Chapter 19
Jeff flipped on the lights.
The candle was tipped over where Ashley had been sitting, a puddle of melted wax cooling and hardening onto the wooden floor. The flashlight was only a foot away, light spilling onto the ground and lapping against the far wall. She was gone.
No.
Pixie stretched his neck in the air, sniffing, appearing like a miniature giraffe. He walked cautiously from the bed to the laundry basket.
Laura had a stunned look on her face. Neither she nor Jeff moved from their standing positions.
No. No. No.
Jeff flicked the light off, then back on, expecting the girl to emerge from the darkness that had stolen her moments ago.
Nothing.
He collected the flashlight from the floor and turned it off. Strange. It hadn't been on in the dark. He stepped back to the light switch by the door.
He flicked it off and on several more times with no positive results. No. This can’t be happening, he tried convincing himself. But emptiness filled his chest. Two lost girls in a twenty-four hour period.
He felt more dangerous than the monsters. He should have never allowed Ashley to participate in this. He shouldn’t be a therapist! What had he been thinking? He was a monster. What the hell was happening?
He swallowed.
Laura looked at him like she didn’t know how to respond.
Looking for an answer he could not find, he flicked the light off and on again.
She protested, “Stop it.”
Not only had they lost Ashley, but also the only person who could find Tina. He flicked the lights off and on, off and on, off and on.
“Jeff! Stop.”
“What the hell happened?”
She didn’t speak.
“The answers can be found in the dark, huh?”
She moved to the bed and sat down, head in her hands.
He felt bad. He didn’t mean to snap at her. He just felt responsible for losing this innocent girl. He needed to find her, and still needed to find Tina. He walked to the wall and put both hands on it, trying to hold himself together.
The void from his daughter’s absence painfully echoed with the current losses, weaving desperation through him. This was his greatest weakness. His wound from Bianca’s death reopened and bled profusely. The darkness had definitely played on that.
He rushed into the bathroom and searched the shower, the cupboards under the sink, and behind the toilet. He ran back to the bedroom and moved the laundry basket, throwing all the clothes out in case a clue was buried, looked under the bed, searched in the closet, opened the dresser and nightstand drawers, and stood in the middle of the room spinning, yet finding no girls.
As Pixie sniffed about on his own hunt, the kitten cautiously avoided Jeff.
He thought of checking the hall, but the door hadn’t been opened. Unless Ashley could pass through wood, she wouldn’t be out there, just as Tina hadn’t been outside his office door.
He had no idea how he would explain this to Marie.
He clenched his teeth. “I should have jumped into one of the shadows. I should have been closer to her. Maybe … I should have been hiding to ambush it. I … maybe …” He sat on the bed beside Laura. He felt like a total imbecile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay.”
“What happened?”
She thought for a moment. “I was holding her. Then she was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Like something pulled her out of my arms.” She looked torn. Her head lowered as she looked away, and she cleared her throat. “I couldn’t hold on.”
Pixie climbed onto the bed beside her, sniffed her, and meowed forcefully, as though trying to retch up his guts with each cry. Jeff petted the kitten. Pixie lost another mother. His tiny nose sniffed Laura’s arms, the same arms that held his mother just minutes ago.
He asked, “Teleported maybe?”
“No, like something yanked her.”
He thought about telling Marie. He had to, but he wasn’t going to wait around here and explain everything to the police, being detained for hours and not getting any closer to either girl.
He opened the bedroom window and took off the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Making an alibi. Ashley ran away. That’s all Marie needs to know right now.”
“Shouldn’t we tell her what happened?”
“We don’t know what happened.”
“Well, we could …”
“What?” he said too sharply.
She frowned.
“Sorry.” He began filling the laundry basket with the clothes he scattered earlier, to make the room appear as it was before. “Marie just needs to know enough to keep on the lookout if Ashley returns.”
Her thoughts appeared to be elsewhere. Then she seemed to focus back. “Okay. Suppose we tell her Ashley ran.”
“Then Marie can make a police report. And we’ll at least have the police looking for her.” He closed some of the dresser drawers that were still open.
“That makes sense.”
Guilt weighed him down. “I want to tell her the truth. But she wouldn’t believe us. She’ll think we’re crazy or blame us and have us locked up.”
She looked away.
“We need to be mobile to find the girls. We’re the only ones who believe …in the things in the dark.”
Again, her mind seemingly preoccupied, Laura finally nodded her head in agreement. Perhaps she was wondering if she was getting too deeply in this with him. They were both now potential suspects for kidnapping, a felony.
“We will tell her, eventually, of course.” But he never wanted it to get to that point. He would find Ashley. He would do everything and anything in his power to get both girls back. He didn’t care if he died trying. These girls had a chance for life, unlike his daughter.
He and Laura found Marie watching television in the living room. He explained the alibi.
Marie didn’t seem surprised. She didn’t seem disturbed either. She told them that this wasn’t the first time Ashley had run away and that she would return.
He felt bad Marie was so blasé about the whole thing. He wanted her to blame him or show some anger, at least a little, something to demonstrate she cared. She did agree to call the police, but only after Laura convinced her it was dangerous for a fourteen-year-old girl to be walking the streets alone at night.