The House on Candlewick Lane

by Amy M. Reade

  But no passports. Not hers; not mine.

  I tore through everything again, hoping I had just missed the passports. Behind me, Dottie was on hold for Officer Boyd. After a moment, she handed the phone to me.

  “Officer Boyd? Ellie’s passport isn’t here. Mine isn’t, either.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said, holding back a scream. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dottie, still as a statue, her hand over her mouth.

  “Is there any other place they could be? A dresser? A desk drawer? Maybe you put them somewhere else and forgot about it?” Officer Boyd asked.

  “No. I took Ellie to Vancouver two months ago, and I distinctly remember putting the passports in there after we got back. I haven’t touched them since.”

  “Where do you keep the key? Or the combination?”

  I groaned. “I don’t keep the safe locked. I didn’t want to have to worry about getting locked out of it if I forgot the combination or if I lost the key, so I just leave it unlocked.”

  I could practically see Officer Boyd shaking his head in disbelief. Dottie had come up behind me and put her arm around my shoulder.

  “Officer? What now?”

  “Sit tight and I’ll call you back.” He hung up.

  “Dottie, what have I done?” I whispered.

  “You couldn’t have guessed this would happen,” she said.

  “I should have guessed,” I insisted. “I should have known something like this was possible.”

  “Let me get you some tea while you get these papers cleaned up. I don’t want to interfere with the things you have in the safe, or I’d help you.”

  “Thanks,” I said listlessly. I began gathering papers into small piles, but I couldn’t sit still. I paced across the front of the house, looking out each window in turn. Maybe I expected to see Neill drive up with Ellie, but the street remained empty of cars. I tried my parents again. It was early afternoon at their house. My mother answered the phone.

  “Mum? It’s Greer.”

  “What’s wrong?” I could hear the alarm in her voice immediately.

  “Neill took Ellie from school this morning. I don’t know where they’re going.” I started to cry again.

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where could he have taken her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are the police looking for them?”

  “Of course.”

  “What can I do to help you?”

  “I don’t know,” I managed to say, choking on the words. I wished for the hundredth time that my mother didn’t live on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

  “Do you want me to come?”

  “I don’t know,” I said again. “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do.”

  “I can check flights. I doubt if I can get a flight out tonight, but there’ll be flights in the morning. I can drive down to London and leave from there. Edinburgh is closer, but there are probably better flights out of London.”

  “Let me think about it and I’ll call you back. Thanks, Mum.”

  Dottie came back in with two mugs of tea. She handed one to me. I couldn’t drink it. The lump in my throat was too big. I thought I would be sick if I tried eating or drinking anything.

  “Drink it,” Dottie urged me. “It’ll help. It’s good and strong. And hot.”

  I took a tiny sip to make her happy and burned my tongue and throat. “Ouch,” I croaked. I set the mug down.

  “Sorry. Maybe a little too hot.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “What are the police doing?”

  “I have no idea. I’m waiting for them to call me back. Where do you suppose Neill took Ellie?”

  Of course Dottie didn’t know where they were, but I needed her opinion. She had been a good friend for the past six years, since we moved to her neighborhood several months before Ellie was born. She had supported me through my divorce and had always been a shoulder for me to lean on.

  “I wish I knew,” she answered, her mouth set in a grim line. “I’m sure the police are doing everything they can right now.”

  “I just wish I could do something. I can’t stand this waiting.”

  “I know, Greer, but what if he brings her back here? You’ll want to be here.”

  I seized on the idea. “Do you think he’ll bring her home? Do you think he just took her to scare me but he doesn’t really want to keep her?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. But I hope he does. Maybe he’ll wise up and realize he’s made a mistake.”

  “Or maybe he’ll figure there’s no going back now that he’s taken her and he’ll dig in his heels,” I countered.

  “Let’s not think about that possibility. Let’s stay positive,” she suggested.

  “I’m going upstairs. I need to have a look around Ellie’s room,” I told her.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked. “What if the police want to have a look in there? You don’t want to disturb anything.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “You’re probably right. I won’t touch anything.”

  I went upstairs and stood in the doorway of Ellie’s room. Her bed was made, her stuffed animals in a heap on top. I scanned the room, looking for anything amiss, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. I walked down the hall to the guest room, which Ellie sometimes used as a playroom. Her toys were strewn about.

  Suddenly my breath was coming in gasps and I couldn’t stop it. I was in a full panic. Dottie was at my side in an instant. “I’ll be right back.”

  She hurtled down the stairs and was back in a moment carrying a brown paper bag. I couldn’t catch my breath.

  “Here,” she ordered, bunching up the top of the bag and handing it to me. “Breathe into this.” She sat down next to me on the floor and put her hand on my back while I took huge, deep gasps into the bag, finally slowing my heart rate and my breathing. After several minutes I was breathing normally again.

  Dottie took my hand and led me to the loft outside the guest room. She sat me down on the couch. “I want you to lie down right here.”

  I started to protest.

  “No,” she said, holding up her hand. “You need to calm down.”

  I couldn’t rest. I sat on the couch, scrolling through texts I had received from Neill over the past several weeks. There weren’t many. I was searching for any clue he might have let slip about his plan to take Ellie. I couldn’t find anything. Dottie finally sat down next to me, watching me with pity in her eyes.

  My stomach was in knots. My head hurt. I felt like I weighed a million pounds. “Dottie,” I said, “I have to do something. I don’t know where to start.”

  “Is it possible Neill contacted Ellie before he took her?”

  I stared at her in confusion. “You mean, told her he was taking her somewhere?” I shook my head. “No. No. That’s not possible. She would have told me.”

  Wouldn’t she?

  “I mean, maybe he told her they were going to do something fun, just the two of them, and maybe he told her not to tell you. Would she tell?” Dottie said.

  Her suggestion threw me into a state of uncertainty and doubt. What if Neill had told Ellie not to tell me? She was still little. She knew about stranger danger, but she would trust her own father if he told her to keep a secret.

  I jumped up and ran into Ellie’s room. I didn’t know what I was looking for—maybe a hint that she knew that Neill was going to pick her up at school that morning. Maybe she took a change of clothes with her. Maybe she took a favorite toy in her backpack. I didn’t care if I was disturbing anything the police might want to see.

  I tore through her dresser drawers, looking for anything that might be missing or out of place. She had more clothes than I did. I didn’t keep a mental inventory of all of her outfits, but I knew her favorites. She had a pair of jeans that she woul
d wear every day of the week if I let her, and I didn’t see those in her room. I ran downstairs to the laundry room, where I dumped the baskets of dirty clothes onto the floor. Tossing garments aside, I went through all the laundry.

  Her jeans weren’t there.

  I dashed upstairs to her room, where I went through her dresser again, double-checking for her jeans. They were gone. I rifled through the T-shirts next, but didn’t notice anything missing. But then again, I probably wouldn’t because she had so many. I yanked open the closet door, confident that I would immediately notice missing dresses or skirts. But they were all there.

  “Are you all right?” Dottie said from behind me. I peered around Ellie’s closet door.

  “Her jeans are missing. Her favorite jeans. They’re not in here, and they’re not in the laundry.”

  “Have you called the police yet?”

  “Not yet. I was looking to see if there’s anything else missing.”

  “How about her toys?”

  I scanned Ellie’s bed. All her best animal friends were there, staring at me, watching me fall apart.

  “They’re all there.”

  “You’d better call the police and tell them about the jeans.”

  The phone rang. I jumped, startled, then looked at Dottie. “What if it’s Neill?”

  “Answer it! Talk to him!”

  I grabbed the phone and answered it breathlessly. “Hello? Neill?”

  “It’s Officer Boyd, Dr. Dobbins. Have you heard from Neill?”

  I let out a disappointed sigh. “No. I was hoping you were him.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Have you located the passports?”

  “No. They’re gone. Neill must have taken them. He must be planning to take Ellie somewhere. Ellie’s favorite jeans are missing, too.”

  “Are you sure? Have you looked everywhere for them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m on my way over to your house right now with a detective. We’re going to take a look around and see if we can find anything. You’ll be there?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “We’ll be right over.”

  Dottie helped me put Ellie’s things back into her dresser, and then we went downstairs. The police arrived just a few minutes later. I introduced Dottie to Officer Boyd. He introduced us to the other officer, Detective West.

  Officer Boyd took charge when we were all seated in the living room. “So tell me about the jeans,” he said briskly.

  “They’re blue denim with Xs in bright green stitching on the back pockets. She loves them. I’ve looked through all her drawers and in the laundry and they’re not here. She must have taken them.”

  “Which means that she knew Neill was planning to pick her up,” Officer Boyd mused.

  Detective West spoke up. “I’d like to go to Ellie’s room with Dr. Dobbins and look for anything else that might be missing.”

  Officer Boyd nodded, looking at me. “I’m going to ask—Dottie, is it?—some questions. Then I’d like you to show me where you keep your safe, and I’ll take a look around that room.”

  I showed Detective West where Ellie’s room was, then opened the drawer where she kept her jeans. There were still several pairs in there, and Detective West took them out one by one and examined them.

  “You’re sure the jeans with the green Xs aren’t somewhere else in the house?” he asked.

  “Positive.”

  I watched as he looked through the rest of the dresser drawers, then started searching the closet. He made several notes in a small notebook he was carrying. “Have you gone through the pockets in all her clothes?”

  “No. I hadn’t gotten to that yet.”

  “Let’s do that now. We’ll need to know if he gave her a note.”

  The long minutes ticked by as we went through all the pockets in her clothing. Officer Boyd came to her bedroom door while we were working.

  “Got anything?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” grunted the detective, reaching his thick fingers into a tiny hip pocket in a pair of Ellie’s shorts.

  “Dr. Dobbins, I’d like you to show me where the safe is now,” Officer Boyd said.

  He accompanied me to the office and followed me to the safe. I took out all the documents and set them on the floor as he pulled a chair over from the desk. I left him alone to meticulously go through each pile while I returned to Ellie’s room.

  Detective West stood up when I entered. “There’s nothing in any of her pockets. Is there anything else I should see?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what might be important and what wasn’t. “I’m…I’m not sure,” I stammered. “Do you want to see the laundry?”

  “Yes. We’d better go through that, too. Have you looked through her desk?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Do you want to go through it?”

  “Yes. Does she have a diary?”

  An irrational surge of hope swelled up in me. I had forgotten about the diary she kept in the top drawer of her desk. I crossed the room in one step and pulled the drawer open, shuffling through the artwork, crayons, colored pencils, and paperback chapter books.

  “Here it is!” I pulled out the lavender book with the small brass plate and tiny keyhole. I fingered the dark purple ribbon that acted as a bookmark. The key was attached to the ribbon. I handed the book to the detective.

  He unlocked the book and leafed through it slowly, his eyes scanning each page. Too anxious to wait for him to finish reading, I looked over his shoulder and read the pages, too. A lump in my throat grew as I thought about Ellie’s thin fingers, carefully printing the words in the diary. Words she thought were for her eyes only.

  Her entries were sporadic; she only seemed to write when something exciting or fun or especially upsetting had occurred. She had written about our trip to Vancouver and drawn little pictures in the margins. She had written about the day we went to the zoo, and about the night her pet bunny died.

  Nothing about Neill.

  Detective West closed the book. “Do you mind if I take this with me back to the station?”

  “Not at all. Do you think there’s something in there that could help find Ellie and Neill?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’d like to go over it again.”

  I led him downstairs to the laundry room, where he lifted up the dirty clothes one piece at a time, putting everything in neat piles on the floor. I watched him from the doorway. He finally turned to me and asked, “Have you noticed anything else missing besides the jeans? Maybe pajamas or socks and underwear?”

  I hadn’t even thought of looking for Ellie’s pajamas. I ran upstairs and rifled through her dresser drawers again, looking for her two favorite pj sets. One set was missing. I looked around on the floor, where Detective West had left some articles of clothing during his search of the dresser drawers. They weren’t there.

  Carrying the other set, I returned to Detective West, who was going through all the pockets of the dirty clothes. “Her favorite pajamas are gone.”

  “What are those?” he asked, nodding at the outfit I held in my hand.

  I held them up and looked at them listlessly, as though seeing them for the first time. “This is her other favorite set.”

  “Can I take those with me?” he asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  He dropped them in a plastic bag, sealed it, and scrawled something across the front. As he was capping his pen, Officer Boyd came in.

  “I got prints from the safe, though I’m relatively certain it was Neill who took the passports.”

  “So what next?” I asked.

  “I’ll contact the area airports again and we’ll double down on watching out for them.” The mobile phone on his hip beeped.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  He nodded while listening to the voice on the other end. Then he turned the phone off before saying,

  “They have a lead on the car your ex was driving.” />
  Hope surged in my chest and I took a sharp breath. “What lead?”

  “Two officers found it parked in a lot downtown. It’s being canvassed now for evidence.”

  “Any sign of Neill and Ellie?”

  “No. The car was empty. But hopefully they left behind something that will give us a clue as to where they’re headed.”

  The detective finished going through the laundry, and both men followed me out to the kitchen, where Dottie was preparing more tea. “I’m heading over to the station to talk to the officers who found the car and to have a look at it myself,” Officer Boyd said. “It’s in the impound lot. Dr. Dobbins, we’ll be in touch soon. In the meantime, please let us know if you hear from Neill, Ellie, or anyone in Neill’s family.”

  “Okay.”

  The officers left, and Dottie and I returned to the living room, where I sank into an armchair.

  “How are you holding up?” asked Dottie.

  “Not so well.” Tears welled up in my eyes again and spilled slowly down my cheeks. “What if Ellie gets sick? She needs me when she’s sick,” I sniffled. I looked at Dottie. “Neil doesn’t know how to take care of her like I do.” The sobs came then. My body shook as I cried, my hands over my face, my body bent forward in the chair. I didn’t care that Dottie was in the room with me, didn’t care how I looked or how I sounded. Didn’t care about anything except finding Ellie, wondering where she was and if she was okay. And through the pain, I felt the beginning of a hard, hot pellet of hatred for Neill. How could he do this to me and to Ellie?

  When I had cried all the tears I could, I was exhausted. Over my protests that I wouldn’t sleep, Dottie took me upstairs to my room, where she pulled the shades and helped me lie down on the bed.

  “You’ll tell me if you hear anything, right?” I asked her, my voice wild with panic and fatigue.

  “Of course I will,” she soothed.

  She went into my bathroom and reappeared with a glass of water and a Xanax, an old one left over from the many sleepless nights I suffered following the divorce. I resisted, telling her that I wanted to wake up quickly if I needed to.

  “That’s why I’m only giving you one pill,” she replied. “Greer, there’s nothing you can do right now except rest and shore up your strength. The pill will help you sleep and help steer your mind from places it shouldn’t go.”