Oh, of course. She was going to call in the aid of her boyfriend. Jesse Xander, one of the four cops in the city, was an okay guy. As close as I could tell, she had been dating him for about a year. Of course, she never referred to him as her boyfriend and never acknowledged that there was something between them. She always pretended he was just another of her friends. She had a lot of guy friends.
I never understood why she tried to hide it. It was totally obvious. Bobby and I laughed about it sometimes. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to save our feelings, thinking we couldn’t handle it after losing Dad, or if she was just embarrassed about being in a relationship with him. I couldn’t understand why she’d be with him if he embarrassed her. It didn’t matter. Maybe he could help.
“Jesse,” she said after we came through the door to the police station. “Bobby is missing. I need help.”
“Calm down, Allie,” he said, getting up from his desk. Her name was actually Alessa, but friends and family called her Allie. “Here, sit down.” He eyed me and nodded toward another chair. I sat in it. He was a tall man—Mom liked them tall. Maybe she thought he was good-looking, but to me he was pretty ugly. He was older than her, his head bald but his chin and lip sporting a mustache-goatee thing. I never figured out why she stuck with him. She always had guys hitting on her. I’d even had friends come over that mooned over her. I didn’t take after her in that respect. Guys didn’t find me fascinating like they all seemed to with her.
“I don’t know exactly when he disappeared,” Mom said, “but he was not in the house this morning when I got up.”
“Has it been twenty-four hours?” he asked. “You know we can’t do anything officially until it’s been that long.”
Mom looked at him, mouth open. Then she drew her lips into a tight line and narrowed her eyes at him. Uh-oh.
“You had better be joking with me, Jesse,” she said. I felt heat from her from where I was sitting a few feet away. If she hadn’t said something, I would have called him down for it. “What is this, some small town department on a TV show? No real police department has that requirement.”
Jesse swallowed and looked at his keyboard. “It’s policy here. I don’t make the rules.”
“I don’t care what your official policy is,” she said. “You need to help me find him.”
Jesse shot me a look. It said, How much can I disagree without seeming like we’re bickering lovers?
“Of course, Allie. I just mean I can’t do anything officially. I can help you personally.”
That cooled her a little. Her eyes no longer looked like they belonged to a cat that was about to eat a mouse. Now she looked at him like a cat eyeing a dog. “Okay, what do we do?”
Before he had a chance to answer, the door swung open and Mrs. Cairsen entered, her daughter Madison trailing.
“Oh, good,” she said. “There is someone here. You there, officer. My daughter is missing, and you must find her.”
Everyone in Lode knew the Cairsens. They had more money than everyone else in the town combined and expected everyone to worship them because of it. They were the typical rich snobs, the kind you see in the movies. All except Allison, Madison’s younger sister. She was pretty cool. She even hung out with Bobby sometimes. They were in the same grade.
Madison, though, that was something completely different. Not only was she the head cheerleader and one of the most popular girls in school, she was Jacob Benton’s girlfriend. For that alone I hated her, but so many other things justified that emotion.
“Take a seat, Mrs. Cairsen,” Jesse said with a sigh. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” she said, raising her chin so she could look down her nose at him. “My. Daughter. Is. Missing. You must find her.”
Jesse frowned at the woman and rubbed the back of his neck. “I understand, Mrs. Cairsen, but I am already dealing with one missing person right now. I will get to you and take your information when I am done with Ms. Prado here.”
“No, I don’t think you do understand. You need to—” Mrs. Cairsen cut off as the chief walked out of his office.
“Hello Melissa,” he said to Mrs. Cairsen. “Is there,” he eyed Jesse and gave him a stern look, “a problem here?”
“Oh, Charlie. Good.” Mrs. Cairsen faced him, turning her back on Jesse. “Allison is missing. I need your officers to search for her.”
“Of course, of course. It seems Jesse here is occupied. David!” he shouted toward a doorway to another room. “Come in here and take a missing person’s report.”
David Gaff came through the doorway, scratching the side of his graying head. I’d seen him around town—we were a pretty small town, after all—and I liked him. He was always helpful and seemed to enjoy talking to kids. His middle-aged body was sort of pear-shaped, and as he went toward Mrs. Cairsen, he almost seemed to limp. He’d probably been sitting too long and his muscles stiffened up on him.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Cairsen.” Catching sight of me and Mom, he added, “Allie.” He smiled and waved at me, too. My mom and I both waved back. “So, has your missing person been gone for twenty-four hours? We require that to fill out an official report.”
“No, no,” the police chief said. “We don’t have to be that strict. Help her out, David, and get right on it.” He smiled at Mrs. Cairsen.
“Yessir.”
Mom and Jesse both looked toward the chief, her eyes widening and Jesse doing a double-take. He shook his head and continued typing on the keyboard.
After giving Jesse all the information and getting an assurance from him that they’d start searching, we left the police station. With time to dwell on it again, Mom started to breathe heavily as she drove us home, her head swiveling, trying to search everything on the way. She started to mumble to herself.
“Where could he have gone? Think. Where would he hide, what would he be doing?”
As we pulled into the driveway, Mr. Snodgrass, Timmy’s dad, saw us and came toward the car. He was dragging Timmy behind him. We parked and got out to meet him at the end of the driveway.
“Allie,” he said. “I have a little more information for you. I didn’t know this earlier when you came over, or I would have said something.” He glared at his son. “Tell her, Timmy.”
The boy, the same age and pretty much the same size at Bobby, looked at us sheepishly. He was almost a carbon copy of my brother. The same raggedy hair, the same oversized teeth, even the same guilty look like he had done something—or several somethings—and was waiting to be caught. The only real difference in their appearance was his blue eyes where Bobby’s were brown.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner,” he said, looking toward his father. He had obviously been told to make the apology. “Bobby was…he sort of did…well, I dared him to, you know…” Mr. Snodgrass slapped the top of his head. Not hard, but it was enough to get his son’s attention. Timmy cringed a little—for effect—and squinted at his father.
“Timmy,” my mom said, “just tell me what you know about Bobby. Where is he?”
“I’m not sure. We were talking yesterday, and I dared him and Allison to spend the night out in the park. You know, Steinhold Park. He said he wasn’t afraid of anything coming to get him. He didn’t even really think there was anything dangerous coming out of the mines. So I dared him, and he and Allison went to the park after dark last night to stay there. I haven’t seen him, but he’s probably at her house eating candy or something.”
My mother’s face had gone pale. She put her hand to her mouth, and I didn’t like what I saw in her eyes. That look usually meant she was either going to start screaming or have some kind of meltdown, like a nervous breakdown. I hoped neither would happen. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she took another one. When she opened her eyes again, the fire in them made me take a step back. Timmy saw it, too, and he did likewise.
“The park, just down the street?” she asked slowly. There weren’t that many public parks i
n town. It was obvious she was trying not to blow up in front of our neighbors. She controlled her voice, but it was strained. “They went there last night?”
Timmy seemed to shrink in on himself, as if he would double up, then double up again, and continue to do it until he folded into himself and disappeared completely. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what they said, anyway. That was the dare. I’m really sorry if I got them in trouble.”
Another deep breath. “Thank you for telling me,” Mom said. “It’s not completely your fault. You didn’t force him to go.” She turned to Mr. Snodgrass. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. At least we have a place to start now.”
“Sorry I didn’t know earlier,” he said. “Do you need help with anything, looking for him or anything else?”
“No,” she said. “Thank you, though. That’s very thoughtful.” She seemed to have developed a habit since my father died of not accepting help for anything. She tried to do everything herself, even when it was obvious she could use aid. In this case, I agreed with her, but sometimes it really aggravated me because her not accepting help didn’t seem to apply to me. If she rejected someone’s offer, it usually meant more work for me.
I didn’t mind in this case. If Bobby was in trouble, I’d do anything to help him out. Though I didn’t show it on the outside, I was anxious to start searching with this new information. Jittery, nervous energy bubbled up from somewhere in my middle. We needed to get going to find out what the situation was. I refused to think that he had been taken by some dark creature.
My mom shot me a look. There wasn’t anything on her face, but I could read it in her eyes. She was in denial, too, as if it would all end up being a misunderstanding if we didn’t put words to our fear. We both got back in the car and took off toward the park.
It only took us a few minutes to get there. It wasn’t a large park, just your basic trees, grass, some benches, and a restroom, named after the prospector who had found the original small cave that became the mine. He sold the information to the mining company. A park named after him was part of his compensation.
There really wasn’t any crime in Lode, but it was still a stupid idea to spend the night in a park, even when there weren’t things from the mine snatching people. Bobby was fearless, though, which is to say that he was stupid. Not in most things, but in something like this, when someone dared him to do something, yeah. Stupid with a capital S. No, make that all caps.
As we came around a large tree on the edge of the park, my mom gasped. There were two sleeping bags laid out under a cluster of four trees. I recognized one of them as ours. The other was unfamiliar, but judging by how nice and expensive-looking it was, it was probably Allison’s. It looked more comfortable and warm than my bed at home. Her family had more money than God.
My mom rushed to the bag and rifled through it. What did she expect to find? Did she think Bobby had shrunk to pocketsize and that he was hiding inside?
While she did that, I surveyed the area. I didn’t see anything that looked like there’d been a struggle. Bobby was small, but he was a scrapper. If someone had tried to kidnap them, he would have fought. He would have at least messed up his bag. It lay there, flattened out as if he had been ready to go to bed, but never quite made it. The grass didn’t hold footprints. I didn’t see anything that was useful as a clue.
“Dani,” she said. “Come over here. Help me get the sleeping bags up. We can bring them to the police. I already know this one is ours, but I want to confirm that this other one was Allison’s. Mrs. Cairsen will probably want to know about it.”
I silently did as she asked. I watched her as I did it. She was getting frantic again.
“Mom, why don’t you sit down on the bench and breathe? I’ll go put these in the car.” She took my suggestion and sat, bent over so her head was hanging down near her knees. I could hear her forcing breaths. She really shouldn’t have doubled over like that. I learned that in karate training. She needed to stretch out her rib cage to get more breath in. I didn’t say anything, though. She was having a rough enough time without me trying to tell her what to do. I took the sleeping bags to the car.
I quickly paced around the area, scanning the ground to make sure we didn’t miss anything. When I didn’t find anything else, I went and sat next to my mom. She looked over at me, her breathing more normal. Her face was drawn, like she had been lifting weights all day and was at the point of giving up.
“They have him,” she said.
“What? Who? What are you talking about?”
“The things. From the mine. They came out at night and they took him. Took them both.”
“Mom, you don’t know that,” I said, trying to sound positive. “They’re probably just off doing something else they’re not supposed to. We’ll find him, you’ll ground him, and everything will be back to normal.”
“No, Dani,” she said. “I had a feeling, earlier. Now I’m sure. Whatever has been taking pets and people, it took Bobby and Allison last night. We have to talk to the police. We have to make them go into the mines and get Bobby. We have to…” She trailed off.
We got up and went to the car. We’d go back to the police and try to convince them that this new evidence should make them escalate the missing person case. As we sped back to the station, I couldn’t help but feel that my mom was right. Whatever it was that lived in the mines and came out at night, it had taken my brother. The question popped into my mind despite my best efforts to keep it out. Was he still alive, or had the thing killed and eaten him?
Chapter 7
“Allie, this doesn’t change procedure,” Jesse told her. “We still can’t just go into the mine. There are only four of us. Five, if you include the chief, but he’s not about to go out in the field. Four. There were more than a dozen armed security guards, and they disappeared when they went in. We can’t send the entire police department into a situation like that. Hell, we can’t keep people from wandering around at night and becoming targets. Obviously.”
My mother looked around the small police station. There were three other people—aside from the cops—there, two of them talking with Ivan, one of the other cops, and one waiting to be helped. Mom looked at me, her face a thunderhead, but calmed it as my eyes met hers. “We’ll talk about this later,” she told him in almost a whisper. I knew that tone. He’d get a stern talking to later. “Let’s go,” she said to me, already heading out the door.
As we drove home, I went over in my head what was happening. For some reason, I’d felt insulated from reality as we searched for Bobby and then found the sleeping bags. The severity of the situation hadn’t really settled in. It was becoming real to me now. I found myself tensing up, every muscle tightening. My hands started to shake and my belly turned sour. Bobby was gone. Taken. He could be dead.
I seemed to have lost control of my limbs, my mouth. I wanted to say something to my mom, anything to let her know I believed now that Bobby had been taken, but I couldn’t form words. I sat there, trembling, until we got home. When I didn’t get out of the car right away, she came around to my side and opened the door.
“What’s going on, Dani?” she said, concern in her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Mom,” I said, finally able to speak. “I have to go get him.”
“What? Dani, what are you talking about?” She put the back of her hand on my forehead. “Are you coming down with something? Come on. Let’s get in the house so you can lie down.” She took my hand and pulled me out of the car, guiding me toward the house.
“I’m not sick. I have to go after him. They’re not going to help us at all.”
“Who?”
“Anyone,” I said. “The police, the security company, whoever. No one will go look for him. We’ll sit here and wait, hoping, and Bobby will be somewhere in the dark.” I shivered more strongly. “We can’t leave him to the dark. They’ll kill him, eat him. I need to go get him.”
My mother stopped in the entryway after closing the do
or behind us. “Dani, you can’t go after him. We’ll have to convince the police to go look for him. Allison Cairsen is missing, too. They’re rich and good friends with the police chief. Maybe we can use that. Go lie down. I’ll make some phone calls. Promise me you won’t go running off to find him. Give me a chance, okay?”
As we walked to my room, I looked into her eyes. She was still scared, but her fear took on a new dimension. Somehow I understood that now, she was more afraid for me than before. Her expression seemed to plead with me. “I won’t run off and try tonight. I’ll give you a chance to get some help, but if you can’t, I’m going after him. I will not leave him to that darkness.”
She nodded and left my room, taking her phone out of her pocket.
I looked around my room, my safe haven from the dark things prowling our city. It would be night soon, another chunk of darkness in which the things could play. Would they take more people tonight?
My eyes went to the corner of the room where my bo staffs leaned against the corner. I had won some awards for staff forms in competition, too, not just for sparring. I hadn’t spent a lot of time actually fighting with the weapons, but I considered myself pretty good with them. How big were the things from the mines? How fast? Could I hurt them with six feet of hardwood swung with speed and force? I might find out soon. I hoped my mother could get some help, but the cynical side of me doubted it.
My dream was bad enough when it was me in the room with only darkness for walls. Thinking of Bobby, taken to a place with no light, made me angry. The heat of it simmered inside me, wanting to flash into a large flame, but I would give Mom a chance. Emotion warming me, I dozed off.
“Jesse, I’m telling you,” my mother’s voice said. She was in her room, but in the quiet house, I could hear her conversation.
“Calm down, Allie.” It was Jesse’s voice. Her phone was on speaker. “Don’t get so excited.”
“Don’t get excited? My son is missing, taken by whatever it is that lives in the mine. How can you tell me not to get excited? What if one of your daughters was taken?”
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