He opened his eyes to see the four-year-old little boy above his face, staring at him. “Daddy, Mommy's gone and I’m thirsty,” the four-year-old boy said.
Grant reached his arms up over his head and pulled his son onto his chest. The kid wore an Iron Man pajama set, the front of the shirt stained with milk and drool. “Good morning, big guy,” he said to his son, the boy’s brown hair in the man’s face. The kid smelled like fruity, sugary cereal. “What do you mean ‘mommy’s gone’? Where did mommy go?” He tried to sound upbeat, but his heart sank in his chest. She’d gone out looking for him. Except that didn’t make sense; her car was still parked in the driveway, and he knew she’d never leave Benjamin unattended, sleeping or not.
“Mommy’s not in her room. Can you get me some milk?” The boy held a plastic cup in his hand.
“Sure, buddy,” Grant said. He stood up from the couch, his bones aching and head still pounding and went to the fridge in the kitchen. He would get the boy his requested drink, sit him in front of the television with some cartoons, and go find his wife.
He rinsed out the kid’s plastic cup in the sink, poured in some milk and secured a lid on top of the cup. Reaching up into the cabinet above the sink, he pulled out a bendy straw and put it in the hole of the lid, and handed the cup to his son.
“Go sit on the couch,” he said, and the boy obliged.
“Cartoons!” he demanded.
“I know, I know, give me a second,” Grant said, turning on the television. The device came to life, but the picture was black. He changed channels, each one the same—a black screen with no sound.
“Sorry, Ben. Something’s wrong with the cable. No cartoons.”
“Cartoons!” the boy whined.
“Look,” Grant said, pointing at the television. “The TV isn’t working. Go play in your room for now.”
The boy leaped from the couch and ran back to his bedroom at the end of the hall, cradling the plastic cup in his hands.
Mommy’s gone, the boy had said.
Confused, Grant walked down the hall and to the master bedroom. It was dark, but he could see that his wife was not in bed. “Christine? Honey?” he said, to no answer. He flipped the switch on the wall beside the door, and the ceiling fan came to life, the lightbulbs glowing instantly and the blades whirring. The bed, however, was empty.
The TV hanging on the wall was on, with the same black screen that was on the living room television. “Christine?” he called out, but again, no answer.
He went back to the front door, and looked outside to verify that her vehicle was still there, that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. There it was, parked in the driveway, like normal.
Back inside, he checked every room in their two bedroom house, but the woman was nowhere to be found. Finally, he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket, hit the call button and dialed her number. It rang, and he could hear her phone buzzing and ringing in the other room, playing a country song as its ringtone.
In their bedroom, he found her phone on the floor beside the bed. He cancelled the call, and placed her phone on her nightstand. For good measure, he looked under the bed but the only thing down there was a collection of dust bunnies and no wife. He went to Benjamin’s room. “Hey, Ben,” the man said, “do you know where mommy went?”
“Nope,” the boy said, playing with two action figures in the floor.
“When you woke up, mommy was gone?”
“Yup,” the boy replied.
“Did you hear her leave?”
“Nope. Mommy’s gone. So is Kitty.”
The man paused and then realized that he hadn’t seen their cat, an orange tabby named Kitty, either. It was not uncommon for the cat to be lounging somewhere around the house, but he hadn’t seen her either while searching for Christine.
“Did mommy take Kitty?” the man asked.
The boy looked up and raised his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. He went back to playing with his toys.
The man left the boy is his room and looked around the house, ducking his head into every room again. In the dining room, Grant pulled his phone out of his pocket again, scrolled through his contacts and found the number for Christine’s sister, Catherine. He pushed the contact and the phone rang. After a few seconds, the call went to voicemail.
“Hey Catherine, it’s Grant. I was just seeing if Christine was there. She’s not at home this morning. I came in late—as you probably know—and crashed on the couch, but she’s not here. Let me know if you’ve heard from her. Call me when you get this.” He hung up the call. Standing up from the dining table, he went back to their bedroom. His wife’s purse, wallet and car keys were all still there.
He sat on the bed and felt something poke him in the thigh. Standing up to see what it was, he saw an earring in the sheets. Looking for a moment, he found the matching one, on her pillow. Then he noticed her nightgown atop the sheet. When he pulled it off the bed, her white lace panties dropped out the bottom of the gown and onto the floor. Had she been taken?
His heart thumped in his chest again. He pulled out his phone and dialed 911, though he got a busy signal when he put the device to his ear. He terminated the call, stood up from the bed and paced for a moment. It wasn’t adding up in his head. Where the hell is she?
He went back into the hallway and to his son’s bedroom. “Hey buddy, let’s get dressed. We are going to see Aunt Catherine,” he said.
The boy threw his toys on the floor and jumped up and down. “Yay!” he exclaimed. Grant pulled a Paw Patrol shirt and matching pants from the boy’s dresser and put them on his son. He picked the boy up and carried him out to the driveway, buckling him into the backseat of the Lexus. “Does Aunt Catherine have cartoons?” the boy asked.
“I hope so,” Grant said. But he also hoped that his sister-in-law had much more than that. He hoped she’d know where his wife had disappeared to.
CHAPTER 3
BRANDON | 9:32AM
BRANDON OWENS FLIPPED the light switch in his cell phone repair shop and went to the beeping panel to silence the impending alarm. He punched the four-button code into the panel and the beeping stopped. The shop was essentially divided into two rooms—the large back work area and the lobby. The workroom was a mess, piles of phone parts strewn about on benches that lined the walls and paper work orders taped to phones waiting to be fixed.
Brandon went to the lobby, flipping on the lights there as well and prepared the shop for the day, setting out all the display units and flipping on the neon OPEN sign that hung in the window.
The shop, TechMedix, was one of several little businesses in the main shopping center downtown. Brandon started the business right out of college, nearly four years ago. He studied computer sciences, but fixed phones for money all through school. Now the first in his family to graduate from college, he was also the first to own a business, and he put all his efforts into it. He had no desire for a girlfriend or to settle down; he wanted to work and grow TechMedix.
He unlocked the front door and went back to the work room where he would begin knocking out the work orders until his two employees showed up. He liked to listen to music while working, so he turned on his laptop and opened YouTube. The browser showed the “No Connection” screen when he typed in the address, however. He tried a different website, with the same result.
“Wi-Fi must be down,” he mumbled to himself, and went to the networking equipment that hung on a rack on the wall above his main workbench. He unplugged the router, and plugged it back in, hoping that would resolve the issue. However, the internet was still out once the device rebooted.
He picked up one of the cordless handsets that floated around the shop and checked for dial tone. They had phones, which meant the line that fed into building was working. The internet issue could probably be isolated to the router, he hypothesized.
Taking his Lenovo laptop from the workbench, Brandon carried it over to the networking equipment and plugged the ethernet cable directly from t
he modem to his computer, reset the IP address configuration and opened his web browser, only to find the same result—no connection. He unplugged the computer from the modem and placed it back on his workbench, perplexed and perturbed. They could do their jobs without the internet, of course, and as long as the phones worked, they’d be fine. However, the credit card processing machine needed to be connected to the outside world. It had a phone line backup connection, so worst-case scenario, he’d run a phone cable to the device so they could take payments.
Brandon walked through the lobby and out the front door and headed for the neighboring business, an insurance company. He liked having them as neighbors, as the owner of the business, an attractive woman in her mid-fifties named Georgia Jones, advertised all over town, drawing customers to her, and in return, bringing foot traffic to him. He pulled at their front door, but it was locked. There was no sign on the door saying they were closed, and they usually opened earlier than his place. He cupped his hands around his face and peered inside, his nose bumping against the glass. His breath left little white clouds on the window, but that didn’t stop him from seeing the interior of the office. Completely empty.
The next business was a women’s salon, and Brandon walked over there only to find the same thing—lights out, doors locked and empty. He lifted his wrist to activate the screen on the Apple watch he wore, and double-checked the date. It was definitely Thursday, a regular work day in the middle of November. The shopping center was built in an L-shape with the parking lot splayed in front of the storefronts, and as Brandon gazed out he felt a quiet unnerving chill in his spine. Something wasn’t adding up, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Walking back to the TechMedix shop, Brandon couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really, really wrong. He went to the workroom at the back of their suite, picked up a phone and dialed Michelle. Though her official title was receptionist, she did much more at the shop, keeping schedules and parts orders. She was also bilingual, which helped with the Spanish-speaking populace that visited the shop. Brandon had come to depend on Michelle so much that if she were to ever leave, he’d be up a creek. After several rings, the call went to voicemail. He hoped it meant she was getting ready or driving to the shop.
His next call was to his business partner and technician, Hector. He and Hector had been roommates at Angelo State, and they were best friends, working the business together. Hector answered, “Hey man, what’s up?” he asked.
“Hey, listen, I know this is a weird question,” Brandon said, a bit of hesitancy in his voice, “but what day is it?”
“It’s Thursday, why?”
“Just, something’s weird. None of the other shops are open over here. It’s like a ghost town.”
“That is weird,” Hector said. “Think it has something to do with the internet? And the TV?”
“Wait, what do you mean? You don’t have internet?” Brandon asked.
“No, man. Television either,” Hector said. “I’m almost to the shop though, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“Hey, before you go,” Brandon said hastily, “have you talked to Michelle this morning?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondering. I don’t know. Like I said, something’s weird here. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
The bell that announced the front door opening chimed in the empty office and Brandon went to the lobby to greet the first visitor of the day. Despite the strangeness, he still had a job to do and money to make.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” Brandon asked the gentleman standing in the doorway. The man looked lost, like he’d stepped through a magic portal and didn’t recognize his surroundings.
“You guys are open?” the man said. He was tall, in his late-fifties or early-sixties, wearing glasses under a head of greying hair and a Houston Astros t-shirt.
“Yes sir,” Brandon responded from behind the front counter. “But it doesn’t seem like anyone else is.”
“Do you know the women that work next door?”
“Yes I do, but they’re not in today.”
“So you haven’t seen them?” the man asked, his voice both confused and concerned.
“No, I haven’t. Why? Is something going on?” Brandon asked.
“I’m Steve Jones, Georgia’s husband,” he said. “She wasn’t home when I woke up this morning, and I was hoping I’d find her at the office.”
“Haven’t seen her,” Brandon said. “In fact, you’re the first person I’ve seen this morning.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Jones said, glancing out the window out to the parking lot that hugged the shopping center, “you’re the first person I’ve seen, too.”
Brandon crossed the lobby and looked out the front windows with the man. “Isn’t that weird?” he said aloud, more a rhetorical question than anything.
“Very weird,” the man said.
“Do you want to hang out here, see if your wife shows up?” Brandon asked.
“You don’t mind?” the man said. “I don’t want to impose.”
“No sir. We’ve got a coffee maker. Surely someone will show up soon. Maybe her employees?” Brandon motioned for Mr. Jones to follow him back to the workroom where he threw a K-cup into the coffee maker on top of the half-sized refrigerator next to his workbench. He put a styrofoam cup under the drip and started the machine.
“That’s the thing,” the man said, taking a seat on one of the chairs at the workbench, “I called all three of them this morning, and got their voicemails.”
That nagging feeling Brandon had in the nape of his neck when he came back inside from investigating the shopping center finally percolated enough that he formed a thought. “I called our receptionist this morning and only got her voicemail.”
“That could be coincidental,” the man said, though Brandon didn’t think he could chalk it up to sheer coincidence. Something very strange was going on, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
The coffee maker finished its process, spurting water into the cup. Brandon handed it to the gentleman. He thanked Brandon and took a sip.
Brandon said, “All the women we’ve tried to call today, no answer. You said your wife wasn’t home this morning?”
“Right. It’s not uncommon for her to come to the office early, but,” the man sipped from the white styrofoam cup again, the steam from its contents wafting around his cheeks, “here’s the weird thing—her car was still in the garage. If she’d left, she didn’t drive off.”
“So, what?” Brandon said, trying to put all these pieces together. “She just up and vanished? Did you call the police?”
“Not yet. I wanted to come see her office first,” Mr. Jones said, taking another sip from the steaming cup. “But this whole thing feels very strange to me.”
“Yeah, me too.”
The bell rang out again, signifying the front door opening. Brandon peered through the open doorway to the lobby and saw another man coming in, looking around the lobby like he was lost.
“Hello?” the new visitor called out from the empty lobby. “Is anybody in here?”
CHAPTER 4
JEM | 9:40AM
JEM HELD THE wedding band in his fingers, confusion blocking his brain from forming a coherent and complete thought. It was almost like writer’s block—the blob of an idea was on the tip of his tongue, the front of his brain, but it wouldn’t coalesce. Her clothes were there, right there, where the rest of her should be. He placed the ring on her bedside table, next to the rest of her belongings.
He stood from the bed, his head spinning and still thumping from the bourbon headache. Needing to get a bearing on his thoughts, Jem went to his office across from the master suite and pulled open the center drawer of his large walnut writing desk. He rifled around the contents of the drawer until he found the little white bottle of Tylenol. He popped the lid and shook out two red-and-blue pills, tossing them into his mouth and swallowing them dry.
Crossing the ho
use back into the kitchen, he found his coffee mug and took a large gulp of the now slightly-warmer-than-room-temperature beverage, feeling the liquid pushing the pills down his gullet and to his stomach. He leaned against the marble countertop, pushing against the stone with the palms of his hands like he was doing a pushup. He needed a plan. He also hoped he was dreaming, but a quick pinch and a glance at the clock told him no, he was very much awake.
Downing the rest of the coffee in a large gulp, Jem washed out the mug and placed it in the stainless sink. Going back in the bedroom, he checked the bed one more time, only to be greeted by the same sight, her clothes, perfectly aligned to how she slept—on her stomach, one arm under the pillow. For a moment he considered moving them, but nearly immediately decided against it. He figured that if he needed to call the authorities and admit that his wife was missing, he’d want the scene to remain as undisturbed as possible. He even briefly regretted moving the wedding band and contemplated putting back in the approximate spot from where he’d picked it up, but it looked okay and natural there on the nightstand next to her phone and watch.
The phone lit up with a notification, and he picked the device up from its charging cradle to read it. It was a calendar reminder. She had a meeting downtown at the office of Georgia Jones, their insurance agent. He remembered now her telling him that she was re-upping their life insurance policy. Is that where she’s gone? He doubted she’d be there, but he also thought that, hey, it’s worth a shot to see if she’d shown up.
He put the phone back on its cradle, went to the walk-in closet and pulled down a pair of khakis and a blue polo from his side of the massive closet. Even in here, he took account of all her clothing, not seeing anything out of place. The business dresses, slacks, blouses, all hung on white hangers in their respective places on the rods. He had a pretty good idea of everything in her wardrobe, and it all looked to be there. If she’d left him, she hadn’t taken much with her.
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