Taking a deep breath, I hold it for a few seconds before releasing it. “Okay. We’ll search the school first. We can take the second floor. Hazel—” I turn to her. “Can you search the art wing? And Frank. Wendy. Will you look in the cafeteria and the library? Text if you see?—”
“She left the building.” Alec looks up from his phone. “I just caught her on the security camera, leaving school. She went out through the door in the cafeteria.”
Angel’s nails dig into my hand. “Was she alone?”
Alec nods. “She was. And she was moving quickly. Not running, like she was scared. But she was definitely in a hurry.”
I have no idea why Haley would leave. But the reason isn’t important right now. All that matters is finding her.
“Fan out,” I announce. “We need to split the area into quadrants. We?—”
“Ronan.” Alec cuts me off. “Just go. I can coordinate the rest of it.”
He’s not offering to take over because he thinks I can’t. He’s offering because he knows Angel needs to be out there. And that I need to be with her.
“Okay,” I tell him. “We’ll head out.”
Angel nods. “Let’s go.” Then she starts jogging towards the exit, towing me along with her.
“Where are you searching?” Alec calls after us. “So I don’t send anyone else there.”
“The route back to your house?” I ask Angel. “Do you think she’d walk back there?”
She doesn’t answer for a second. Her forehead pinches in thought. “Maybe. But let’s cut through the park. It’s better lit that way. And sometimes—” Her voice breaks. “Sometimes she gets scared of the dark.”
Once Angel and I get outside, it’s strangely quiet. Maybe it’s the fresh snow from earlier today. Or maybe it’s because half the town seems to be at the school already. The only sounds I hear are our rapid breaths and the crunch of our feet in the snow.
Worry niggles at me as I glance over at Angel. She’s still recovering from being shot and the emotional trauma that came with it. Racing through the snow with a still-healing bullet wound, terrified out of her mind… I don’t like it. At all. But there’s nothing I can do about it, because I know there’s no way Angel would stay back and let us search without her.
As we run, I use my Maglite to search in the shadows. Angel and I take turns calling out Haley’s name. I scan the ground, looking for small footprints that might match a nine-year-old’s. But minutes go by with nothing.
“What if someone made her leave?” Angel whispers. “Just because Alec didn’t see… Someone could have threatened her.”
“We’ll find her,” I reply. The reassurance is just as much for me as for her.
The park comes up ahead of us, well-lit in comparison to the darkened streets surrounding it. Normally, a lot of the stores and restaurants would still be open at six-thirty. But with it being Christmas Eve, they’ve been closed for hours.
Angel puts on a burst of speed as we approach. “Maybe she came through this way. Maybe…” Her voice is thick with tears. Then she glances over at me. “What if she didn’t? She could be anywhere. And I keep thinking about Justin. What if he threatened her? Threatened me? If he told her he’d hurt me…”
“Wait.” About fifteen feet to our right, I spot a trail of footprints cutting across the snow. It’s a long shot that they’re Haley’s. But it’s possible. “Look.”
Angel rushes to the prints. “I can’t tell. They’re small, but… I don’t look at the tread on her boots. I didn’t think I needed to. I didn’t think…” Tears shine on her cheeks. “I should have stayed with her. Done something.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Clasping her hand, I lead Angel along with me as I follow the footprints. They lead into the park, through a little grove of decorated trees, and then beyond them, trailing off towards the gazebo at the center of it.
And there.
All in brown.
In the gazebo.
Angel starts running at the same time I do.
As we near the gazebo, I can pick out the details of Haley’s costume—the fluffy tail, the perky ears, and the furry snout that’s dangling from her neck. Angel spent hours working on it one-handed, much to my chagrin. I offered to have one specially made, to save Angel the effort. But she insisted on making it herself.
“Haley!” Angel almost trips in her desperation to reach Haley.“Haley!”
Haley turns just as we hit the stairs. “Mom?”
