Lisa gave him a lackluster smile. “Sure.”
Zane clapped his hands. “Okay, well, that’s settled.” He turned to Dean. “What’s left to do before the show?”
And that was that. The crisis was over. They were dismissed.
THE CONCERT
CLAUDIA— 11:15 P.M.
“Oh come on! What the hell happened to the lights?” Sergeant Chambers asks.
Dean answers. “It’s a planned outage so the crowd can experience the comet together in the pure black night.”
Claudia suddenly remembers that they were going to have a moment for Mike that would last three excruciatingly long minutes. “Change of plans,” she mutters, breaking away from Dean.
She gropes her way to the stairs, then crawls up them onto the stage. Claudia’s suddenly terrified to walk in case she’s pointing the wrong way and steps right off the stage and drops the eight feet to the ground, but she continues on anyway.
“Turn the lights on! Turn them on!!!” she screams at Zane.
She can barely make out his silhouette. His arms are up in the air, as if he’s reaching for Mike in the night sky. Thecheers from the audience die down, and her voice rings out. “Elliott is missing. So are your girls.”
ZANE —11:17 P.M.
The concert ends abruptly, exactly like the life of the man they were there to honor. The lights are turned up to full brightness. Sergeant Chambers walks out to center stage, hitching up his utility belt with authority. The crowd turns on him and immediately starts booing. Zane gestures for them to quiet down, panic filling his body while his brain tries to catch up with what’s happening. “That’s enough everyone. We’ve got an emergency!”
More booing.
“SHUT UP! Fucking shut up! My kids are missing! Quiet down and listen to the officer.”
Chambers gives him a grateful nod. “All right, everyone stay calm and remain where you are. We have three missing children, including a baby, so we’ve got to act fast to find them.”
Claudia grabs Zane’s hand and pulls him off the stage. Rusty and Steven follow while Sergeant Chambers reads out descriptions of each child.
“Come on! We’re going to search the trailers!” she calls to them, quickly dropping Zane’s hand before Sienna sees them.
Minutes later, Zane rushes up the step to Steven’s trailer, not knowing that what he’s about to see will change everything in a heartbeat. He hears a loud screech before it registers that it’s Ivy doing the screeching. When he sees her face, he is immediately relieved. Then he glances down, and it hits him. His little girl is nude. In Steven’s trailer. She’s fumbling to cover herself up with a blanket.
A rush of fury overtakes him. His muscles fill with blood, his veins with adrenaline. He turns, ignoring Ivy as she says something about it not being Steven’s fault. He yells for Sienna, his voice booming.
Sienna, who was checking their trailer with Kitty, comes running. “Did you find them?”
“Ivy’s in here,” he answers, clenching his jaw so hard it feels like he could snap the tendons.
“Thank God!” Sienna rushes in with Kitty at her heels.
“Oh, Ivy! No!” Sienna hisses.
Kitty gasps and covers her eyes with her hands.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Zane grinds out. “I swear to God. I will kill him with my bare hands.”
“It’s not what it looks like!” Ivy sobs. “Nothing happened! I wasn’t going to go through with it!”
Claudia manages to squeeze past Zane. “Oh, God, Ivy. No. Don’t do this.”
Sienna glares at her. “I don’t think my daughter is going to take advice from a woman like you.”
Kitty makes atsking sound. “Sienna, that’s a little harsh.”
