by Sean Platt
Cassidy was sitting in the front passenger seat. “Um, what’s with the teddy bear?”
“Don’t ask,” Jon said, smiling.
Houser smiled, and asked, “An old friend. I don’t leave home without him. So what do we have?”
“Last night, my mom said something really weird when I got home,” Cassidy said. “She was drunk as hell, even drunker than usual, and said something about Sarah being taken by ‘men in the sky.’ When I woke up this morning, she denied it, saying she was drunk, but when I brought it up to Jon, he said he had a dream once about something happening to Sarah when we were kids. She’d been taken while we were playing hide and seek. And the weirdest thing is, I vaguely had a dream just like that. And the really weird part is that I didn’t even remember ever having the dream until Jon mentioned it. Like déjà vu.”
“OK, so you’re saying Emma was taken by . . . um, an alien or something?” Houser said, trying not to laugh.
“I don’t know what I’m saying, but when Jon mentioned the dream, and where we’d been playing in the dream, the woods by Mom’s house, I thought maybe we should try looking there.”
“It’s not near Whistler’s house, though, is it?” Houser asked.
“Well, the island isn’t that big. Everything is relatively close to everything else,” Jon said.
Houser was going to ask why they were going on a hunch, but there was something in Cassidy’s eyes, that look of guilt, that made him wonder if maybe she had something to do with the missing girl, after all. Was she leading them to the girl’s body now that they had someone to pin the crime on? He’d seen this story play out a dozen times or more on the news, and hoped to Christ this wasn’t the case this time. He had no tolerance for monsters, especially those who killed their own kids.
She didn’t feel like a murderer to him, however. But there was definitely fireworks behind her eyes — something bad she was hiding. Perhaps it was an accident and she panicked, and hid the poor girl’s body in the woods. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened, either, and certainly not the last. Cassidy looked back at Houser and their eyes met.
Yes, she’s guilty of something.
What did you do, Cassidy Hughes?
If she were friends with anyone other than Jon, he would have her in a room next to Whistler, and hedge his bets. But since she was Jon’s friend, and this was Jon’s daughter, Houser would keep his suspicions to himself — for now.
“So, you gonna tell me more about the bear?” she asked.
Houser looked up and caught Jon’s face in the rearview, about to open his mouth and spare Houser from retelling a story Jon knew by heart, every version.
“It’s okay,” Houser said. “I don’t mind.”
Maybe the story might move Cassidy to come clean about whatever she was hiding.
“It was 10 years back. Me and my partner, Chan, were searching for a missing girl. Cecilia Ramirez, and she was six years old. You hear of her? It made the national news.”
“No,” Cassidy said, shaking her head.
Houser told her the story, and how they’d failed to get a search warrant in time. By the time they finally got to her, the girl was dying. It was the case that more or less closed the coffin on Houser’s career.
“About two weeks after she died, I was on desk duty when this little Spanish guy came in. He was wearing a mechanic’s uniform, dirty as hell, and I barely recognized him at first. But then, as he approached my desk, I remembered. It was Juan Ramirez, the girl’s father. He and his wife had been devastated. They heard on the news before I was able to tell them in person. Goddamned fucking media. Anyway, the minute I saw him, I felt like shit. Because I’d done something I’d never done before.”
Cassidy’s eyes were starting to well up. Houser went on.
“I promised him we’d find his girl. Alive. I don’t even know why the fuck I made the promise, except maybe I wanted it to come true so bad. When I came to their house to tell them, he and his wife were furious with me. His wife punched me on the chest. Juan told me to please leave. And never come back.”
“Oh shit,” Cassidy said.
“Yeah, so here he was in the station, and I’m dreading it. He’s holding a brown paper bag, and part of me is thinking he might have come in with a gun to either shoot me or himself. But instead, he pulled out this teddy bear here. He said it had been Cecilia’s. He handed me a picture of her and the bear together. She was smiling so brightly, and it was so unlike every other image of her that I had in my head. She was so sweet and happy. He said he wanted me to have the picture and the bear, so I’d have a good memory of Cecilia.”
“Oh God,” Cassidy said, now crying fully.
“I about lost it right there, and he hugged me. And when he hugged me, I lost it.”
“I’ll bet,” Cassidy said.
“So, yeah, that’s how I came to partner up with Ted E. Bear. He’s quiet, but on the plus side, he doesn’t eat all my snacks on stakeouts. I wish I could say that for some of my human partners.”
Cassidy smiled, wiping the streaks from her cheeks.
As she did, he looked into her eyes, trying to read what was there, dig to whatever she hid in the depths of her sadness.
* * * *
They split into three, walking through the thick forest and calling for Emma. Houser could hear Jon and Cassidy, calling her name every 30 seconds or so, coming close to alternating turns.
“Emma!” Houser called, as he looked in the sky at the darkening clouds up above.
A cold wind started to tear through the trees, causing his companions’ words to fade into a fogged mumble. Houser kept moving, searching for any sign in the woods for Emma.
Houser happened upon foot traffic, three pairs of feet, and followed it until the trail stopped dead at a set of tire tracks.
He wondered if the footprints belonged to the kidnapper, or just some people out hiking in the woods. Maybe some kids fucking around out here.
The wind began to howl louder as clouds overheard gathered mass and speed, nearly blotting the sun, even though it was just past 2 p.m.
Houser flashed back to his search for Cecilia, and begged God not to make history repeat.
Please God, I don’t ask for shit. Er, I mean much. Sorry, God. Please, please, help us find Emma safe and sound, so she can be with her family again.
Please, God. If you do this, I swear I’ll believe in you again.
Houser doubted God would come through, but went on anyway, hoping it wouldn’t start raining again. It was bad enough that the weather had turned the woods wintry and black. Say what you wanted about California being a cesspool, at least the weather was always nice.
“Emma!” he shouted again.
Houser heard something weird above the wind.
What the?
He stopped walking, listening instead, and heard the crackle of static.
Static out here?
He reached down and checked his phone t0 see if maybe it was making the noise, but it wasn’t. His phone was blinking; the screen flickering on, off, on, off, over and over.
The sky poured icy rain down in a torrent.
Houser continued, despite not hearing his partners, deeper into the darkened woods.
“Emma!” he screamed.
In the distance, the howling wind was murdered by a high-pitched scream, almost digital sounding, like the screech of an ancient internet dialup connection. Thunder crashed, as though the forest was exploding around him.
“What the hell?” he said to nobody as chaos erupted. The wind was so strong, that he fell back, and for a moment, he was certain that he was about to be sucked away like Dorothy to Oz.
But then, as sudden as the freak storm came, it left. Or more accurately, stopped.
A hush draped the woods in quiet and black. Houser looked overhead, and saw only swirling dark clouds.
A blinding white light bled then burst through the darkness in a rattling thicket of trees just beyond Houser
.
“Emma!” he screamed, running like a rocket toward the light.
Houser was nothing if not agile, particularly for a guy the size of a linebacker.
“Emma!”
As he reached the top of a rise and the last of the trees between himself and the brightness, the light flickered then faded, casting the world into an even deeper black as his eyes struggled to recover from the light.
“Help,” called a small girl’s voice.
Houser shot through the black and into a clearing where someone was standing, barely visible in the shadows — a naked girl, drenched and shivering, and crying for her mother.
CHAPTER 10 — Milo Anderson Part 2
Beatrice was in her BMW, sitting in the parking lot of Hamilton K-12, waiting for Milo. Weird, since she picked him up once upon a never. He saw her white SUV sitting two rows from the entrance, the engine running and Other Mom staring.
Though Milo had been looking forward to the walk, and clearing his mind from the chatter of students and pointless lectures from Mrs. Mellakar, he was happy to have a ride and get him home sooner so he could log on to LiveLyfe and see if he could find Cody. He didn’t believe Cody’s threats at all, but he was curious to find out just who the hell this guy thought he was, and why he was fucking with Milo.
Milo opened the cabin and climbed inside, nodding at Beatrice as he tossed his backpack onto the passenger floor. Thanks would have required more kindness from him than he felt, so Milo said, “Why are you here?” instead.
Beatrice said nothing. Probably pissed because he wasn’t falling all over himself to worship Her Royal Highness for taking time from her busy day of stuffing shopping bags and signing her name to pick him up from school.
Beatrice put the truck in reverse, then pulled from the parking lot, not checking her mirrors and making Russ Harvey dart out of the way as she backed the BMW from its space. Harvey dropped his bag on the asphalt and scowled at Beatrice, turning his palms to the sky in a what in the hell?
“Woah, Bea,” Milo said. ”This is school, not the Speedway. Kids everywhere. You wanna watch out?”
Beatrice said nothing, just stared straight with her eyes on the road.
Great. Now she’s gonna be a bitch all afternoon.
Milo figured he’d get the silent treatment for correcting her, like always. Beatrice hated to be corrected, especially in public, which he’d not done. The few times he had, came with a high cost later.
One time Other Mom and Dad had thrown a dinner party with a few contenders for the crown of Island’s Most Boring. Beatrice told Milo he had to play nice during the meal, even though he’d rather have been playing Grand Theft Auto 6 in his room. He said fine, and was genuinely trying, until midway through the lobster manicotti when Beatrice started mouthing off about the time Milo went on the Timberhawk at Wild Waves and pissed on himself.
Beatrice loved the story since she had told him to use the bathroom right before they’d started standing in line and Milo refused, not realizing how badly he had to go until the metal bar was locking him in place. The coaster was on its way downhill when the dam burst. The girl beside him screamed and turned to Milo in horror. He asked her what her problem was, even though the problem was soaking his side of the seat too. She called him a pervert and told him he should ask his mommy to buy him some diapers.
Milo took the story like a sport, mouth full of enough sauce and cheese to hide his scowl. He even let Beatrice make it through all the way to the end. But once she did, he lost it, reading her the riot act across the table, yelling that the story wasn’t appropriate dinner discussion, and that she had no right to embarrass him in front of strangers.
Beatrice smiled, dabbed linen at the corners of her mouth, then laughed her half-cyborg cackle and told Milo he was right. But once company was gone, she started screaming while his father pretended to scroll through the headlines on his tablet, too preoccupied to notice.
“I don’t mind being spanked, Milo,” she growled, like a female dog. “But if you ever spank me in public again, I will find new ways to make you sorry.”
Beatrice didn’t talk to him for two days, not once responding to anything he needed. Like that was supposed to discourage him? He could make his own damn lunch, Fuck you very much.
But even ignoring him was better than this. Milo didn’t understand the silence beside him, which was creepy more than anything else. Beatrice didn’t seem angry, so much as not quite there. Kind of like yesterday, when he’d come home and was just staring at the TV and then went to the fridge and put food in her purse. Perhaps it was time to adjust one of the many medications she was on.
Just as well, Milo told himself. If she was being her regular non-bitch mode self, he’d either be listening to crap from the stereo or crap from her mouth. And without some Maroon 5’s Greatest Hits grating his nerves through the speakers, he could sort through the confusion that came with the call from Cody.
Could Milo trust a guy he didn’t know, saying stuff he wasn’t sure he believed? According to Cody, Milo had no choice. According to Milo, the whole thing was ridiculous conspiracy theory sounding bullshit. What Milo needed was outside perspective.
He considered calling Alex, but wasn’t sure he was ready to rip the bandage from that particular wound. Every time he thought about Alex, the lump in his throat came back, wondering what he could possibly say.
Milo started to sweat, trying to keep his mind from Heller’s hand, heading inside the briefcase.
Heller looked down at his desk, then opened his briefcase with a loud snapping, staring for what felt like eternity. He finally pulled out a pistol. Manny laughed. Amber Riley, then everyone else, screamed. Heller shot Tommy in the face and chaos erupted, Heller firing one shot after the other, with students scrambling in every direction. Jessica ran toward him, eyes and mouth hanging open. Heller’s blurred figure came into focus, aiming at Jessica.
No!
Milo swallowed, staring out the window as Beatrice made a left onto Beechmont instead of a right. They must be stopping at Jordy’s Foods for groceries. Would’ve been cool if she had asked if he minded.
“We stopping for groceries?”
Beatrice said nothing.
Bitch.
“Mind if we pick up some stuff to make nachos?,” he asked. “Fridge is a bit bare.”
Beatrice kept staring at the road, ignoring Milo, so he decided to be an asshole. “Fridge went a little empty last night after you decided to start filling your purse with meat. Anything else you manage to get in there? I noticed the aged Romano went missing.”
Still nothing.
“That was pretty weird, Bea.”
Silence.
“I’m not spanking you in public. Hell, I’m not even spanking you. Just thought it was batshit to load up on cold cuts inside the Gucci. Dad probably wouldn’t like that, considering how much the handbag probably cost.”
Milo figured that would piss her insides out, but Beatrice was still letting the cat run around with her tongue.
Bitch and a half.
Milo wished he could see her eyes, and wondered if they looked as crazy gone as they had the night before when she’d been staring at the TV, just before she decided to dump the deli in her handbag. But Milo couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were with the rest of her face, pointed straight ahead out the window.
They were drawing closer to Jordy’s, and Milo was suddenly impatient. Why in the hell had she come to pick him up if she didn’t want to? It wasn’t like they were trimming minutes from the trip. By the time they left the grocery store, Milo could have already been home, and without the Chilly Willy from Beatrice.
Without moving her eyes from the road, Beatrice reached over to the console and flipped on the stereo. Adam Levine started singing, but only for a moment. Other Mom flipped from iTunes to Sirius, then twisted the dial to the right, finally settling on a station broadcasting nothing but static.
Milo could swear the corner of her mouth twitched in
a smile, though her eyes never left the road. She pressed down on the gas, taking the car from 45 mph to more than 65 in seconds.
What the hell?
Milo shifted in his seat, his foot reaching out for an imaginary brake.
He thought of Beatrice as a waxy plastic bitch to begin with, but she suddenly looked like she was made of plastic, like when she came home from Seattle after getting her Botox. Except when Beatrice got Botox, it looked like she was trying to smile but couldn’t. Now it looked like she wasn’t even trying.
She swung a left, two blocks from Jordy’s, barely slowing enough to navigate the turn.
“Beatrice,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady as his right hand gripped the strap above his window. “Are you going to say anything?”
Blood pooled across the front of Jessica’s powder blue sweater. 11. Jessica stared up at him, scared and searching for any explanation. She said something, 11, but the screaming whistle in his ears swallowed her words.
“Beatrice!”
Nothing.
“Beatrice!” Milo’s voice was laced with hysteria. “Say something. Anything. I just need to know you can hear me!”
Still nothing. Thankfully, she slowed down to a normal pace as she pulled into the parking lot of Jordy’s.
Two dozen cars were scattered across the rain spattered parking lot, as a few people shuffled in and out of the front of the store’s sliding glass double doors — a mom holding hands with her toddler girl; a fat man, Mr. Hollis, with one arm full of groceries and the other shoving a honeybun into his mouth on his way to his beat to shit Silverado, and a young couple in matching jeans and black leather jackets holding hands as they went through the doors.
Beatrice should have been slowing even more, but wasn’t.
She reached over and turned the static louder, then did the unthinkable by lowering her foot on the gas.
Beatrice was silent. Milo was screaming, paralyzed by fear as they rocketed forward.
His screech, along with the radio’s static and the roar of the engine, was a symphony coalescing to a crescendo as Beatrice’s BMW crashed through the front of Jordy’s, parting glass and aluminum in a curtain of splinters and shards, cries of terror and fleeing shoppers.