Chapter 12
Jeff fervently searched behind the file cabinet in his office, in the drawers, under his desk again, around all the corners, underneath the play-table, in the small trash receptacle, yet found no clues to the girl’s whereabouts.
He looked again and again.
This couldn’t be happening. She had been in here.
The past loss of his precious daughter gapped inside of him. Bianca’s death to cancer after seven months of struggling had destroyed him and severed his marriage. His wife’s trust in him became undone, as though she had expected him to save their daughter. And the remaining good feelings of their marriage became completely eclipsed by the loss of Bianca.
He and Cherie had been going through marital problems before the cancer, but he had always believed they could work it out. She had wanted more from him—more vacations, more time, more money, bigger houses, better cars—overwhelming him because he had given her all those things and was failing anyways. He had made an appointment with a highly recommended marriage therapist, but she refused to go, saying that therapy would not help, but that he needed to change.
His eyes dropped to the floor. He felt utterly devastated. Then he regarded several small red droplets on the brown carpet. They looked like paint, but he had not done art therapy with anyone today. He knelt down and touched one. It stained his finger red.
Blood.
The droplets led from Tina’s chair to underneath the play-table. But then, the trail just vanished against the wall….
He cried on the floor. He was pathetic. Tina trusted him to help. She had told him of a creature in the dark and he hadn’t believed her. She came to him with an open heart, delving into her deepest fears. He hadn't listened. Now, he was more than ready to believe her.
His belief came too late though.
He considered searching the facility again. But he’d been thorough the first time. It would be a wasted effort. Besides, other staff were already alerted to lookout for Tina.
What else could he do?
He recalled Laura’s secret about the dark. Was it related to Tina’s disappearance? Could it possibly have some bearing on finding her? He needed to know. If there was a chance it could help the girl, he must explore that possibility. Really, he had no other ideas. Clinging to the notion that the secret could help, needing the secret to help, he tried Laura’s cell phone, but got only voice mail.
He pressed and held the end-call button, unable to let go.
It was 1:26 p.m. She would just be finishing her last class if he left now to meet her at La Mirada High School. He was ready for her secret now. He was damn ready.
He reported to his supervisor, Dr. Beckham, the false notion that he knew where Tina might have run to. This would allow for him to leave work and for the secretary to cancel all his other appointments today. Dr. Beckham assured him that the girl would turn up.
“How can you be sure?” Jeff questioned.
“Don’t worry. The father was with you when it happened. I think we’ll be legally covered. Keep searching if you want, and I’ll handle the father and call the police if she doesn’t turn up.”
But he wasn’t worried about legalities. He just wanted the girl safely back.
Within twelve minutes, he was standing in the teachers’ parking lot next to Laura’s green, Ford Mustang. Due to minimum day on Fridays from State budget cuts, teenagers were herding out the sole, front exit of La Mirada High School.
He had never been so glad to see Laura. She was smiling as her eyes caught him, but that smile morphed into worried creases by the time she reached him.
“What’s wrong?”
He couldn’t hide anything from this woman. “I lost a girl.”
“You what?”
“I know this sounds ridiculous, but I lost a girl in the dark.”
Understanding and calm changed her features. She knew something.
“Tell me the secret. I’m ready.”
She paused. “We don’t have much time.”
“I have all the time in the world. Go ahead.”
“No, I mean we only have several hours left before the sun sets.”
“So?”
“After that, only about thirty minutes of twilight until nightfall.”
“Darkness.”
“Yes.”
“But what’s the secret?”
“I’m not sure you’re ready yet. But I’ll bring you along.”
“Bring me along where?”
“There’s something they didn’t teach us in school, at home, or in church. Something few people knew about to teach.”
“I’ll buy that. We’re an evolving species, still ignorant of most knowledge in the universe.”
She looked up into the blue sky.
“Is it teleportation? Does the dark have power to teleport people to other places? It sounds crazy, I know. I would have never believed it before, but I’m open now. I’m ready. I’m open to new ideas, new theories, new dimensions. I’ll be receptive. You can trust—”
She put her hand on his arm. “Relax, Jeff. You’ll find out soon enough.”
He breathed deeply. “It’s hard to relax when I’ve lost a girl.”
“You didn’t lose her.”
“Huh?”
“Follow me to my house.”
He frowned. “Why don’t you just tell me?”
“It can’t be told.” She sighed. “I wish it could.”
After parking his car in her driveway, he stood beside her Mustang, as she went inside the house for a change of clothes. He paced beside her car nervously.
He had the sudden urge to fix a car, any car. A hobby of his was fixing automobile engines. In high school, he became fascinated by the freedom his first car gave him, an old Chevy Impala. Since then he had been interested in automobiles. Now he wanted to take apart an engine and put it back together again, making it work better than new. Obviously, he wasn’t about to begin this endeavor, but the feeling remained. It was something that gave him comfort in the past.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a white mop bobbing above Laura’s wooden fence. No, it wasn’t a mop. It was Graisse, leaping above the fence to catch glimpses of Jeff, barking now at the crest of each aerobatic feat.
Disturbed by the dog’s obsessive behavior, he crawled into Laura’s car and closed the door. Here, in the relative silence, he found waiting to be more difficult.
Jeff exited the car, walked to the front door, and was just about to knock when it opened. He couldn’t help notice her worn blue jeans, white tennis shoes, tight gray t-shirt, and black leather motorcycle jacket that was left unzipped.
“Let’s go,” he said, voice dry.
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I can’t speed up the sunset.”
“Right.”
“Please, just try to relax.” She leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek.
He was stunned, several feelings hitting him at once, all of which he couldn’t identify.
“Tina’s going to be all right.”
He thanked her for her assurance. Her face reminded him of a better time—a time before Tina disappeared from his office.
As they drove through heavy Friday evening traffic, complicated by road construction, they made light conversation that turned deeper and absorbing. He wanted to know her favorite music, the most embarrassing times, the happiest times, guys she dated in high school, the way she liked her omelets. Little details, like her left leg being an eighth of an inch shorter than her right, and her right pinkie finger having no feeling, were captivating to him. It felt right to be immersed in her life. He recognized this as a defense to avoid the unbearable loss of Tina. But partly, this was genuine intensifying feelings for Laura.
After sunset, as the streets became less congested, narrower, and darker, his anxiety returned. He called his supervisor. Beckham reported that Tina was still missing, but that he had filed a report with the police.
Laura sped down a single-lane street, Black Star Canyon Road, which led to a dead-end at a white painted steel gate. Beyond, a dirt road wiggled through the hills.
She pulled the car to the side of the road, turned off the lights, and got out. She lit a cigarette.
Some stars dotted the sky, but most were chased away by the latent glow of the city lights far off beyond the hills. However, the landscape here was tar-black. When he closed his door, the only light around them was the red glow of her cigarette.
The air held a dry, dusty scent. A gentle breeze stole her smoke away.
“What’re we doing here?”
She asked, “What happens in the dark?”
“We sleep.”
“What else?”
“We dream.”
“Yes,” she answered. “What else?”
“I don’t know.” Jeff was getting frustrated.
“The unknown becomes greater. We cannot see in front of us. We cannot see around us.” She paused.
“Go on …”
She puffed her cigarette, the red butt brightening her face. “We lose ourselves in the dark, while we simultaneously find parts of ourselves truer than ever.”
“Okay.”
“Our weaknesses emerge.”
“Tina’s weakness was her mother’s death, her vulnerability.”
“That’s right. Evil played on that wound. It used it, in part. But there was—is—something else.”
He looked around the landscape. The distant hills were jagged rather than rolling. Parts jetted into the night sky like sharpened black knives.
She asked, “Do you know your weaknesses?”
“Yes.”
“Wrong. If they were known, they wouldn’t stay weak. The light of awareness would grow them.”
“So, I don’t know them.”
“Correct.”
“Do you know yours?”
“I’m now in the dark … sitting in the unknown with you, trying to see and make things brighter.”
“That’s the secret?”
She puffed her cigarette, illuminating her annoyed countenance. “I told you, it can’t be told.”
“So why are you talking?”
Her cigarette retreated to her hip. She was silent for a while. “Some peoples’ weakness is that they can’t accept they’re wrong. They can’t believe their facts are false.”
“Are you saying that’s my weakness?”
She was quiet. The cigarette jiggled nervously at her waist, ashes falling to reveal intense incandescent crimson cinders and her tender, feminine fingers. “Evil is within us, Jeff. It plays with us here.”
“So, what you’re saying is Tina got swallowed up by herself?”
“Interesting way to put it.”
“Where did she go?”
She was quiet again, almost as though hiding something or just not knowing how to say it. “Someplace else.”
He growled, “Then what the heck are we doing here?”
“I don’t know,” she barely whispered.
“Huh?”
“We’re waiting for the knowing. We’re in the unknown, waiting for the knowing.”
“This girl’s life may be in danger, and we’re sitting in the dark waiting?”
As she took another puff, impatience and irritation was illuminated on her face. “This is where you are. This is the correct path to the girl. It seems odd, but sometimes the direct path is indirect.”
His brain was spinning. “Just who are you, Laura?”
“Exactly.”
“What?”
She dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed its radiance under her foot. “That is a good question.”
“Okay … I’m waiting for the answer.”
“Good.”
He looked away from her silhouette. Although he seriously liked her, she was maddening. This existential discussion wasn’t the concrete answers he required. The darkness around them spoke nothing to him. “How long do we have to be out here?”
“Wrong question.”
There was an endlessness to the hills that was daunting, disturbing, and cold. Jeff found himself longing for the city, where things were known, where his expectations could be fulfilled, where things were consistent and predictable—at least before the girl disappeared.