Chapter 11
As soon as Jeff heard Tina scream, he flicked on the lights.
The girl was gone.
He twisted his neck, scanning the room. It was not that much area to cover, the room being only nine by seven feet. He remained standing beside the door, stunned.
Charlie lifted himself out of the chair, his weight jiggling through his gray dress shirt as he turned. “Where is she?”
Jeff moved to the desk, bent over, and looked under. No blue-gray eyed girl with blond hair.
There was nowhere else Tina could have gone.
Strangely, as though he were looking for a file, he opened a drawer in the cabinet along the wall, which was too small for her to hide in, but he had to check anyways. She was in this room somewhere. He had been standing in front of the door the whole time. There was no way she could have exited.
“What happened?” her father asked, his face whitening and becoming pasty. “What did you do to her?”
Though it was incomprehensible, she wasn’t here. She had left. How could she without him noticing though? Even if she somehow got past him, the door had been closed and locked the entire time, and if it had opened, it would have flooded the room with light from the hallway. Maybe if a blackout occurred in the entire building, it would make more sense. But still, the door was locked and he had been right in front of it. The lock would have made noise if it had been disengaged.
“Is this some sort of trick?” Charlie’s chubby hands fisted into red bricks. “Bring her back.”
Jeff went to the door and tested the lock. It was engaged. He unlocked it, aware of the clinking noises from the metal mechanisms moving inside, and then he opened the door. The hall was lit. He looked left and right but saw no girl.
“Where’s my daughter?” Charlie’s voice squeaked and cracked.
“I’m sure she’s around somewhere. You stay here in case she comes back, and I’ll check the hall.”
He didn’t turn around to see what Charlie was doing. He didn’t want to look into Charlie’s lost, accusing eyes. Jeff was too distraught himself. Walking as quickly as possible, he came to a corner, looked right to the emergency exit, which would have triggered an alarm if she had used that door. Then he continued down the hallway until it met the secretary’s desk.
Diane was on the phone.
He waved to her. “Sorry to interrupt, but have you seen my client, Tina Poole?”
She shook her head and carried on with her phone conversation.
He interrupted again, “She’s an eleven-year-old, with blond hair, gray jeans, black high-top sneakers, and a brown and tan plaid shirt.”
Diane shook her head again, appearing annoyed.
“Did we have a black out?”
“What?”
“The electricity, did it shut off?”
“No.” She turned away from him. “I’m sorry, Martha, someone needed information.”
He knew she didn’t understand. How could she? How could anyone? No one has ever lost a child at this facility. It was ludicrous.
He followed the hall to the end. All the offices along the way were locked and occupied so Tina couldn’t have snuck into any of them. He opened the door at the end of the hall which led to the waiting room and quickly scanned it, spotting a few parents reading magazines in the chairs. He went to the bathrooms, knocked on the women’s door first and opened it, inspecting each corner and inside the trash cans. No one was there. Checking the men’s room, no girl was there.
A tingling sensation grew throughout his legs and arms, and he noticed he was breathing fast. He couldn’t help it. He had never lost a child before. How could this have possibly happened? There wasn’t even a protocol to follow that he knew of. He walked outside, squinting in the sunlight, searching the fenced playground area, which held two boys on the monkey bars, swinging and howling.
Now, running back through the waiting room, through the locked entrance, down the hall, checking each locked office along the way, and back into his office, praying Charlie would be embracing his daughter like he had done minutes ago—Tina safe and secure.
Instead, he saw Charlie sitting in the chair, sweat beading his forehead, thick legs jiggling nervously.
The large man asked, “Did you find her?”
He had become a therapist to help children, not lose them. His career made him happy, as he had been while nurturing his daughter for seven short years. He didn’t know how to reply to Tina’s father. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I have no idea where she went.”
“What the hell do you mean, ‘Sorry?’” His face turned bright red as he stood. His white-knuckled fists opened, hooked into Jeff's sweater and tugged. “This is unacceptable. Where is she?”
Jeff stumbled and slurred his words, “She might’ve wen-back to park’in lot to-yer car.” Before his speech could deteriorate further, Charlie’s heavy body barreled out the room, lumbering with grunts down the hallway to the exit.
He hoped this was just a nightmare. He hoped he would wake up any second. But he couldn’t possibly be that lucky. This was a nightmare alright, but a real one.
He went back to the secretary’s desk and had her page the entire building for Tina Poole. Then he alerted his supervisor of the situation. A page throughout the building would be sufficient to alert the girl and clinicians if one stumbled upon her.
Going back to his office, feeling faint, his heart beating too rapidly, he fell to the ground. He recognized he was having a panic attack. He needed to calm himself. Anxiety actually lowers intelligence. It primes the body, not the mind, for action. Oxygen and sugar enriched blood is diverted from higher brain functions to large muscle groups in order to prepare for fight or flight.
Being a therapist, he knew exactly what to do.
Back straight, he sat in his office chair and took a slow, deep breath for three seconds, held it for one second, then released it for the duration of six seconds. He repeated the process. During the exercise, he thought only of lemons. This singular focus incited no further anxiety.
He began to feel more relaxed after the ninth breath.
But this coping technique was just a Band-Aid. It didn’t really solve the problem—the source of anxiety. He still had no idea how to find Tina. With this thought, a revived wave of anxiety crashed into him.