying me with just enough to drive me forward. I could take it in these small doses, and for some reason it was all that I required to feel sated. Just enough anger to keep the more painful emotions trapped behind an invisible wall. Just enough anger to drive myself forward instead of crashing down.

  “It’s not your fault,” I heard him say, drawing me out of my stupor. “And it’s not Thea’s. Making yourself feel guilty won’t bring her back.”

  “I don’t feel guilty, I just feel...” I closed my eyes and swallowed. “I just need to fix it. Like I’m the only one who’s going to be able to do it.”

  “Hey,” he said firmly, turning my chin to really force my attention. His eyes were the first thing I saw when I opened mine. Even now they were as green as ever. Still as bright as an emerald. Like the past several years hadn’t killed his the way it had deadened my pathetic-looking brown pair. “Understand this. We are not trading you. You are not a bargaining chip to be used against Friggs if he has her. That is not how we’re going about getting her back.”

  Even now he was protective of me. Even though we both knew that keeping me safe was a nearly impossible feat. But I loved him all the more for it. For sticking with me though I was now nothing like the girl he fell in love with so long ago. Did he miss her? That Claire girl? Did he secretly yearn for me to wake up one day and suddenly be her again? It wasn’t something I felt I could get an honest response for.

  “Trust me when I say Friggs is the last person on earth I want to be alone with. But we both know why he took her. It’s a message. Thea had a new identity and he still found her. Just like Zander said, it’s only a matter of time before he finds me.”

  And quite frankly, I wanted to find Friggs before he found me.

  I squeezed his hand before pulling away, seeking out my cell phone. I hit the number two speed dial and waited for the operator at the switch board to kick me over to Detective Courtney O’Neill. She was the only authority figure who was on my list. If I wanted to know something, I had to go through her. It was the same for any authority figure on her end who wanted to speak with me. Very few people were allowed to contact us. It was pretty much her, my immediate family members and Nick’s mom.

  O’Neill answered by the second ring. Without so much as saying hello, I deadpanned, “Tell me you still have tabs on him.” I didn’t have to say his name. She knew exactly who I was referring to. After a moment of thought, she replied, “We do, and we sent people out with a warrant to check his home. Thea isn’t there. He claims to have no knowledge of her disappearance.”

  I snorted but somehow managed to withhold the urge to say duh. “Zander didn’t take her, Friggs did.”

  “Megan, I know you feel strongly about this, but there’s no proof. He can’t be the only person of interest if we’re going to find your sister.”

  “It wasn’t Zander,” I repeated more firmly. I could feel my annoyance rising. Why wouldn’t they just believe me already? “Do you really think Zander couldn’t slip past your surveillance if he wanted to? He’s sticking around, letting you watch him for a reason. He knew something like this was going to happen.”

  “All the more reason to think he’s involved.”

  A frustrated sigh spewed from my mouth, but before I could get any further, O’Neill added, “I promise we’re looking for Friggs, but I know I don’t have to sugarcoat this for you. We don’t know where he is. We had very little on him to begin with and all of it came from Zander Malone. For all we know there is a guy named Matteo out there and they broke up before she went missing. Or they went on vacation together. There’s nothing at the scene that even proves she was taken versus her just walking away from it all.”

  “Thea wouldn’t do that.”

  “Maybe, but we can’t rule it out until there’s some kind of proof. Or lead.”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “No,” she immediately answered. “You’re safe right where you are.”

  Safe my ass. I knew now that I would never be safe again. Ever. “Screw witness protection. It doesn’t work.”

  “It did work!” she exclaimed.

  “The hell it did! Zander sent me a fucking card! Through the mail! If he can find me here then so can Friggs! And if Zander already knew where I was then he wouldn’t be wasting his time taking Thea! He could’ve just come for me!”

  My outburst was so loud that Nick’s forehead furrowed with concern.

  O’Neill was able to soften her voice as if she simply flipped a switch. Maybe it was something she learned after all those years on the force. “What do you mean he mailed you a card? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I literally got it right before I found out about Thea. My priorities changed. And I’m not fucking worried about Zander. He doesn’t scare me anymore. Let me talk to him.”

  “No.”

  My jaw tightened as I squeezed my eyes shut, my head slowly shaking side to side. I could sense Nick moving closer. I already knew he wouldn’t want me to talk to Zander – he understood his mind games all too well.

  But this was fucking ridiculous. Thea was missing. Because of me. I wasn’t going to sit back and wait days, weeks, months or years for the authorities to get their shit together. I knew Zander well enough to know he knew something. I also knew he’d never tell anyone but me.

  “You can’t force me to stay in witness protection. If you won’t let me speak to Zander, I’ll put myself out there,” I boldly threatened. “I will fucking create every social account I can with my name and address for all the world to see. I will upload fucking videos of myself and tag every word possible that might draw Friggs’ attention to it. I am angry, O’Neill. I am so fucking angry. And I am done being the victim.”

  We sat in silence for a good thirty seconds.

  “Let me speak to Nick,” she demanded. I glanced his way. He was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed over his puffed-out chest, eyes set hard. He wasn’t mad at what I said, but I could tell the gears in his head were cranking away, trying to think how best to approach me. As if everything about me hadn’t already changed since the days of Claire, I was starting to feel like a ticking time bomb. Everything about his demeanor was calculating, like he was still determining how to best defuse this newer version of me. Claire 2.0.

  “I don’t need Nick’s permission to do this. I make my own decisions.”

  “You want me to schedule you something with Zander? Then put Nick on the phone.”

  I rolled my eyes but held the phone up in the air. I didn’t even bother to look at him as he moved to take it, I just plumped down on the sofa and leaned over to rest my chin on my hand. O’Neill did all the talking, which was nothing but muffles to my ears. And Nick wasn’t giving anything away. All his replies were uh-huh, yup, nope and okay.

  I finally met his eyes when he hung up. “Does she think I’m on the verge of losing it?”

  “Pretty much. She did ask if you’d seriously do those things if you didn’t get your way.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Yup,” he said, crashing on the sofa beside m
e. He leaned back, his hand moving to stroke my backside as I continued to lean forward on the edge. “She also asked if I thought you should get a mental evaluation, but I told her no.”

  I turned my head to meet his gaze. “You don’t think I’m going crazy?”

  His eyes tightened, his brain probably analyzing my every snark. “I think you’re growing stronger. Less fright, more fight. I think you’ve finally been pushed to the breaking point, and you’re probably going to lash out if you don’t get to deal with this in your own way.”

  “So are you mad at me for wanting to talk to Zander?”

  “I don’t like you talking to him, but I get why you want to. If you think it can help find Thea and you feel you can handle it on an emotional level, I’ll deal with it. But I don’t like giving him another in into our lives.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “But if he knows anything he’s only going to tell it to me.”

  “If he knows anything there’s going to be a price to pay. So you need to think long and hard about this. Exactly what are you willing to pay?”

  At this point I was beginning to wonder if it really even mattered. What could he possibly do to me now that he’d been outed to the authorities?

  My face must’ve given away my lack of concern, because Nick was quick to add, “And please keep in mind it may not be something I’m willing to let you pay.”

  Didn’t I know it?

  “We need to call your parents.” Nick hit the speed dial again, going through the system to connect with them.

  “I’m not telling them about meeting with Zander,” I argued strongly.

  “I’m not asking you to. No point in worrying them.” He passed the phone over now that it was ringing. I switched it over to speaker.

  “Hello?” my mother asked with so much desperation it broke my heart.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey.” There was relief in her voice but I knew she was still distressed, fearful of the call that would crush her soul all over again. I could hear my dad in the background asking if there was any word. “No,” I told them. “And I just checked in with O’Neill.”

  She sighed so long and deep I worried how she and Dad were really holding up. “Are you guys doing okay? Do you want to drive your RV down here? I know we’re not supposed to–”

  “No, no,” she interrupted quickly. “This isn’t the time to be breaking rules. If Thea…” Mom paused to take another long breath. “If Thea has gone missing, then we need to be safe. Are you being safe? Tell me you’re being safe.”

  “Yeah, Mom, we’re being safe. We pretty much only leave the house for groceries.”

  “Well, do you have to do that? I’m sure there are plenty of ways to order those online and have them delivered. California loves that sort of thing.”

  I silently shook my head. I was already in witness protection with a new identity. I was not going to let some asshole force me to become a shut-in. Placating her, I replied, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Letting my eyes dance for Nick, I told her, “We’ll look into that.” Nick however, remained stoic as he listened in. He’d better not be agreeing with her right now.

  “What about Nick? Is he going to work?”

  “Are you kidding me? He’s so attached at the hip right now a hatchet couldn’t separate us.”

  “Good. That’s a good man you’ve got there. You’d better keep that one, Megan.”

  I caught Nick out the corner of my eye, silently chuckling. Shut up, I mouthed with a smile I couldn’t contain. My mom was so weird sometimes. I wondered if she even realized I had her on speaker for Nick to hear. I hated to think it, but I was ready to get off the phone already. I loved my parents dearly, I did. Even though my memories of them were sparse. But sometimes I just didn’t know how to react on an emotional level with them. Not like with Nick. With him it was easy.

  “Oh, Megan. I know you’ve been through so much. I prayed every night that your suffering would end. Only now I realize I was so focused on you that I didn’t pray for your sister half as much. Now…”

  “Mom! This did not happen because of your prayers or lack thereof. We don’t know why Thea’s missing. She could be out with that guy or was in accident somewhere and she’s unconscious or amnesiac. Whatever the reason, it’s not your fault.”

  Most likely it was mine.

  “Just don’t blame yourself, okay? Hopefully she’ll be home soon with some amazing, non-life-threatening tale to tell us all. Alright?”

  I by no means believed any of my words, but if that was what my mother needed to hear, that was what I was going to say.

  “I hope your right, sweetie. Your father sends his love. We both do. To both of you.”

  “We love you too, Mom.”

  “Stay safe,” she instructed.

  “Yeah, you too,” I replied softly. I felt almost broken when I got off the phone. Leaning back, I rested my head on the arm Nick had stretched out across the top of sofa. “Is this what it was like when I went missing?”

  “No,” Nick quietly admitted. “There was way more panic. You were barely seventeen. Thea’s an adult. Deep down they’re still hoping she went on a Valentine’s trip with this guy.”

  “Are you still grasping at that straw?”

  He slowly shook his head. “No. I know she hated her job and I could see her not caring if they fired her for not showing up…but she’d never go this long without contacting us or your parents.”

  My head rocked in agreement. When he rolled his head my way, I did the same. “Promise me you’ll do what your mom asked.”

  With a grimace, I replied, “We’re not buying our groceries online.”

  He tightened his eyes because I knew exactly what he was referring to. “No. The part where you don’t do anything stupid.”

  I silently gazed at him. I wasn’t sure what I could promise at this point, so I didn’t make one. All I could do was offer a soft, loving smile.

  “Ma’am,” the detective said to me as he opened the back door of his car. Even though it was an unmarked unit and Nick and I were the passengers, the locks on the back doors had remained engaged, forcing us to wait for them to be opened from the outside.

  I didn’t like locked spaces, and it made me antsy the entire drive here.

  It was scary to think Zander had been living so closely. We were chartered out to Eugene, Oregon on a private flight that took less than an hour. I’d been told the drive would have taken less than six from where we lived in Redding, California. It made me wonder if Zander knew where we lived before he chose that spot, or if it was just coincidence. He was just far enough away to be considered a decent distance, but close enough he could easily make a round trip if he wanted.

  He didn’t live in the city, of course, but somewhere out west in Veneta. His house was ridiculous. Cozy cottage exterior painted a medium gray with way too much white trim. There was a white picket fence around the yard, white railing around the front porch that took up the right half side, and a matching wood screen door that had a fucking heart carved in the center of it. A large green hedge blocked most of the bay window on the left, but on the right, blue hydrangeas that perfectly matched the shade of my tattoo lined the porch that wrapped around the side a little.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled beneath my breath. Cool, crisp air that was sharp and heavy with the fragrance of fir trees only made the moment more sickening.

  “Something wicked this way comes,” Nick muttered uncomfortably beside me with a deadened voice. “If he has an oversized oven in the kitchen, don’t climb in.”

  I turned to face his profile. It was almost scary how crazy still he was. “How are you so calm right now?”

  His jaw twitched slightly before answering. “I’m not.”

  “Are you going to be able to stand out here while I do this?”

  He rocked back and forth on his heels, his hands buried inside his jacket pockets. “If you can stand to face him, I can stand to wa
it outside,” he replied. I was pretty sure he mumbled the punk under his breath at the end. Zander had agreed to meet with me, but he was very adamant that Nick wasn’t allowed to be here for it. Technically, he probably shouldn’t even be waiting outside, but Nick wasn’t going to put that much distance between us when Zander was involved. I was impressed he was able to keep from showing whatever anger was raging within.

  “Besides,” he added, “he’s not dumb enough to do anything today. No way he believes this detective is the only one out here.”

  I nodded my agreement, my eyes skirting up the road where a car parked shortly after we arrived, the male driver still behind the wheel, his attention affixed on us. It was just one of three I knew were positioned nearby. It was hard to admit, but the added security was a huge reason why I was feeling fearless at the moment. Zander hardly scared me anymore, but I still knew what he was capable of. Scared or not, I always had to be on my toes with him.

  “Okay,” I said over a heavy exhalation, feeling the slightest twinge of panic deep within my core. I needed to move before it had the chance to spread. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I followed Detective Menlow up the cobblestone path and stood beside him as he rang the bell. A quick look behind me showed Nick had changed his stance – his arms now crossed over his chest, his glare menacing, preparing to meet the eyes of the man he loathed so much.

  The vision behind that door when it opened made my forehead furrow, my eyes squint. The hell?

  Zander – or at least someone who resembled Zander – stood there with a mild smile on his face, wearing pressed white slacks and a button-up long sleeve shirt that was soft pink and left open up top. A light blue sleeveless sweater vest was over it.

  Feeling my jaw tightening, I met his eyes when I snarked, “Beautiful day, isn’t it Mister Rogers?” I brushed past him without an invite, knocking my shoulder into his arm as I added, “Didn’t realize I was in the neighborhood.”

  Without even looking, I could feel the grin creeping across his face.