Detective Evans digs into it for all of five minutes. The Facebook page, he tells me, is owned by Sam and Joanna Matthews. They started it shortly after Kylie went missing, because word spreads quickly on the internet. Their reach was so much greater than simply hanging posters around town. There are billions of active users on Facebook and over a thousand following their page, though it’s had less and less activity over the past year, otherthan the celebration of sad milestones like Kylie’s birthdays and anniversaries of the day she disappeared.
Until one night less than a week ago when someone claimed to have found Kylie alive.
Detective Evans pushes his chair abruptly back, the legs scraping across the linoleum floors, and stands up from the desk.
“Where are you going?” I ask, watching as he runs his hand over the gun in his hip holster as if to make sure it’s there. He reaches onto the desktop for his keys.
“To speak with the Matthewses,” he says.
“Then I’m coming with you.” I look back over my shoulder, meet Wyatt’s eye. “Wyatt can stay here with the girls.”
Detective Evans shakes his head. “I can’t have that, Mrs. Gray. You need to stay here, to sit tight,” he tells me firmly, leaving no room for debate. “If she’s there, I’ll bring her back to you.”
Reese
He pulls me through some field by the hand. I’m crying. Tears flood my eyes, spill over and down my face. My nose runs, snot mixing with tears with saliva that trickles from the edges of my mouth so that my whole face is wet. I try to pull my hand away, to let go of his, to turn off and run some other way, but he tightens up on his grip, saying stuff like, “I know. I know you must be so confused. You must not remember. It’s been so long. I’m sorry I had to do that. I’m sorry you had toseethat. I didn’t want you to have to see that. But those people, Kylie. They took you from your mother and me. They’re not good people. They’re bad people. Very bad people. Keep running, Kylie. We’re almost there. It’s not much further now. God,” he says, “your mother is going to be so happy. So surprised.”
He’s kind to me. Gentle, other than the death grip on my hand. When I fall, my hand pulling out from his, I try crawling away. But he takes me by the upper arms and helps me to my feet, asking, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” running his hands over my hair, and I shake my head, feeling myself shut down before he reaches for my hand again and we begin to run, my feet and legs moving so fast I can’t feel them anymore.
I can’t stop thinking things like if only she hadn’t opened the door.
If only I had stopped her.
If only I had remembered Daniel’s knife in the nightstand drawer.
I think of all the things I could’ve, should’ve, would’ve done differently.
I have only one free hand. At one point, I manage to get my phone out of my pocket with that one hand, but when I turn it on, the screen light is blazing in the darkness. I move fast, opening Snapchat, going to the chat screen. That’s as far as I get. He stops all of a sudden. I don’t anticipate it. I keep running forward, his hand on mine stopping forward motion so that I jerk back, feeling something in my shoulder pop. He says, “What’s that?” turning to look at the screen, his face haunted in the phone’s light.
When I look up, there is blood on his face.
“Nothing... I...”
There’s sudden movement. He comes at me fast. It happens before I know what’s happening. My hands go to my head by instinct, to protect it. I wince, cowering, and then my legs actually give out. I fall, curling into a ball on my knees, shaking, blubbering.
His voice is so nice.
He lowers himself beside me. Runs his sticky, bloodied hands over my hair.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not mad, Kylie. I’m not mad at you,” he says, folding his hand around the phone and easing it from me. I don’t try to resist, I let him have it. “It’s not your fault. It’s theirs. They did this to you. They made you forget who we are.”
He helps me to my feet, which I don’t feel move though I know they are, because we’re gaining ground, we’re getting somewhere, but I don’t know where.
All the while I wonder if Emily is alive. If Nolan is alive. Or if they’re dead. If he killed them.
There is a parked car up ahead. He opens the back door andthe light turns on. He pushes me in and then closes the door. He gets in the driver’s seat. The light goes off.
He drives away down the deserted street, leaving the headlights off at first. As he does, I tug desperately on the door handle, trying to get out, but the door doesn’t budge. He set the child locks in advance.
He knew I might try to run.
I press myself into the door as he drives. He says stuff like, “You don’t need to be so scared,” and, “No one is going to hurt you,” and, “I know you must be confused. It’s a lot to process. But you have to believe me, Kylie. You have to trust me. Those were bad people. They took you from your mother and me. They’re not who they say they are.”
I say nothing. We come to a house. The porch light is on. He pulls the car into the driveway and puts the car in Park. We sit there with the engine off as he turns around in his seat, beaming in the glow from the front porch light. “Your mother is going to be so surprised. I always told her I’d find you. I always said I’d bring you home one day. And now I have, just like I promised her I would.”
He gets out of the car. He comes around to open my door, reeling me in by the arm, though I try grabbing at things to stop myself from being dragged out of the car.
“Don’t be scared. You’re safe now. I promise. It’s all over. You’re home.”
