“Hey, is that your phone?” asked Maria.
Amy promptly shut off the hairdryer, and registered the old fashioned brrring, brrring of her cell. She checked the caller ID.
“Sorry,” she said. “My kid’s school. Do you mind...”
“I’ve got kids, I know,” said Maria, waving her off without looking up from her magazine.
Amy frowned as she pressed Send. She only got calls in the middle of the day if Paisley was sick, and she’d seemed fine this morning.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Elgin? Amy?”
“Yes,” said Amy.
“This is Rita Suarez, the principal at your daughter’s school.”
Amy moved away from the whirring machines and loud voices on the salon floor, toward the spa side. A cold dread silenced her butterflies. When Paisley was sick the nurse called, not the principal.
“Hi, Ms. Suarez. What’s going on?”
“I’m here with Ms. Wright, Paisley’s teacher. I’m afraid something concerning has happened. I’m going to need you to come in right away, is that possible?”
Amy’s feet felt rooted to the floor, making this entirely impossible.
“Why? What happened? Is Paisley...”
“There’s been an incident, Amy. We’ve already informed the police.”
Her hand was shaking. “What the hell happened?” The fact that Ms. Suarez hadn’t just come out and said it pushed her fear to a whole new level.
Aiden Farrell. Corbett Connolly. Even Jonathan Marshall. Their names cut through the ringing in her ears.
No. They were gone.
“The kids went out for morning recess. It...it would really be better –”
“Just tell me!” Amy shouted. Her voice echoed off the low ceiling. She was vaguely aware that everyone was looking her direction. Overhead, the speakers played an awful techno song that pounded in cadence with her pulse.
Ms. Suarez inhaled audibly. “Paisley didn’t come in from recess. We have everyone available looking for her on the grounds right now. Sometimes children hide, this sort of thing becomes a game, and if that’s the case we’ll find her soon enough.”
Amy’s stomach dropped like a stone. There was a faint buzzing in her ears.
“You lost her?”
“We’re not entirely sure she’s off the campus.”
“You lost my daughter.”
It was a school. Teachers. You were supposed to trust teachers.
“Amy, it’s really better if you come in. But first, can you tell me what she was wearing this morning? Ms. Wright said she thought it was a pink T-shirt.”
She pictured the old woman who always gave her that judging stare when she was two minutes late. That woman had lost her child. If something happened to her, Amy was coming for her first.
In her swimming vision, Derrick suddenly appeared. He touched her elbow gently, trying to escort her off to the side. She followed on numb feet, wishing Anna was here. Anna would have already gotten her in the car and been careening down the highway.
Anna was on her honeymoon, on a cruise ship somewhere in the Caribbean.
“She was...” Amy swallowed. Closed her eyes and pictured the last time she’d seen Paisley. “She was wearing a dark pink shirt with yellow flowers on it. Green tights and a black tutu.” How was it possible that her teacher couldn’t have remembered that?
Ms. Suarez muffled the phone. Amy could barely hear her repeating what she’d just said.
Paisley was missing. It felt like her heart had stopped beating. Like it was no longer in her chest.
Her daughter. A part of her. Her life.
She remembered her first cry. She remembered her first steps. The time she’d rolled off the bed. The way she’d yell, “Wee!” when you pushed her on the swing.
She was hiding. Just like she used to hide under the bed. She was okay. She had to be okay.
“How long?” Amy managed.
Ms. Suarez hesitated. “It’s been almost an hour now.”
“Go,” said Derrick. “I’ll finish up with your client.”
Amy’s life lurched into fast forward. She ran for the break room, swinging in just to grab her keys. She didn’t remember going outside, or getting into her car, or if she’d even paid O’Malley’s bar a second glance as she sped by. The next thing she knew, she was on the freeway, and her phone went crazy on her lap, beeping and vibrating with an alarm she’d never heard.
Cutting across two lanes of traffic, she glanced at the screen.
Amber Alert. Paisley Elgin. Age 6.
She didn’t read the rest. With fate’s cold hand clutching her throat she sped toward the school.
***
Leaving her car parked on the red curb in front of the fire hydrant, she ignored the two cop cars outside the playground entrance and raced down the concrete sidewalk, between the two columns painted like red and blue crayons. The inside of the elementary school was equally as colorful, with paintings and pictures tacked to bulletin boards all the way down the hallway.
She was met in the foyer by Rita Suarez, wearing a sage-green skirt suit.
“Have you found her?” Amy asked.
Ms. Suarez held out her hand, directing her toward the office. Amy didn’t move.
“No,” she said. “But we’re doing everything in our power...”
“There are parks nearby,” said Amy. “Have you checked them?”
“The police are looking. They’d like to speak to you.”
Oh God, she thought. Give me Paisley back and I will do anything.
She tried to think, but her thoughts were racing too fast. She searched for her phone in her purse, but it was already ringing.
“Mike, she’s gone,” she answered, knowing it would be him. He would have gotten the same alert. “She disappeared at recess more than an hour ago.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“School.”
“On my way.” He hung up.
The panic was sharp as a knife inside of her. It felt like Danny’s anger. It felt like Jonathan’s insanity. Like Val Connolly’s fear.
Ms. Suarez was wrong. Paisley wasn’t hiding.
“Where’s Chloe?” Amy asked.
The principle’s brows rose beneath her neat, curled bangs. “All the children are in class. But you can’t speak to them without a parent...”
Amy turned, and ran down the hallway, past the colorful paintings, past the administrative offices, where a police officer in uniform waited outside. Amy heard him follow. His shoes squeaked on the linoleum beside the principal’s clicking heels.
When she got to the classroom, she whipped back the door, and it took everything in her power not to grab Ms. Wright by her starched collar and shake her.
“Chloe?”
Chloe was seated near the door, and slid out of her chair. There was no smile. No hug. She didn’t even meet Amy’s gaze.
Amy dropped to her knees and pulled her close, swallowing her sob. She was here. She was okay.
“Ms. Elgin,” said the principal sternly.
“Do you know where she went?” asked Amy gently.
Chloe shook her head.
Amy remembered the way she’d stared at the ground when Paisley had called her a bitch before the wedding. She had the same feeling now, that there was definitely something wrong going on.
“I understand your concern,” said Ms. Suarez, “But unless her parent...”
“We live together,” said Amy. “Her father and I are together.”
The principle objected again, but Amy cut her off.
“Chloe, it’s all right,” she said, swiping her own hair out of her face. It was sticky; she hadn’t realized she’d been sweating. “You won’t be in trouble. Just tell me.”
Ms. Wright tried to redirect some of the other children nearby, while the principal tried to convince them to step outside into the hall.
“I’m not supposed to tell,” she said. “We sister swore.”
Amy�
�s teeth felt like they would shatter she squeezed them so tightly together.
“You have to tell,” she said. “If it means one of you are in danger, you have to tell. That’s...” She forced herself to breathe. “That’s the only way to break a sister swear.”
A tear slipped down Chloe’s cheek. Amy wiped it away. Each second felt like an hour.
“He’s been coming to see her. Down by the bus entrance where the gates don’t lock.”
He. A thousand sick, terrible scenarios slammed through Amy’s mind all at once. She was vaguely aware of Ms. Suarez kneeling beside her, and the cop, who was also close now.
Don’t let it be them, she thought. She remembered what Alec had said about the Fox. About people disappearing.
“Who’s he?” Amy’s voice trembled.
“Her daddy,” she said.
For a split second Amy was actually relieved. At least this he wasn’t faceless anymore. And then the dread she’d felt since she got the phone call doubled, and then doubled again inside of her. It took up all the space in her lungs, until she could only breathe in short little gasps.
“Ms. Elgin? Amy? Why don’t you sit down.” She recognized the principal’s voice but it sounded as if it was coming to her through a tunnel.
“She went with her dad?” asked Amy, hoping there was still a chance this wasn’t correct, that Paisley was just hiding behind the handball wall or something.
Chloe nodded. “He’s got an earring in his eyebrow.”
She pictured Danny as she’d seen him last. Hair too short, eyes too harsh. Leaning against her car like he had the right to touch anything that belonged to her. Wearing that same silver eyebrow ring he’d had since she’d first met him.
“Okay,” said Amy. “Okay. He’s come here before?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
She shrugged. Her lip quivered. “Is Paisley really in danger?”
There was no point in lying. “Yes. But we’re going to find her.”
“When he came, did Paisley say anything about where they might go? Something fun they might do together?”
My daddy takes me to ice cream all the time. And to play at the park.
Paisley had told Chloe this on their way to school one morning, before she’d gone to the bank and been distracted by the missing money. Amy remembered the nightmare she’d had about her father, and wondered how she hadn’t seen that this was going on.
“Ice cream,” said Amy over her shoulder to the cop. “She mentioned that her dad liked to take her there, and to the park. His name is Danny Elgin. He doesn’t have custody.”
“Any priors?” asked the cop.
She wished she’d filed assault charges against him when she had the chance. Hate for the man she’d once promised everything to shook through her.
“No.”
There were more questions. Some asked by the cop, some by the principal. She didn’t answer any of them. Her phone rang.
“Mike?”
“Any news?”
“No.”
“You’ve got Chloe?”
“Yes.”
“Marcos is meeting us at the school –”
“It’s Danny,” she said, her voice breaking. “Danny has her.”
A beat of silence.
“Wait there for Marcos. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” His voice steadied her, even filled with urgency.
“Where are you going?”
“He was staying in a motel up north.” She heard the screech of tires, then a car honk in the background.
“Mike,” she whispered. She couldn’t tell him not to go there. He wouldn’t have listened anyway. “Be careful.”
“It’s going to be all right.” With that, he hung up.
***
There would be no waiting for Marcos. She had to do something, anything. She wasn’t going to sit in an office while the police looked for a girl they’d only seen in the picture she’d provided, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to leave another girl she loved in this place.
Texting Mike the change in plans, she loaded Chloe into the car and headed for her old apartment. Iris wasn’t answering her phone, but she never did when she took her afternoon nap. Chloe would be safe upstairs with her grandmother while Amy searched.
She was painfully aware of each minute that passed. Statistics hammered her brain, the kind she wished she didn’t know. The first three hours were crucial. Children not recovered within three hours were often not recovered.
If the clock started at the end of recess, Paisley had been gone one hour and fifty-six minutes.
To Chloe’s credit, she moved fast. Amy didn’t have to say a word as they tore out of the car and ran up the steps. By force of habit, she glanced toward the door to her apartment before taking the third flight of stairs. Momentum carried her upward, but her head turned back in a double take.
The front door was cracked, resting on its hinges.
“Chloe, go upstairs,” Amy said. “The key’s under the mat. I want you to lock the door behind you and call your daddy, okay? Tell him to call the cops.”
Chloe followed Amy’s gaze toward the apartment door.
“Now,” said Amy.
Chloe ran. Amy waited until the patter of her little footsteps was quiet, and the door had shut behind her.
She walked across the landing, and very slowly eased open her apartment door. It creaked, like it always did, making every muscle attached to her spine clench.
He was standing in the living room, wearing that same black jacket that hung off his shoulders. His jeans were dirty, stained on the thighs, and his hair stuck up like he’d spent too much time pulling on it. When he turned sharply toward the sound, his gaze stopped her in her tracks.
His eyes were wild, strained with desperation, and one look told her this was a man who was capable of anything.
“Time’s up, Paisley,” Danny called into the bedroom behind him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
His voice, thin and unsubstantial, broke her trance.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She stepped forward, slowly, as if approaching a rabid dog. The fear was gone now, outside her body like a shadow. It clung to her heels, whispering of the past. She’d been so scared of him before. Of everything. Scared of being on her own with a child, scared of letting Paisley down, scared of not being enough. Scared that he would hurt her, really hurt her when he’d found out that she’d taken his little girl away from him. Even the last time she’d seen him, outside the salon, he’d clouded her ability to think.
The person who feared him was gone.
Danny raised a brow at her tone. “I don’t have time for your bullshit, Amy.”
He spoke to her the way he used to speak to her, like no time had passed at all.
“And I don’t have time for yours.” She’d left the foyer and could see down the short hall to Paisley’s room. There had been a scuffle inside before, but now it was quiet. “I told you seeing her would be a bad idea.”
“Paisley, hurry up,” he snapped.
Their daughter came out of her room carrying two plastic grocery bags, stuffed with clothes and stuffed animals.
Amy felt a sickening mixture of relief, and cold rage.
“Pais, honey, come here,” she said.
“We’re leaving.” Danny moved closer to her daughter, bringing Amy to a halt. They made a tense triangle, each watching the other, trying to determine their next move.
Paisley’s eyes were round and terrified.
“Mommy?”
Keeping an eye on Danny, Amy motioned Paisley forward.
“Go to Ms. Iris’s and lock the door,” she said.
“We’re going down to the car,” said Danny, moving forward. “There’s no time.”
“Put the bags down,” said Amy calmly. “Go upstairs.”
Danny removed a set of keys from his pocket, turning toward the exit.
“If you’re half as smart as yo
u think you are, you better get out of my way, bitch.”
The word straightened her spine, just like it had in the hotel room at the beach when Paisley had said it. She had no doubt now this is where it had come from.
Paisley sniffled. She put the bags down.
“Don’t say swears to Mommy,” she said.
“Get your shit and let’s go,” said Danny impatiently. He made a move toward their daughter, but Amy jumped in front of him.
“I took your credit card,” Paisley confessed with a sniffle. “It came in the mail. He said to take your wallet but I gave him that instead.”
Amy’s eyes squinted, unsure what she meant.
“Jesus,” said Danny. “Your fucking debit card was expiring. The bank sent you a new one.”
It was like he couldn’t stand not to take credit.
“That’s how you made the withdrawals in my name,” said Amy calmly. “Pretty sure that’s illegal.”
Danny gave a sound of annoyance.
“Pais-”
“You touch her,” interrupted Amy, “and I’ll kill you.”
Danny rocked back on his heels, a sneer on his face. He laughed dryly. “Well, look who went and found themselves a backbone.”
“Glad you noticed,” she said.
Paisley moved closer to Amy’s side. One small step at a time. Amy urged her onward.
“It’s all right, honey,” said Amy. “Your dad’s not going to hurt you.”
Danny’s grin vanished. “You think you’re tough? Just because you’ve got that big son of a bitch and his pal wrapped around your finger? I bet you let them do anything they want to you, don’t you? You just lay there like a dead fish while they take turns.”
“Paisley,” Amy said.
Amy glanced down at her, and when her daughter met her eyes she lunged forward, just as Paisley darted behind her toward the door.
“Get back here,” Danny ran after her, but Amy blocked his way. She pushed him hard, and thrown off balance, he collided into the empty coatrack.
The door smacked against the wall, rattling the framed pictures that hung just beyond it.
Paisley was gone.
Amy was made of stone.
Danny laughed again, pushing himself to a stand.
“You just blew her only chance of making it out of this,” he said. “I got men coming for me. Bad men. I was going to protect her, but no, you can’t have that, can you? Always have to fuck up everything.”
More: A Body Work Novel (The Body Work Trilogy Book 4) Page 33