Pawsitively Secretive

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “Hi, Grace, it’s Amber Blackwood,” Amber said, chiming in. “Do you know if the girls had any plans to go to the arcade?”

  Now Grace sounded truly confused. “No, not that I know of. Is everything okay? Has something happened to Chloe?”

  “We don’t know,” Amber said, gaze focused on the trees alongside the road. “She snuck out tonight and Frank has no idea where she is. She isn’t answering her phone.”

  “Goodness!” Grace said. “That doesn’t sound like Chloe at all.”

  Kim slammed on the brakes suddenly and Amber let out a grunt as the seatbelt tightened across her chest. The grunt was more due to surprise than pain. When she focused out the windshield, she expected to see an animal of some kind in the road that had triggered Kim’s excitable brake foot, but instead she saw a parked car, its headlights illuminating the path before it. It was dark four-door. The car’s hazard lights were on, throwing silent bursts of yellow light against wide leaves and hanging catkins.

  “Is that …” Amber said.

  “Hello?” Grace said. “What just happened? What’s going on?”

  “I’ll call you back, Grace!” Kim said and hastily disconnected the call. Kim inched forward and stopped behind the dark sedan that was pulled off to the side of the road.

  Now that they were closer, Amber could clearly see that it was a Honda and that a back tire was flat. It wasn’t hard to get a flat out here, what with the unpaved road riddled with potholes and rocks. Without saying anything to Kim, Amber threw her door open, pushing aside overgrown foliage, and climbed out. She hurried around the side of the car and toward the parked one, noting that the driver’s side door stood open.

  Amber’s boots squelched in the thick mud. The drizzle had ramped up to a light rain now.

  Slowly, Amber approached the open car door. “Chloe?”

  No answer.

  Heart in her throat, Amber worried she’d find the girl slumped over in the seat. That the airbag would be deployed, a dead deer lying by the car’s hood—which would be smashed in and smoking. She imagined Chloe thrown from the car, her body expelled through the windshield.

  But then she remembered the flat tire. At seventeen, Amber wouldn’t have known how to change a flat, but perhaps Frank had better prepared his daughter for such things. Yet, the tire was still flat, and it didn’t look like she’d attempted to change it. Had Chloe tried to walk the rest of the way to Bethany’s house and something had happened on the way?

  If Chloe had run into car trouble, why hadn’t she called her father? If the discussion with him had gone as poorly as Amber suspected, perhaps Chloe’s father had been the last person she’d wanted to talk to. She hadn’t called Amber either, though.

  Chloe could have called a friend to come get her; the girl surely had several people who’d drop what they were doing to rescue her. Like the mystery boy, for example.

  When Amber finally peeked into the car, she found it empty. The purple cat on the dash swayed lazily from its perch. Definitely Chloe’s car. The girl wasn’t in the front or back. Her purse still appeared to be on the passenger seat. Amber pulled her own phone out of her pocket and called Chloe. The call went directly to voicemail. No blue light from a cell phone’s screen lit up from inside the car.

  Amber turned around at the sound of Kim’s approach, the mud sucking at her boots. “She’s not here.”

  “Oh my God, Amber,” Kim said, eyes wide. “What do we do now?”

  “You call the mayor and tell him we found her car,” she said, then she made a phone call, too.

  The chief picked up on the first ring. “Hi, Amber. I’m a little scared to ask you how you are, given the hour. And considering how hectic your life has been lately.”

  “Hey, chief. Can’t say things are much better today,” she said. “I think Chloe Deidrick is missing.”

  “Deidrick? As in the mayor’s kid?” the chief asked, at full alert now. “Why are you calling me about this and not Frank himself?”

  She could tell he’d been sitting when he answered her call and was on the move now. Something creaked. A door slammed shut. The click of heavy soles on a hard surface. Amber explained the events of the evening, ending with the fact that the girl had crept out of her window without telling anyone where she was going. “Frank went to the arcade and Kim and I headed for Bethany’s house. We found Chloe’s abandoned car on the side of Blue Point Lane. We called Bethany’s mom and she hasn’t heard from or seen Chloe; Bethany has been home sick all day.”

  The chief cursed softly. “All right. Stay put. Garcia and I are on our way.”

  Kim was waiting for Amber in her car, and once they were both closed inside, Kim cranked up the heater. The rain had picked up steam again and pattered against the windshield.

  “Frank is on his way,” Kim said in a soft, faraway voice, gaze focused on Chloe’s abandoned car. “He sounds so worried.”

  “The chief is on his way, too.”

  They waited in silence for ten minutes. Amber knew then how worried Kim was based solely on the fact that she wasn’t speaking. Every couple of minutes, Amber would either send Chloe a text or call her. Texts went unanswered; calls went to voicemail.

  Had Amber broken the girl’s trust by encouraging her to come clean to her dad? The thought that Chloe didn’t feel like she could call Amber when she was in trouble made her stomach churn.

  The storm had already driven Amber’s magic haywire, but now, it itched to be used to help find Chloe. Could she use that dashboard cat to conduct a locator spell? Or something from the girl’s purse? Amber knew now that her Henbane half—her mother’s half—had been skilled in memory and time magic. Her magic was still a wild, unskilled thing, but maybe her cousin Edgar could help her figure something out.

  The mayor arrived first. He was out of his car and hurrying toward Chloe’s with such speed, Amber wasn’t sure he’d even taken the time to turn off his car. Amber had scrambled out to warn the mayor not to touch anything in the vehicle until the chief and Garcia could examine its contents, but Frank came to an abrupt stop several feet away. He put his hands on his hips, staring at the car as if it specifically had done something to Chloe. By the time Amber reached him, his boots had sunk an inch into the thick mud. He didn’t seem to notice.

  The rain came down harder now, plastering his short hair to his forehead. He didn’t seem to notice that either.

  “Hi, Frank,” she said tentatively.

  Slowly, his head swiveled until his flat-eyed gaze met hers. Amber involuntarily took a small step back, her boots squelching. After several intense moments of him staring at her, he finally said, “What did you say to her?” The question was simple enough, but his tone held nothing short of an accusation.

  Her head reared back. “Excuse me?”

  “You filled her head with romantic nonsense,” he said. “And now she’s gone.”

  “I’m the one who told her to talk to you in the first place,” she snapped, magic zipping around under her skin. Amber had been having a rough couple of months and the mayor’s tone was making her far angrier than she should have been. “She wanted me to keep it quiet so she could sneak off and meet him in peace and I said she needed to include you in her plans for safety reasons, if nothing else. What did you say to her that made her sneak out? This isn’t normal behavior for her. If you’re looking for someone to blame, try yourself.”

  The way he clenched his jaw implied he was weighing the consequences of decking a woman—one of his constituents, no less. He stalked toward her, invading her space. He peered down at her. “Don’t tell me about my own daughter. You haven’t spent a significant amount of time with her since she was twelve, Amber. You don’t know what’s normal for her. You just happened to show up when she was vulnerable so she confided in you. Anyone who showed up tonight could have filled that role. Don’t pretend you have some lasting relationship with my daughter just because you’re lonely.”

  That one stung, but she refused to show it. />
  She and the mayor were practically nose-to-nose now, rain beating down on their heads.

  “So even you admit that if given the chance to confide in a near stranger or her own father,” she gritted out, “she’d choose the stranger? What does that say about you?”

  His jaw wobbled at that. One second ticked by, then two. And then the fight seemed to drain out of him entirely, his shoulders slumping. “You’re right,” he said softly, backing up. “She tried to talk to me. I …”

  The fight drained out of Amber now, too. In a matter of seconds, suddenly the man appeared so much older. “What happened, Frank?”

  He tipped his head back, eyes closed as rain ran over his face. He sighed and stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I gave her an ultimatum. I said the only way I would allow her to keep talking to him would be if I met him first. I threatened to turn off her phone and put parental restrictions on her internet use.”

  “Oh, Frank …” she said.

  “I know,” he said, gaze turned now toward the car and its blinking hazard lights. “I pushed her too hard. I always push too hard.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” came a familiar voice from behind her.

  Amber turned to see the chief and Garcia approaching, both of them in black rain slickers and sporting wide-brimmed hats. They were far more prepared for this weather than she and the mayor were. Amber peered around the men to see Kim still in the driver’s seat, her phone pressed to her ear. She gave Amber a little wave to let her know she was still there, and to take her time.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mayor Deidrick,” the chief said while Garcia moved on to the car alone.

  Amber stood back a few feet, not sure if the chief still needed to talk to her too. She would likely catch pneumonia by the time the evening was over, but she couldn’t get herself to leave. Even though she knew most of what Frank had said to her had been fueled by fear—and anger at himself—Amber still couldn’t dispel the guilt that sat heavily on her shoulders. Had she said the wrong thing to Chloe? The what ifs were going to give her an ulcer.

  “The reality is,” she heard the chief say after the mayor finished his version of the story, “teenagers this age do run away sometimes.”

  “Not my teenager,” Frank said.

  The chief held up his hands. “And that very well might be the case. I’ll file a missing person report tonight; we will treat this seriously.”

  “I don’t have to wait twenty-four hours to report her as missing?” Frank asked.

  The chief shook his head. “Nope. Common misconception. But, again, roughly ninety-eight percent of people who go missing are found within a week—alive and well. It’s only been two hours at most since you last heard from her. The best thing you can do right now is go home in case she shows up there. I’ll get all my available officers on this tonight—paperwork will be filed, and what canvassing we can do will be done—but we’ll have a better idea of what we’re looking at by morning. If I have any more questions, I’ll give you a call. But also remember that we’re going to be limited in what we can do right now because of the weather.”

  Frank looked peeved, but he eventually nodded. “Okay, yeah. But first thing tomorrow morning—”

  “First thing,” the chief agreed.

  “And you need to find out who this Johnny kid is,” Frank said. “I don’t know a last name. I just know he’s from Belhaven.”

  “We’ll get on that, too,” the chief assured him. “But if she was primarily talking to him on Scuttle, well, we’ll have our work cut out for us.”

  Frank nodded again, then turned for his car. His gaze snagged on Amber, still standing there waiting, shivering and soaked through. “I’m sorry, Amber. I … I’m sorry I said any of that. I didn’t mean it. Thank you for telling her to come to me.”

  He walked away before she could respond.

  When he was out of earshot, Amber asked, “Do you really think she just ran away?”

  With a weary sigh, the chief said, “It’s really too soon to tell. I saw cases like this constantly in Portland. Most show up no worse for wear.”

  “And what about the two percent of people who aren’t found in a week?” she asked, a pit forming in her stomach.

  “My officers and I will do what we can tonight,” he said.

  It wasn’t an answer.

  “Get on home, Amber,” he said. “And get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death.” He paused, taking in her appearance which had to be somewhere in the vicinity of “drowned rat.” Water dripped steadily off his hat’s brim. “Could you hocus pocus the water away? Like a … magic dryer?”

  He looked truly invested in the answer and she laughed softly. “I probably could, but that might be even more work than using an actual dryer.”

  “Huh,” he said. “Well, try to have a better night. I’m sure Chloe will show up by morning.”

  But as the sun crested the horizon the following day, chasing away the last remnants of the evening’s storm, the Edgehill rumor mill swung into full gear. And everyone was saying the same thing: Chloe Deidrick was still missing.

  Chapter 4

  Tourists and Edgehill residents alike were in and out of the Quirky Whisker all morning. In addition to the news that the mayor’s daughter snuck out during a storm and hadn’t been heard from since, the rumor mill was spreading stories at varying levels of ridiculous about what might be going on in the Deidrick household behind closed doors.

  Henrietta Bishop had come in for her usual weekly supply of sleepy tea—three days early—and then casually asked if Chloe was pregnant and had run off with the father of the baby once the mayor forbade the girl to see the boy again.

  Dina Regrath, the manager of the Catty Melt, came in under the guise of buying one of Amber’s animated cat toys for her son, and then asked if it was true that Chloe had a drug problem and that she’d been taken to rehab in the dead of night, the runaway story fabricated to save face.

  There were theories about the mayor’s past catching up with him—everything from escaping the mob to being a fugitive from a heinous felony. There was a rumor that Chloe’s mother Shannon hadn’t died sixteen years ago and had actually been in hiding. Maybe Shannon had been in prison until last night and kidnapped Chloe, someone said. Maybe she’s part of a cult that the mayor didn’t approve of, so he stole her away when she was a baby, but Shannon and Chloe have been in touch for years, and her mother finally showed up to bring her home, someone else suggested.

  These were all bits of rumors and speculation Amber had heard over the years about the mayor and his mysterious past, but to hear them all again in one afternoon was exhausting.

  She knew dozens of people had come to her shop because Amber had been one of the last people to see Chloe, and because she and Kim had been the ones to find the girl’s car. Amber wondered if Kim’s phone had been ringing off the hook. She worked as a teller at Edgehill Savings and Loan, so Amber assumed not as many people could come in to pepper her with questions as they had been doing with Amber.

  Just before noon, Betty Harris from Purrfectly Scrumptious across the street stopped by. Amber was always happy to see the woman, but if Betty—the queen of usually accurate Edgehill gossip—threw another wild theory at her, Amber might scream.

  With Lily and Daisy Bowen helping the last few customers in the shop before they closed for lunch, Amber was free to chat with Betty.

  The woman gave Amber a scan from head to toe and then offered Amber one of her signature tongue clicks. “You look beat, sugar. You okay? Everyone and their mother has been through this shop of yours today.”

  Amber groaned. “I’m about ready to pass out.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” she asked.

  With a sigh, Amber shook her head. “No, but thank you. They’re all just worried about Chloe, and since they can’t harass the chief or the mayor, they’re asking me every conceivable question instead.”

  “You and tha
t chief sure turned the tide on your rocky relationship,” Betty said.

  “He’s not so bad once you get to know him,” Amber said. And once you confess to him that you’re a witch and that’s why weird things have a tendency to happen around you.

  Betty smiled, her white teeth a sharp contrast to the deep brown hue of her skin. “Well, I’m sure the chief appreciates you fielding the nonsense so he and his officers can focus on finding that poor girl.”

  Amber wasn’t sure if it was the barrage of loopy theories she’d heard today, or if she had just begun to doubt her earlier conviction that Chloe was okay, but dread had been creeping in all morning. Sure, the chief had said that teens ran away all the time, but Amber couldn’t shake the feeling that something—or someone—had happened to Chloe.

  “You hear the mayor called an emergency town hall meeting for tonight?” Betty asked.

  Amber blinked. Somehow, even with all the visitors she had today, no one had mentioned that. “No. What time?”

  “Six sharp,” she said. “You want to ride with me and Bobby?”

  “That would be great,” Amber said. “Thanks.”

  After giving Amber’s arm a light squeeze, Betty headed for the door. “We’ll pick you up around five-thirty; we’ll be right out front.” The bell above the door chimed as she pushed it open. “And I may or may not have an Oreo Dream waiting for you.”

  Amber salivated at the mere thought of it. “You’re the best, Betty.”

  Her smile was wide. “Oh, I know.”

  As promised, at five-thirty, Betty and Bobby pulled up outside the Quirky Whisker in their old, tan Chevy truck. Betty said it was Bobby’s pride and joy even though it wasn’t remotely practical for a town like Edgehill. But, as she had said once, “When you’ve been married as long as we have, you pick your battles.”

  The truck ran well enough—though it was a bit bumpier than Amber was used to, as if the wheels might rattle right off the thing at any moment—and both the body and the inside were pristine. It was clear how much Bobby loved it.