“No, I don’t think!” Cal erupted with his fist pounding the table. “I know she is. I know it like I know my wife died a cruel, senseless death. I understand the crime scene is still being processed, that most victims won’t be identified for weeks, if ever at all. I’ve got the Portland police telling me it’s pointless to open a missing persons investigation, and now you’re implying she was targeted because of some stupid internship she never wanted in the first place, one I pushed her into. So, which is it, Agent Bright—is Amelia in danger, or am I a moron for believing my girl is alive?”
“Woah, woah. Cal, listen,” Agent Bright broke in and departed with the polished façade. “I believe you. I do. I think Amelia is alive.”
Dizzy again, Cal steadied himself against the table. “You do?”
“Yes, and I want to help you find her. Do you know where she might’ve gone, where she would’ve run to if she knew she was in danger?”
“I don’t know.” Cal raked his fingers through his hair, still at a loss no matter how often he asked himself that question. “But I don’t think Brian Burrows’s death was a coincidence. He was Amelia’s best friend and at that party. They must’ve been together at the motel. That boy who worked there, the clerk, he would know for sure.”
“Well, if he wakes up,” Agent Bright replied gravely. “The doctors say it’s not looking good. I asked the sheriff’s office to go back to the motel and search the area. They found a pair of bloody pliers on the side of a nearby road. It looked like a struggle.”
“She was taken?”
“Possibly.”
Cal’s elbows dug into the table’s wood grain, and he cradled his forehead in his hand. When he didn’t speak again, Agent Bright continued with urgency lacing his voice.
“I have more to share, but it’s better if we talk in person. Inthe meantime, I really think you should get out of Portland. Do you have any family you can stay with?”
The question stung. Cal’s brother and only sibling, his parents, in-laws, and his wife were all dead, and Amelia was missing.I’m alone.
“I appreciate the concern,” Cal said. “I’ll think about it.”
Cal hung up the call with a promise to stay in touch and began his nightly ritual of turning off the lights and trudging upstairs. And where he normally hurried past Amelia’s shuttered bedroom door, he stopped at it now. Someone had shut it. He didn’t know who, only that it was a kind gesture from one of his friends. Cal cracked it open, and grief followed him in like the house guest that never left.
The bed was unmade, and Amelia’s phone sat on the nightstand plugged into the charger. He wouldn’t dare see how many times he’d called, how many frantic messages he left.
His fingertips swept over her notebook of poems, but her brush, of all things, did him in. Perhaps it was the strands of red hair colored just like her mother’s or how it’d been tossed to her bed as though she were coming right back.
She’s not coming back.
With that thought, Cal collapsed with the weight of sorrow and regret. On his hands and knees, he glimpsed a moving box labeled ‘Family Memories.’ Bile hit the back of his throat. Cal dashed to the bathroom and vomited up the potatoes. He cleaned himself up, then went to his office and turned on a record for sonic relief.
He laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling as “Wish You Were Here” ripped at his heart. Quiet tears trailed over his cheekbones and gathered warm in his ear. He reset the needle and did it all over again as the hours passed him by.
At a half-past midnight, Cal crawled into bed but tossed in a twilight state of sleep. It wasn’t the vacant space next to him or Amelia’s empty bed down the hall that kept him up. Without the air conditioner’s white noise, every sound roused him—a creakthen a thump, the gust of wind, the tick of his watch. Cal checked the time.
2:32 AM.
He gripped the sheets, afraid of the dark for the first time since childhood and explained away the sounds. The creaks were just the house settling. It was nearly three decades old. And the groans? The wind had picked up. As for the thumps, well, he didn’t know about that. Maybe a tree limb had shaken loose. Just as that thought came and went, a tremendous crash slammed against the deck outside.
Cal shot up in bed. His heart pounded as he threw open the nightstand drawer and pulled out his loaded gun. He crept to the window and dropped to his knees to peek at the deck below.
The motion sensor light was on, but no one was there. No shadows moving about. No animals dumbfounded in the light.
Cal stood and slid into his loafers. Downstairs, he clutched his gun and stared out the sliding glass door.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
He stepped outside as the wind picked up again and scrutinized the tree line. Curiosity trumped fear, and Cal walked down into the yard, but the hair on his arms stood on end as he scanned the woods. Still, there was nothing, just the swaying silhouettes of trees.
I’m being watched.
Someone lurked out there. It moved in the shadows, and he stared into the face of something he couldn’t see. The motion light clicked off and plunged Cal into darkness. The sensation creeping over him intensified.
They’re coming.
