by Apryl Baker
“Me?”
He laughs. “You. Anyone who dares mess up her floors is in for it. She’ll make me help you, but you won’t get out of it.”
I think he means it. I kick off my tennis shoes and grip my bag harder. It’s not often I go to other people’s houses. It makes me nervous. I never know how to act. The few times I’ve gone to Jake’s, we mostly hung out in front of the TV until supper –which was weird for me too. They always eat together and I was nervous since I don’t normally eat in a family setting. I usually grab something and eat in my room.
“Relax, we don’t bite, promise,” he whispers. I force my fingers to uncurl from around my bag’s strap. I hate it when anyone can tell that I’m nervous.
The kitchen is right off the garage. It’s bright and airy, done in soft blues and whites. Stainless steel appliances are worked into the beautiful oak cabinets lining two of the walls. A breakfast table done in the same soft honey color of the cabinets is piled high with mountains of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Orange juice and milk complete the ensemble. She really has gone all out. This much food tells the story of a woman expecting to feed the bottomless pits of two boys growing stomachs. No one else could eat this much.
“Well, hello.”
Dan’s dad. It has to be. He’s a very tall man, even taller than Dan. Salt and pepper gray hair, cut short, is standing up on all ends. His wire rimmed glasses are perched on his nose. Eyes as blue as Lake Norman on a clear summer day stare at me with a hint of laughter. It looks like he’s just managed to crawl out of bed. He’s still in his pajama bottoms and a tee shirt.
“You didn’t tell us you were bringing a young lady to breakfast.” He turns reproachful eyes on his son. “I’d have gotten dressed.” Dan definitely learned some of those guilt and trust stares from this man.
“Sorry, Dad,” Dan grins at him. “Want me to go put my pajama pants on so you won’t feel completely embarrassed?”
“Don’t tempt me,” he smiles back. “I’m sorry, let me go change…”
“No worries, Mr. Richards. It’s Saturday and you weren’t expecting me. No need to change your routine because of me. I would’ve been lounging in mine if Dan hadn’t hauled me out of the house at an ungodly hour.”
“It is at that,” Mr. Richards agrees and motions for us all to have a seat at the table. “So what are you two up to at such an early hour?”
“I’m helping Mattie with a project.” Dan slides into the seat next to mine and grabs the bacon. His mother promptly gives him a stare that would cause even Mr. Winter’s, the meanest teacher in the world, to freeze up.
“Would you like to say grace, Mattie?” Mrs. Richards asks me.
“Er…” They pray at breakfast? I have never said grace in all my life and don’t even know where to begin. Sure, I had one summer of Sunday school, and I picked up a few things like not cussing, but do I believe in the whole greater power? I still don’t know.
Dan sees panic in my eyes and tells his mom he’ll do it instead. I’m only half listening, startled at the thoughts of prayers. I hadn’t pinned Dan for being the religious type.
“Bless this food we are about to receive and give us the courage to get through the day,” Dan mumbles quickly. “Amen.”
His dad laughs out loud when Dan and his mom vie for the plate of bacon. Dan wins and grins before handing it back to her. She smiles. It’s something they probably do all the time. It has that family feel to it. Something I’ve never been privy to. This is why I hate going to people’s houses. It makes me miss all the things I’ve never had, gets me sad and feeling just a little sorry for myself. Sadness and self-pity: Two feelings I hate with a passion. Usually I get really snarky, but I will try to control myself. Maybe. Depends. Only if I let self-pity win today.
“So, Mattie, what grade are you in?”
Dan’s dad startles me out of my little mental tirade. “I’m a junior,” I tell him and take the plate of bacon Dan passes me.
“And you and Dan are working on a project?” His eyes stray to his son and stay there. Oh, great. I hope they’re not getting the wrong idea here.
“Yes, sir,” I tell him. “I’m doing an assignment on crime scene investigations for my science project and Dan is helping me create a mock crime scene and all the boards I’ll need for the investigation. I’m doing it from a rookie’s point of view and since Officer Dan here is so new to the force, I thought he might give me the best input.”
Dan’s eyes widen at the lies that roll off my tongue without hesitation. Yeah. I really am a good liar.
“Officer Dan?” His dad grins. “I like that, Mattie, indeed I do.”
Dan groans. “Great. Now see what you started, Squirt? He’ll never let that name go.”
“Squirt?” My eyebrows shoot up into the hairline. “I am not a squirt by any means, Dan Richards.”
“Keep calling me Officer Dan and I’ll keep calling you Squirt,” he counters with a wicked grin.
His dad chuckles. “Now, children…”
This earns him a glare from both of us and he hastily takes a drink of coffee. His dad is definitely smarter than the average bear. I like the guy.
“Dan, be nice,” his mother tells him.
“Sure, sure,” Dan says and starts breakfast in earnest. “You mind if the guys come over later? We have a Rock Band tournament coming up in a couple days and need to practice.”
His mom sighs. “Dan, last time you boys had a practice for one of your tournaments, I ended up cleaning up the most god-awful mess…”
“We’ll clean up this time, promise.”
I hide a grin. He sounds like a little boy who is promising he’ll be good all year if Santa will bring him that one special toy. It’s easy to forget he’s a cop, easy to forget he isn’t just another teenage boy at times like this.
“I suppose…” she half-smiled.
“Thanks, Ma.”
She shakes her head and turns her attention back to me. “So, Mattie, do we know your parents? I don’t remember meeting any Hathaways.”
“No, ma’am,” I say the same time Dan says, “Mom, don’t ask…”
She and his Dad give us both questioning looks and we sigh together.
“Just how did you two meet?” his dad asks at last.
“My foster sister went missing,” I say. “Dan was one of the officers who took the initial report.”
Surprise flicker across their faces. “You’re in foster care?” His mom frowns. Again, I get the feeling she isn’t comfortable having me here for some reason.
“Yes,” I nod. “My mom died when I was five and I don’t know who my father is so I grew up in the system.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mr. Richards tells me and there is an honest sincerity in his voice that is missing from his wife’s.
I grin a bit devilishly. “No need to be sorry, Mr. Richards. It’s made me into the brat that I am.”
“Brat is an understatement,” Dan mutters.
“Hey!” I shot him a glare.
“You two crack me up.” Mr. Richards laughs. “I swear if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve known each other for years.”
“She’d of killed me by now, Dad. She’s got a mouth on her like you wouldn’t believe. Don’t let those pretty eyes of hers hide the devil behind them. The girl’s got claws.”
“Officer Dan…” I start.
“Squirt…” He grins while trying to swallow.
“I’m trying to be nice,” I say, eyes narrowed. “Do you know how hard that is right now?”
Dan laughs out loud.
“Finish your breakfast, you two,” his dad says, before we start in again. “Mattie, we must have you over more often. I haven’t had this lively a morning since Dan’s brother lived at home.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Earl, did you see this?” Mrs. Richards sounds exasperated. “It’s Ethel’s obituary. They misspelled her last name. R-o-w-b-e-r-t-s instead of Roberts.” She passes him the paper and I glance at the picture a
ccompanying the obituary. My fork freezes halfway to my mouth. It’s the old woman from the diner. The one screaming about Ollie.
“Poor Ethel,” he sighs. “Fell over into her morning grits at the diner from a heart attack. Terrible way to go.” Mr. Richards said, clucking softly.
“Earl!”
“What?” he asks mildly. “Well, would you want to die in a bowlful of grits, Ann?”
“Well of course not,” she huffs “But…”
“But it was funny as he…heck,” Dan hastily corrects himself and his dad winks at him. He’d caught the slip-up. “Mattie, you okay?”
I put down the fork and nod. “Yeah, I’m not that hungry. Sorry.”
His dad glances at my face and the paper and frowns. “Here we are going on and on about someone dying and your foster sister is missing. I’m sorry, Mattie. I didn’t even think about it.”
“No, it’s okay…” I mumble.
“Dan, why don’t you and Mattie go and start your project?” he suggests. “Your mom and I can handle the dishes.”
“Thanks, Dad.” He stands and then steps back so I can do the same before leading me up the stairs.
“Leave the door open!” His dad’s shout comes from the kitchen. Dan rolls his eyes and I chuckle.
Time to work.
Chapter Twelve
Dan’s room is exactly what I expected. The bed is a crumpled mess, posters of his favorite bands line the wall, a desk with clutter over what I think is a laptop, and clothes lay in piles strewn across the floor. The walls are done in a soft earthy brown and darker hard woods covers the floor, at least what you can see of the floor. A flat screen is mounted to one wall with a PS3 on the entertainment stand underneath. A guy’s room all right. It smells just like him too—woodsy and clean.
Well, a guy’s room, with one exception. There are white boards spread everywhere with my drawings tacked up beside the actual photo of the missing kids they correspond to. He’s got maps with places marked on them with thumbtacks and notes written everywhere on the boards and on Post-Its. The boy’s been busier than I gave him credit for. Brownie points to Officer Dan!
“Sorry for the mess,” he mumbles and clears off a spot on the bed. “Have a seat.”
Instead of sitting, I step over to examine the boards more closely. My sketches had been pretty accurate. It’s so strange to see the missing kids smiling out of normal looking pictures, the damage gone and no ugly bullet holes anywhere.
Janey Morris, age twelve, read the first picture. Missing June 2009 from the Rowan County fair. Blonde hair, blue eyes, 5’1.
Emma Johnson, age ten: missing March 2007 from the Rowan County fair. Blonde hair, blue eyes, 4’7.
Michael Sutter age eight: missing December 2009 from the Hickory Mall. Brown hair, brown eyes, 4’9.
Melissa Jenkins age seven: missing October 2010 from the Concord Mills Mall. Red hair, blue eyes, 4’3.
Eric Cameron age seventeen: missing March 2006 after a Statesville high school basketball game. Black hair, blue eyes, 6’1.
Mary Roberts age sixteen: missing January 2013 from her home in Charlotte. Blonde hair, brown eyes, 5’6.
Sally Myers age fifteen: missing from her home in Charlotte. Blonde hair, gray eyes, 5’5.
There was nothing really connecting them together. It all just looked so random. They had been taken from different locations at different times. Busy places mind you, but still completely random. No distinguishing features, at least not that I can see, made them look similar in any way, except for the bullet holes in my sketches.
“Your drawings helped a lot,” Dan says from behind me. “I was able to run them through our database of missing kids and come up with almost perfect matches for most of them. Your mirror boy there was the hardest. I could only get an eighty seven percent match. There wasn’t a lot to go on.”
My eyes stray back to Eric Cameron, aka Mirror Boy. It might or might not be him. The face is the same shape and the eyes the same color, but aside from that, I just can’t tell. His face was pretty mangled last I’d seen it and that’s how I’d drawn him.
He’s actually really cute, or he was. His black hair is slightly curly at the bottom and those blue eyes of his are actually quite striking. They are full of laughter too. Quite a difference from the ghost I’d met, but then again, being tortured and murdered might put a damper on anyone’s personality. I’d be angry too. I gave myself a mental shake. Mirror Boy was the enemy and a ghost. No need to get all doe eyed over a ghost.
“At least you know I’m not as crazy as you suspected,” I say lightly while reading through his notes. All had been taken in the open. There one minute, gone the next. None of them knew each other. Mary went missing the night before Sally did. So does that mean Sally saw something she shouldn’t have? If that’s true, then she’d have to have seen it at the house and we’d already ruled out Mr. Olson. So that left me…nowhere.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he grins at me. “You are one weird chick, Mattie Louise Hathaway.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Officer Dan.” His map has my attention now. It looks like all the kidnappings had taken place in three counties: Rowan, Mecklenburg, and Iredell. It’s a fairly small area. Why had no one picked up on this? I ask Dan just that.
“Well, Mattie, until you told me they each had bullet through the head, nothing connected them. They were all random disappearances spread out over several years. There was no reason to think they were related. If I had to guess, I’d say Mecklenburg is the center of the activity.”
“Why?”
“Two disappearances in less than forty-eight hours.”
“Mary and Sally. That’s bugging me,” I frown.
“Me too,” Dan admits. “It leads me to think that Sally saw something she shouldn’t have, but how would she have seen that if she didn’t leave the house?”
“Which implies the Olsons.”
“We cleared them though.”
“Are you sure?”
Dan rolls his eyes. “I know how to do my job.”
“Do you, now?” I smile wickedly. “Weren’t you the ones who didn’t even search Sally’s room? The ones who didn’t look to see if she took anything before writing her off as a runaway?”
“You’re not going to let me forget that are you?”
“Not a chance, Officer Dan.”
“Well, I did do my job here,” he insists. “I personally went to the factory where your foster father works and looked at his punch card. I spoke to people who remembered him being there on shift. He wasn’t home when Sally disappeared.”
“And I don’t buy Mrs. Olson would have done anything to her either,” I tell him. “She cares about us. It’s hard to find someone who does and she wouldn’t hurt Sally.”
“Then where does that leave us?”
“Neighbors maybe?” I ask.
“That’s one angle we can look at,” he nods. “Can you get me a list? I’ll run them and see if anyone has a record and pops up in the system.”
“Tell me about Mary.”
“I talked to her mom. She had just come home from a long shift and went to bed. When she woke up, Mary was gone. Her bike too, so she thought she was out for a morning ride at first. Two hours later she got worried, started calling friends, and then went out looking for her along the bike trails Mary liked to ride. She called the police around nightfall. We haven’t been able to find anything to give us a hint as to her whereabouts.”
“It’s wet and cold,” I tell him softly. “There’s standing water somewhere near her.”
“How do you know that?”
“I could smell it.”
“You really think she might be alive?”
“I don’t know,” I say and walk over to sit on the bed, suddenly tired. “I usually only see ghosts, but I don’t think Mary’s dead. Dying maybe, but not dead.”
“I think you are the bravest person I’ve ever met, Mattie.”
My head snaps up. He’s
staring at me in all seriousness. There isn’t a hint of laughter in those warm brown eyes of his. Dear Lord, he believes me. He really, truly believes me. The truth is there in his eyes.
“Of course I am,” I say flippantly.
He shakes his head. “I’m trying to be serious here.”
“I know,” I tell him. “You make me nervous when you get serious.” Why did I tell him that? He so did not need to know he makes me nervous.
“I make you nervous?” he laughs. “I didn’t think anyone could make the great Mattie Hathaway nervous.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head,” I grouch.
“DAN!”
“YEAH DAD?” he yells back.
“MIKE’S ON THE PHONE FOR YOU!”
“TELL HIM I’LL CALL HIM BACK!”
I can’t help but to smile at the yelling. We don’t do that at the Olsons. Mrs. O hates loud noise. She doesn’t even like the TV on above a whisper. Dan would give her a stroke yelling like that.
“Hang on a sec, let me call Mike and see what he wants.” Dan fishes his phone from his pocket. “Why he doesn’t call my cell I don’t know.”
I don’t pay much attention to Dan as he starts to talk. Mirror Boy’s picture has caught my attention again. His face calls to me. He is the key to this. In that moment, I understand this to be perfectly true. But I don’t know how I know, but I do. I can feel it. The truth of it rings in me like some kind of gong or bell. How, though? Why is he so important to this? Aside from causing all sorts of nastiness?
“Squirt, Mike needs me to pick him up for practice today. Mind if I drop you off a little early?”
“No, that’s fine,” I tell him, still staring at Mirror Boy. I needed to do research of my own. I have to find out why he is important.
“Do you see something I don’t?” Dan asks, brows lifted.
My shoulders lift in a shrug. “I don’t know. Let me think about it. Are you ready to go?”
“You want to leave now? We haven’t done anything yet.”
“Sure do, besides, I need you to help me with something.”
“Help with what?”
“Are you any good at breaking and entering?”