by Ciara Shayee
“Feel free to say ‘no,’ man, I won’t be mad. It’s a lot to ask, I know that.”
Sudden comprehension dawned, and Laker’s mind took off at a mile-a-minute. He mentally compiled a list of phone calls he needed to make, his grandfather’s flight attendant friend right at the top.
“I’ll go, man. Of course, I will. Is later tonight all right?”
“You’re…you’re kidding? You’ll go?”
Laker chuckled as he lifted himself up and half-walked, half-jogged towards the villa, his wet feet slapping against the tiles.
“I’m not kidding, Arch. Of course I’ll go with them. That’s what you were gonna ask, right?”
Archie agreed in a hushed tone that gave away his surprise. Surprise that almost insulted Laker, because why wouldn’t he go? Over the years Reagan and Peter had been like uncles to him. They’d supported him throughout almost his entire life. And wasn’t he just complaining that there wasn’t anything to do until his grandfather-slash-boss returned?
Besides, Reagan and Peter aside, Laker had always adored Indie and Grace. They weren’t just Archie’s shadows—they were his, too. Indie, especially. From the very beginning she’d taken a shine to the dark-haired Italian boy her brother befriended at holiday club. The little blonde had often followed him around like a loyal puppy, blue-green eyes curious and so inquisitive when she’d pepper him with questions about Italy, being a boy, his love of the piano when most boys wanted to play football or rugby.
Her enthusiasm and friendliness had been never-ending, never-waning, and Laker had always harboured guilt at not being a better friend to the family when the girls went missing.
So, no—if there was something he could do now, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d pass it up.
“So, tonight? Too late? I’ll get the earliest flight I can.”
Laker hung up five minutes later, tossing his phone without thought in the direction of the bed. With Archie’s grateful assurance that tonight would be fine, Laker powered up his laptop to book the earliest flight out with one hand, while using the other to throw random clothes into a bag.
~ oOo ~
Hours later, he hopped from a taxi outside Reagan’s house, tipping him heavily for making the journey from Gatwick even though technically he’d been off the clock for over an hour. As the cab pulled away, Laker turned to face Reagan’s and Peter’s houses, looking between the two with a nostalgic smile. It was dark, being almost midnight, so the warm, flickering glow emanating from the living room window of Reagan’s house made him feel at home. Having spent every holiday in England since he was three-years-old, Laker felt comfortable standing in this street.
Wistfulness curled in his stomach; Easter egg hunts, joyous summers, Halloween sugar highs, and carolling at Christmas reminding him of the great childhood he’d had thanks to the Ashbys and the Davieses.
Memories of all those thing also reminded him of Indie and Grace’s situation; reminded him that they didn’t have any of those things beyond the age of eight.
A gust of wind swept through Percival Road, pushing Laker into action. He hoisted the duffel further up onto his shoulder before walking quietly along the side of the garage to the gate separating the driveway from the back garden. His lips quirked up on one side at the sight of Carl-Roman’s miniature slide and sand-pit, both things he’d carved from scratch. The slide was the most difficult, especially when Laker had realised he’d built the frame too big for the plastic chute. Some wooden animals carved into spare off-cuts solved the problem while adding some charm to the piece. Laker was extraordinarily proud of both items.
Walking across the patio, Laker sent up a fervent prayer for Reagan to let him stay the night. It wasn’t until he was already on a plane heading for London that he’d had an epiphany; there was no way he’d survive the night in a house with Archie’s fiancée, Kristen. From the beginning of their relationship, he’d struggled to find anything in common with the woman.
The French doors slid open without a squeak, his flip-flop-clad feet making a loud clack as he stepped onto the tiled floor of the kitchen. In the dim light of the solitary lamp in the corner, Laker noticed the room hadn’t changed a bit since he last visited, just before Christmas. Heavy footsteps on linoleum floors alerted him to someone approaching. He squared his shoulders and smiled weakly just as Reagan appeared in the doorway.
The older man squinted. “Laker? What the heck are you doing creeping in at…midnight?”
“Missed you too, old man.”
Reagan snorted, “Yeah, sure you did.”
“Uh, Archie called.”
Immediately, Reagan’s eyes teared up, his voice thick when he nodded and said, “I figured. You’d better come in and get comfy, son.”
The pair sat at the table until late—or early depending on your viewpoint—drinking coffee and reminiscing, both awed and exhilarated at the thought of Indie and Grace being rescued after all this time. Nobody had ever said it, but as the years crawled by, they’d all known the odds. Known that with every anniversary of their abduction, the chances of the girls being brought home alive were decreasing.
The pair stumbled to their beds—Reagan’s upstairs, Laker’s the room that had been converted for Carl-Roman when he started having sleepovers—around three a.m., both exhausted.
For the first time in twelve years, Reagan didn’t dream of his daughter’s funeral.
~ oOo ~
“Reagan, the car’s here!” Peter yelled from the bottom of the stairs.
Reagan jogged down the stairs, all-but shoving Peter out the door. Laker grinned in wry amusement at the two men as they flew down the path. Archie shook his head beside him, his eyes red, smile strained. It wiped the grin from Laker’s face.
“Hey,” he said, clapping a hand on his best friend’s shoulder. “Everything’ll be good, a’ight? Before you know it, we’ll be back with Indie and Grace.”
Archie breathed long, low, and deep before offering Laker a grateful nod, holding sleeping baby Chase just a little tighter. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
“I’ll take care of everything here,” he choked out the last couple of words when Reagan came over to say ‘goodbye.’ “Just bring them back. Bring my sisters back.”
For the first time in a long while, when Reagan’s eyes met Peter’s, they could see mirrored hope. It made their chests feel looser, backs just a little straighter.
“We will, son. Take care of Champ and this little guy.”
“Bye, Pawpaw! Bye, Uncle Peter, an’ Uncle Laker!” Carl-Roman sang from the doorstep, appearing with an armful of dinosaurs and a yellow digger. He stood beside his father and brother to watch Laker climb into the back of the black van sent to take them to the airport. The driver hesitated long enough to tip his hat to Archie before stepping on it.
A solitary tear rolled down Archie’s cheek, dark eyes following the vehicle until it was out of sight.
~ oOo ~
The next hours passed in warp-speed.
Reagan and Peter were so occupied with trying to figure out how this day could have been so insane before seven a.m., they didn’t have the wherewithal to pay attention to the scenery shooting by. Laker was the opposite. His eyes were fixed on the world on the other side of the tinted windows. It wasn’t because of the particularly pretty view, or a fascination with residential areas in South East England, but because, truthfully, he was exhausted. He’d only had a couple hours sleep after a flight that had lost him an hour. Not to mention Reagan’s feet clomping down the stairs early that morning. He’d beaten both the birds with their first song and the sun beginning its ascent into the sky.
Over-tired, Laker let his stinging eyes slide shut, pondering the situation. Archie and his boys would be spending time between their house, Reagan’s, and Peter’s, where Peter’s daughters were staying with their paternal grandparents. Heidi and Pippa were already with Roy and Mary, so he hadn’t had to worry about them that morning when he’d walked over
in a hoodie and pale blue plaid pyjama bottoms.
Reagan and Peter’s construction firm, AD Construction, would be overseen by Roy while they were away.
Shuffling around to get comfortable, Laker recalled Peter’s call to his dad earlier on. Once Roy and Mary had been suitably filled in, Peter had requested they kept what they knew to themselves until he knew for sure what was happening. It wasn’t just his feelings he had to consider. He didn’t want his youngest daughters to ever feel heartbreak, so he’d wait. It was a hard decision to make but in the end, he was certain it was the right one. Until he had more facts, Heidi and Pippa didn’t need to be worrying.
The houses, when Archie couldn’t be there, would be watched over by their friends and neighbours. Mark and Josie—occupants of one-sixty-one, to the left of Reagan’s house—had promised to keep an eye on things. There had been plenty tears shed there, too, when Laker had gone with Archie to fill them in. They moved in the summer before the girls’ disappearance, newly-wed with big dreams and an unblemished world-view. They’d adored the girls, Laker and Archie, too, and had even made a hole in their fence to match the one between Reagan’s and Peter’s homes so the children would have a third garden to play in. In the time since, they’d welcomed two boys of their own and couldn’t fathom the joy at finding out Indie and Grace were alive after all these years. They’d promised to do anything they could and were anxiously awaiting news.
Unsurprisingly, Reagan’s and Peter’s thoughts were in line with Laker’s.
Rain pelted the van as it sped down the motorway toward Gatwick. Reagan was hit by a maelstrom of memories. Days before the girls’ abduction, Archie had gotten the call he’d been praying for—he’d gotten a job as a lifeguard at the local pool. Four weeks after the girls went missing, Archie told Reagan about the nightmares plaguing him; dreams of the girls splashing in the pool, squealing when the wave machine tossed them around.
The screams when it sucked them under and never let them go, Archie unable to move his legs to save them.
Reagan’s chest tightened as he remembered his son, so lost without Indie and Grace. Most boys his age would have hated being followed around by two glittery pink fairies. Not Archie. He loved them both equally, blood relations be damned. They were born a couple of hours apart when he was six years old—old enough to remember the day clearly. Karen went into labour first, two weeks late, and Penelope had insisted on going with her and Peter despite being thirty-eight weeks pregnant herself. Not two hours later Reagan had had to drop Archie with Laker and his aunt and uncle down the street to rush to the hospital.
For the next twenty-four hours, Penelope and Karen had alternated between chatting, laughing, and battling contractions in their rooms next-door to one another, often sneaking out when the nurses weren’t looking to bundle into one room. At eight a.m. on the twenty-third of March, Karen was ready to push. By lunchtime the same day, both Indie and Grace were laying in their respective father’s arms, swaddled in knitted blankets with caps atop their heads, initials sewn into the hems.
It was a sign of things to come, Reagan mused ruefully, casting a forlorn glance out of the window as they headed into the terminal where they were due to catch their plane. From the day the pair were born they’d been best friends. Sisters, in their eyes. He knew they always saw each other as more than just friends, their personalities so entwined it was impossible to separate them for long. During their time in school, teachers often made comments about their inseparability. One had even dared to suggest they be put into different classes. A heated discussion between two angry dads and the headmaster later, and the girls were moved—together—into another teacher’s classroom. Nobody would have questioned the bond if they’d been related biologically, so why should people just because they had different surnames, different blood?
The van slowed to a halt. Reagan found himself praying fervently that Indie and Grace were still together; praying for them to have relied on their bond to keep them both strong.
Hope was all he had left.
~ oOo ~
In the departures lounge, Reagan, Peter, and Laker listened to their escorting officer, PC Richardson, as he explained what he knew. It wasn’t a whole lot, but it was enough to send their tempers through the roof and their pulses skyward.
The girls had been found, but they’d gotten away in the midst of an explosion on the ranch where they were being held. There was a warrant out for the arrest of the man believed to be responsible; just one of the many crimes he was thought to have committed being human trafficking. It was a possibility the men had considered over the years, but never wanted to believe. To even consider their girls being kidnapped to be sold like cattle was enough to bring them to their knees.
PC Richardson, a portly man of around fifty, with grey hair, a round face, and pale blue eyes, explained that there were agents specialising in this kind of case on the hunt for Indie and Grace all over Montana.
Grumpily, PC Richardson informed them that the FBI weren’t currently sharing a whole lot of information, but he promised to share everything he knew.
Their discussion came to an end when a woman’s voice called for all business class passengers to begin boarding. Hoisting duffels over their shoulders, Reagan, Peter, and Laker shared a tremulous smile before following PC Richardson onto the first of three planes which would, hopefully, reunite them with their girls.
~ oOo ~
The flight from Gatwick to New York was horrific.
Unexpected turbulence meant nobody was allowed to stand for more than a few minutes at a time before the seatbelt lights flashed on. Reagan and Peter spent the entire journey thinking of worst-case scenarios for what they may be faced with in the coming days, each one more painful than the last. The worst by far was the one in which they got there too late, the girls lost once again.
The dull roar of the jumbo jet engines along with the chatter of the other passengers was enough to keep out the heart-stopping nightmare—the girls they got back, if they got them back, wouldn’t be the same girls they’d sent off to school twelve years before.
They’d sound different. Act different. Look different.
In Reagan and Peter’s minds, they were still the bubbly eight-year-old girls obsessed with pink and princesses and fairy wands that they’d always been.
When Reagan thought of Indie, he saw rosy cheeks, a toothy grin, and his late wife’s untameable curls in the same shade as his own.
Peter imagined his eldest daughter with short, wavy auburn hair, two missing teeth in the front of her mouth, and a baby doll on her hip, always.
It hadn’t settled in, for either of them, that when...if…they got their girls back, they wouldn’t be the same.
During the flight, in-aircraft WiFi allowed PC Richardson to check in with his colleagues. He updated the men, unsurprised to note that his news of a witness being placed into WitSec garnered thoughtful, slightly shocked expressions. They wondered what part this witness could have played in the girls’ lives, whether he or she was on their side, or the side of the suspect. It was just another thought of many driving them mad with nervous anticipation on the way into New York.
Peter gazed out of the window at the clouds around them, feeling every bit as terrified as he had all the times the police thought they’d found a trail only for it to turn out to be nothing, or for it to run cold.
Ever since Riley Lawrence called with the news the girls were alive, his heart hadn’t returned to its normal rhythm. Indie and Grace were out there, alone, and nobody knew where they were or what sort of state they were in after the explosion. Peter couldn’t be sure, because it was a long time ago that he was in school and geography wasn’t his favourite subject anyway, but he was fairly confident there were all kinds of dangerous animals roaming Montana.
Images of crazed, foaming-at-the-mouth bears with slashing claws bulldozed through his head, the snarling of rabid wolves hot on their heels when a crackling voice came through the overhead speaker
s.
“Could everyone please ensure that their seatbelts are fastened and secure for our descent into JFK…”
Peter’s light brown gaze met Reagan’s blue-green in the adjacent seat, longing, fear, and terror very much prevalent in both men’s eyes.
Above all, though, they clung to their hope as the jet carried them down towards New York and the answers they were waiting for.
~ oOo ~
“Reagan, Peter.”
The men stared at the agent standing before them in the arrivals hall. He had short, sandy brown hair and ice blue eyes, his posture confident, head held high, expression bordering on excited. The lines around his eyes told tales of sleepless night and hard work, while the grin on his face screamed delight at the recent developments. Riley Lawrence was about three inches taller than both Reagan and Peter, putting him at about six-two, the same height as Laker. Something about his eyes intimidated them.
Reagan nodded in greeting, shaking the hand he extended before Peter did the same, then Laker.
“It’s good to meet you. This is Laker McKinley, my boy’s friend, a close friend of the family.”
Laker and Riley shared a nod as they shook hands, then the agent stepped back to greet the officer escorting them.
“PC Richardson, I presume. Do you have the paperwork I requested? Thank you.”
PC Richardson didn’t hesitate to slide a folder from the bag slung around his shoulders, handing it over to Riley as they began discussing transport arrangements. Instead of looking through the folder like Reagan, Peter, and Laker expected, Riley simply tucked it into a bag of his own before leading the party through the throngs of people. “We have a car waiting. I and my team will fill you in as best we can before the next flight.”
His explanation was swift, his tone curt, as they marched through the sea of people.
Reagan spotted a man cradling his baby daughter, a woman beaming at them from close by. It put a lump in his throat he couldn’t swallow.