by Evelyn Glass
Chapter Twenty-Four
When I woke up, it took me a second to realize what had pulled me out of my slumber.
Mona was still lying next to me, sleeping deep, her back turned in my direction. I touched her bare shoulder, and tried to figure out if it had been her—but she was in such a deep sleep that she couldn’t have made a sound.
I pulled myself upright, my heart pounding hard in my chest. Something was wrong.
Calm down. I tried to reassure myself. This was just a hangover from everything that had gone down over the last few months, my brain’s way of attempting to keep the lot of us safe now that the danger was done with. Ian was locked up; no one was posing a threat to us anymore, and I needed to remember that.
And that’s when I heard it—the sound of a footstep in the kitchen downstairs.
I sprang from the bed, hard enough that I woke Mona up. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, but any vestiges of sleep vanished at once when she saw the look on my face.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, and reached for her clothes. I was already dressed and on my way out the door.
“There was a noise downstairs,” I said, heading out the door. “Can you check on Ella?”
Mona hurried out of the room and towards Ella’s bedroom as I sprinted towards the kitchen. We’d probably laugh about this later, about my paranoia, about how I heard noises in the middle of the night and they turned out to be nothing at all.
I had never felt the kind of fear I had when I reached the bottom of the stairs and looked over at the kitchen. A cold wash of it, enough that it made me sway on the spot, as I tried to keep myself upright by gripping the banister.
A pool of smashed glass was lying on the floor, glinting in the light of moon outside; it had come from the window above the counter, the one that Mona had seen Ella fleeing out of the first time she’d come around here. Is this what had woken me up? I scanned the place to see if anyone was hiding in the shadows, but I couldn’t make out any figures in the dark. My heart was pounding so hard against my ribs, I was certain it would burst out at any moment, and I called up to Mona cautiously. I knew what the answer to the question was going to be, but I had to hear it out of her mouth before I could believe it fully.
“Mona, is Ella there?”
There was a long, long pause, the silence hanging in the air between us in agonizing tension as I waited for her to respond.
“No.”
I lunged for the door, throwing it open and peering out onto the street—it was still and silent out there, except for the sound of a car tearing down the road. It was right opposite the house, and I gave chase as best I could. It took a second to get up to full speed, and in that time, I caught up enough to see who was in the backseat.
“Ella!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, loud enough that it must have woken all the neighbors. But I couldn’t have cared less—as soon as I laid eyes on my daughter, sleepy and uncomprehending but still as scared as I’d ever seen her, I couldn’t hold it back. I sprinted after the car, reaching out as though I could pull it to a stop right there in the street in front of me, but it was gone before I had a chance.
I stood there in the street for a second, right in the middle of the road, staring at the space where the car had been. It felt as though my feet were rooted to the spot, as though I might never take another step again. Then I heard the door to the house bang open behind me, and Mona strode towards me. Her face was etched with panic and fear.
“What happened?” she demanded, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. I stared at her for a moment; only a few hours ago, everything had been perfect, and now, it had all gone to shit. I thought the worst was over, but it turned out that the worst was only just beginning.
“They took her.” I waved my hand after the car blankly.
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. None of this made any sense. Ian was locked up—who else did he have on his side who could have done this? Who would have dared? How could we have been stupid enough to think that this was all over when we were clearly in so much danger?
“What the fuck are we going to do?”
I was still just standing there, not sure what I was meant to do next. My brain was blank, etched with the image of Ella being driven away from me. Why hadn’t she screamed, or cried out, or let us know some stranger was in the house and taking her away? How hadn’t I heard the window smashing, or the person coming up the stairs? How could I have let this happen? My brain spun with recriminations, and I suddenly wanted to smash my hands against the tarmac below me, something, anything, to wake myself up. My brain was on autopilot, with just enough juice left to keep me standing upright and breathing.
“Jazz!” Mona yelled, grabbing me by the shoulders; I suddenly realized that my legs had crumpled out below me. She did her best to keep me standing, but the feeling of her hands on me was enough to drag me out of my reverie and snap me into action.
“We need to call the police,” I began, gripping her as I pulled myself upright. “I’m going to chase them. See if I can catch up with them.”
“Did you see what direction they went?”
“Mostly.” I made for the garage where we’d parked up the night before. Mona hurried back into the house and I tapped in the code to open to the door to the garage. I didn’t care about getting my helmet or my leathers or any of that shit—I just wanted to get on my bike and go after my daughter. I had tunnel vision, only able to see her face, praying that wherever she was she was still alive and that I still had a chance to get her back.
I switched on the light and strode over to my bike—but as soon as I got there, I realized something was wrong. I took me a second to figure it out, but when I did—
“Motherfucker,” I snarled. The tires had been slashed. Whoever had done this had planned it out well. They must have known that I would try and make chase. I checked Mona’s car, and found that the same had been done to her tires, too. I pressed my head into my hands and let out a yell, a cry of despair and fear and anger that I couldn’t do anything about what had just happened. I wanted to rewind time, to sit up all night next to the door and put a bullet in the head of anyone who tried to hurt Ella.
I made my way back inside the house slowly, the horror of being in there without my daughter hanging heavy over my head. I was so used to her company, to hearing her and having her and being near her. But now…I had to walk back in there and know that I hadn’t done enough to keep her safe.
Mona was just hanging up the phone when I arrived. She turned and raised her eyebrows when she laid eyes on me. “What’s wrong?”
“They slashed the tires to my bike,” I explained, defeated. “And your car too.”
“What?”
“They must have planned this out for a long time.” I ran my hand over my face, trying to pull myself back to reality. Surely, this had to be a nightmare—there was no way this could have happened. A fever dream, a leftover from everything that had already happened. Because this was absurdly horrible. Impossibly so.
“I called the cops, and they’re on their way to take a statement,” she murmured. Her voice was soft, and I could tell that she was having as much trouble with getting her head around this as I was. I just… I knew this wasn’t how it worked, but everything had been so perfect so recently. It didn’t feel right that everything should be snatched away so quickly. It didn’t feel possible.
I sat down on the edge of the couch, where we’d fucked only a few hours earlier, and stared out of the window blankly. Waiting for the cops to arrive, I found myself willing Ella to walk through the door and put an end to this nightmare. But I knew that getting her back wouldn’t be as easy as that.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I had never known a silence like the one we sat in while we waited for the police to turn up. Jazz paced back and forth, the only sound in the room that of his shoes hitting the floor over and over again. A rhythmic pattern, every step sending a shiver dow
n my spine.
When I walked into Ella’s room and saw that she wasn’t there, I felt as though my heart had been ripped straight from my chest. Even as I had crossed the corridor to her room, I had tried to assure myself that I was overreacting and that nothing was really going on. Jazz was just paranoid, that was all. But when I saw her bed, empty, the sheets pulled back and her dinosaur plush sitting next to her pillow, I wanted to tear my hair out of my scalp just to distract from the agony that was lancing through my body. And when I returned downstairs to find Jazz, telling me that she was gone and that someone had taken her, I didn’t know how to do anything else but sink to the ground, call the cops, and try to convince myself that this was all some awful nightmare that I was about to wake up from at any second.
It was late and we were far out from the center of town, so the cops took a long time to arrive; hell, maybe it was only a few minutes and it just felt as though the time stretched out in front of us for what seemed like hours. My mind raced as I went over everything that had happened. How could we have been so naïve, naïve enough to think that all of this was over? There we were, playing happy families, playing at being in love and safe and sound—all while we should have known that it wouldn’t be done with that easily. I wanted to slam my fist against the marble counter, furious with myself, furious with Jazz, furious with everyone for no good reason.
But who could have done this? I racked my racing mind. Ian was locked up—that was the only reason we had come back here in the first place, and I was certain that Scott would have called if he knew something to the contrary. I couldn’t think who else would have done this—Addison, maybe? Perhaps he was in on the deal? Or that person who’d been following us in Ian’s car?
He had to have had an accomplice—it was bad enough knowing that we had one crazy guy after us, but the thought that someone might be working with him was even worse. Not just because of the danger it put us in, but the knowledge that Ian had convinced someone else that his path was righteous and important and worth committing unthinkable crimes over…it didn’t bear thinking about. As a social worker, I knew there were people out there who would do bad to kids, but usually I was able to hold them at arm’s length. I never thought one would make themselves so important in my personal life.
Suddenly, a knock came at the door; I sprang to my feet and raced for it, throwing it open, and found myself faced with two police officers, a man and a woman. Behind them stood Scott. My heart dropped, as though I’d half-expected whoever it was to be bringing Ella back, this whole thing written off as some giant mistake.
Scott pushed through the officers and into the house, looking around as though he expected to see something terrifying huddling in the shadows—instead, he saw Jazz gripping the side of the couch, turned to the door to see who had arrived. The officers followed Scott inside and approached Jazz.
“Jazz?” the woman officer asked gently, holding her hand out to him. “We just need to—”
“You need to get after him, now,” Jazz ordered, snapping into the motorcycle-club leader that I’d seen so often before. “Do you have a car? Whoever it was, they slashed the tires on our—”
“We have an APB out on your daughter,” the officer assured him. “But we need details of the car, and of everything you else you saw tonight.”
Scott approached me, gesturing for me to come aside so he could talk to me in private. Jazz glanced over at the two of us as the officers closed ranks around him, but he turned his attention to them, knowing that they were the ones who could help him right now. Scott took my arm and led me into the kitchen. He must have been able to see the strain on my face, as he pulled me into a hug as soon as he had me out of sight. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face into his shoulder; I was too exhausted to cry, and even though the hug didn’t solve anything, it made me feel marginally better about everything.
He pulled back, and held me by the shoulders; he examined my face carefully.
“What is it?” I asked, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
“It’s about Ian,” he began, hesitantly. My pulse picked up.
“What? What about him?” My voice was louder than I intended, and Scott motioned at me to keep quiet.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder at the officers talking to Jazz. “But when I heard that the call had come in about a missing child and I recognized Jazz’s address I had to come down. I was going to tell you in the morning, but…”
He dropped his hands from my arms and let them hang uselessly at his sides. I could see the guilt etched heavily on to his face. I knew how he felt.
“Scott, please tell me,” I begged him. I felt raw and sore and open, like a wound; I didn’t have time for him to mess around. I felt as though I might collapse at any second. He paused for another moment before he spoke, then held his hands up as though apologizing in advance for what was about to come out of his mouth.
“He got out,” he finally replied. “I’m sorry, I should have told you—”
“He—” I exclaimed loudly, then lowered my voice, pushing my face closer to Scott’s. “He got out?”
“Three hours ago. And none of us thought—well, we just assumed that he wouldn’t go back to your place as quickly as that, that he would go into hiding for a while to let the heat die down. But it turns out he didn’t.”
“And you’re just telling us this now?” My voice was low and steady, but that wasn’t because I was in control.
“I’m sorry,” he implored, and I could see that he meant it—for what it was worth. “I wanted to tell you, but they said they would send over a unit to watch over the house as soon as they could get the paperwork through—"
“Paperwork?” I snapped. “That’s the reason we’re in this whole mess? Because of paperwork?”
“I know, I know.” Scott bowed his head, conceding the point. “Trust me, if I had it my way…none of this would have happened.”
“Thanks for telling me, at least,” I sighed, closing my eyes and fighting the urge to lay my head down on the counter right there and then and go to sleep. “Is there anything else? Any idea where he might have gone to or why…why he might have taken Ella? Beyond what we already know?”
“I don’t think so.” Scott shook his head, and I opened my mouth, but he cut across me to speak again. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but we only know as much as you do. We’re in contact with his brother Addison, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue either.”
“So that’s that?” I threw my hands in the air. “We just have to wait for the cops to get on this?”
“That’s what everyone else has to do, Mona,” he reminded me gently. I knew he was just trying to help, but his tone felt more condescending than anything. I found myself glaring at him against my better judgement. I needed him on my side, and we had already put his ex-mentor in the hospital. The last thing we needed was for me to sprout an attitude.
“You’ll keep me updated, won’t you?” I took his hand and squeezed tightly, imploring him. He met my gaze and nodded, and I knew he meant it.
“I’m sorry about…all of this.” He waved his hand around the house impotently.
I sighed heavily. “I think we all are.” I met his gaze—and the expression on his face was almost enough to have me breaking down in tears right there and then. I could see the guilt, see the fear, see the regret over getting involved with this in the first place. It was everything I was feeling, and seeing it reflected on the face of my friend like that was almost unsettling in its prescience.
“I should go.” Scott glanced over at the officers. “Please don’t let anyone else know that I told you about Ian being out of jail.”
“I won’t,” I promised him. “And thank you. I know I’m not acting like it but…I’m grateful for this. Really.”
“I know.” He nodded, and gave me another quick hug. “Just take care of yourself as best you can, okay? I’ll see you soon when I know mor
e.”
He made his way out of the kitchen, and there was a small chatter of voices as he and the officers headed for the door. As it clicked shut behind them, silence spread across the room once again. Jazz took a second to come find me, but when he did, I could see the tears pricking in his eyes.
“They’ll be back tomorrow,” he announced, his eyes drooping.
“Did they tell you?” I came towards him as he approached me, and wrapped my arms around his shoulders; I wasn’t sure whether I was holding him up or offering him comfort, but either way, he seemed as though he needed it. He looked up at me blankly.
“Tell me what?”
“About Ian,” I replied. I didn’t want to be the one to break this to him, but I didn’t see any other way around it. His face tightened. I mean, he must have known on some level what I was about to tell him, but that didn’t make it any easier to get the words out. Why wouldn’t the cops have told him? Maybe they were trying to keep him from panicking. Hell, he probably hadn’t been all that useful—I knew what he was like with cops.