Steve was seated in another armchair a few feet away. I’d met my stepdad only two times prior to this. My mother didn’t mix her new and old lives outside of the agreed-upon custody arrangement for Hazel. It was weird to see him so comfortable in this house.
Megan and Mallory sat at the feet of Steve’s chair, engrossed in their matching iPads. They had to be seven or eight now. Their identical faces were framed by long blonde hair that looked like my mother’s right before she chopped it all off. Her little mini-me’s. I barely knew them.
A stack of Missing posters rested on the coffee table. I reached for one, my hands shaking a little. Looking at Hazel’s photo, it was impossible not to see it: she looked just like me. Notadultme, but me before everything with Alex happened. Before I started dying my chocolate-brown hair blue-black and overemphasizing my features with heavy makeup. Hazel looked like the girl I could have once been.
“You’re done already?” Tommy asked, looking up at me. “The police kept me for an hour.”
“Yeah, well, you probably had more to say.”
Looking at the poster was making me nauseous, so I dropped it back on the stack. “And they probably weren’t as rude to you as they were to me.”
“Tell me you didn’t offend the detectives trying to find my daughter.” My mother’s voice came from behind me as she emerged from the hall bathroom.
“By the way, you’re out of hand towels in the bathroom, Keith,” she said, as she wiped her hands on her dark designer jeans.
Tommy and Suzannah exchanged a knowing look. I envied their unspoken understanding. It made me feel surprisingly alone.
“Alert the media, Dad!” I said sarcastically. “Now we have a real tragedy on our hands.”
Dad ignored me. “We’ve had a lot going on, Lyla. Laundry hasn’t been a priority.”
“I didn’t mean you should do a load right now,” my mother said. “I was just letting you know.”
Footsteps came from down the hall, interrupting us all before my mother could say anymore. Pullman and Newbury reemerged. Pullman fidgeted with his tie as if he wasn’t used to wearing one.
“Detectives,” my mother said, looking relieved.
I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. Where did this reverence for the police suddenly come from? Was this Steve’s influence? The last time I had seen my mother speaking to a police officer in this house, she had threatened to beat him to death with her flip-flop.
I turned to Tommy, who gave a slight shake of his head.Not worth it.
“Well,” Newbury said, his hands in his pockets. “Thank you all for your time today. We’re going back to the precinct to collate our notes. We will have teams searching the surrounding area again tonight. We ask you not to interfere with their work. Stay put and call us if you hear or see anything suspicious. Hazel very well might turn up here at any moment. Let’s hope that’s the case.”
Pullman was staring at me, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I turned to Tommy to see if he had noticed, but he was gazing at his hands in his lap.
“Thank you, officers,” my father said meekly. “For everything.”
4
After the cops left, my family quickly dissipated. Dad headed out in his car to go “get gas,” which I knew meant he was defying the cops’ orders and continuing to search for Hazel. Mom promptly gathered Steve and her yawning children to head back to their hotel, giving the others hugs goodbye and me a huffy wave. That left me with Tommy and his family.
“What now?” I asked, turning to Suzannah, who had put her arm around me.
My sister-in-law was a naturally comforting person, and she seemed to have that effect on everyone around her. Just feeling her fingertips on my shoulders was enough to calm me down. Suzannah was barely two years older than me, but she seemed so much wiser, more together. Meanwhile, Tommy looked completely lost standing next to her, mirroring how I felt.
“Tommy, why don’t you start up the fire pit? We’ll get the kids to bed and meet you out there,” Suzannah directed, and I watched as my brother immediately strode toward the back door, not bothering to answer.
Once the glass door closed behind him, she turned to me. “He’s been like this all day.” Suzannah shook her head.
“This feels like a nightmare,” I added. “It doesn’t feel real.”
Suzannah wiped her eyes. “You should have seen him the first few hours. After your dad called and told him that Hazel was missing. He was a complete wreck. I’ve never seen him like that before.” Her eyes looked lost in the memory. “Even though it’s only been a day, this has been so hard on him. You know how close they are.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, the residual guilt from my police interview crashing over me. In the years since I had left for college, Hazel and Tommy had stayed close. Their relationship surpassed anything I’d ever had with my baby sister. I wish I could say proximity was the reason for their closeness, Tommy living just a town over, but it was more than that. Tommy, and Suzannah, made a big effort to really get to know her. There were constant photos on social media of them all hanging out: barbeques in their backyard, Hazel tagging along on day trips to Disney. Tommy always went to her soccer games and took her to the annual horse races in Wellington. It didn’t surprise me that he was taking this hard. They were probably each other’s favorite siblings at this point. It wasn’t as if there was much competition in that department. The twins were too young, I was never around, and, well, Will was incarcerated.
Suzannah moved to where the kids were sleeping on the couch and reached for Daisy. She nodded her head toward Felix. I followed her lead and scooped my sleeping nephew into my arms. He was so much heavier than I was expecting. They grow fast at that age.
We headed to the back of the house and Suzannah placed Daisy’s delicate frame on Tommy’s old flannel bedspread. I put Felix down beside her. Suzannah flipped the covers over both of them, taking a second to admire her children. After today, I couldn’t blame her. When kids start going missing, you want to make sure you know exactly where your own are.
