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The smell of cigarette smoke increased. I lifted my hand over my nose. I leaned in, surveying without opening the door any further. I recognized the room from what I had seen through the camera, but a little disorienting with the change in perspective. I spotted the wall and TV first. I leaned in further, trying to scan.
The bed was empty.
I paused, afraid. Maybe he left his bedroom and was in the bathroom. I checked once more, making sure he hadn’t gotten up and moved to another part of the room.
But Theo was gone. I swayed back and forth, looking around; unless he was standing right behind the door, he wasn’t in there.
I tiptoed back down the hall to check the bathroom. The door was open and the light was off.
I paused. Maybe he went into Charlie’s room?
I followed the sound of movement in the main living area. I stopped outside of the kitchen, where the guys were heating up leftovers from Silas’s fridge. The living room was empty, too, and the guest bathroom had the door open and the light off.
“Where’s Theo?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” Luke said, staring down the timer on the microwave. “He’s in his room.”
“No, he isn’t,” I said.
There was a pause in everyone’s movements, and eyes shifted to me. Dr. Green turned to the boys for a moment, and then put down the plastic cups he’d been holding. He came to the kitchen entrance, and then gently eased me to the side. “Stay here with them,” he said quietly.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach, leaning against the counter, looking in at Luke and Gabriel, who seemed curious and watched Dr. Green as he slipped down the hall. The microwaved beeped, and Luke opened it quickly to stop it from making any more noise. Gabriel moved over, put an arm around my waist, but was standing where he could look over my shoulder and keep his focus behind me.
“He’s not here!” Dr. Green shouted suddenly.
Gabriel released me. I turned and followed him and met up with Dr. Green down the hall. Luke smacked into me when I stopped.
Gabriel shook his hands in the air. “How the fuck did he get outside? We’ve been here the whole time.”
“Maybe a window?” Luke asked. “Did we secure those?”
“It’s the second story,” Gabriel said.
“So?” Luke grinned. “Doesn’t stop me.” Maybe he sneaks out.”
Dr. Green sliced his hand through the air. “However he does it, we need to find him. He couldn’t have gone too far.”
We followed Dr. Green to the front door. We all spilled out onto the walkway. There didn’t appear to be anyone outside right now. The parking lot was quiet. We scanned the area, but there wasn’t any movement.
“Now what?” Luke asked.
Dr. Green sighed. “Someone’s going to have to stay here in case he comes back. “And someone goes out and tried to find him.”
“We’ll go,” Gabriel said. “Luke and Sang can come along. You stay.”
“What?” Dr. Green asked. “Leave Sang here.”
“No,” Luke said. “We should split up. We’ve got the alarm set for the front door. Two of us should go on foot and circle the block. Two of us should drive around. I’ll take Sang with me.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “We three should go and Dr. Green should circle the complex and come back. See if he tries sneaking in the window or check out his room and see if there’s anything in there to tell us what he’s been up to lately.”
Dr. Green rifled through his hair, grabbing at it, and making the smoothed out hair puff up a little. “I hate it when you guys are right,” he said. He pointed at Luke. “Don’t you lose her.” He pointed at Gabriel. “Don’t get her arrested or hurt.” He swung his finger and pointed at my nose and then beeped it. “And you. If you see any trouble at all, leave these idiots and run away. Got it?”
I nodded.
“Owen’s going to kill me,” he said. “Theo had better be out buying cigarettes.”
The Three Amigos
Hunt for Theo
I curled up in the passenger seat. The sun was gone, with just a sliver of light left, darkness trying to take over. It’d already been a long day. My head was back against the headrest, and I reached back, taking out the hair clip and twisting my hair on top of my head to re-clip so I could lean my head back without it being in the way.
Luke was driving. He glanced over while I was arranging myself. “I’ve got a lot of your hair clips,” he said. “You need some back? I didn’t realize how many I had at home until yesterday.”
I thought about it. “I don’t know where another one is, actually. This might be my last one.”
“Good,” Gabriel said. He was messing with his phone. “You don’t need any clips. Wear your hair down for once. And I don’t know how Victor does this shit. How are we supposed to track Theo if he doesn’t have a cell phone?”
“Let’s check out the churches,” Luke said. “That’s where we suspect he’s going. If he isn’t at any of them, why bother?”
“There’s the one that burned down near here,” I said. “Is there another one nearby?”
“Hang on,” Gabriel said. He sat up, and put a hand on my shoulder, but he focused on Luke. “Wait, wait, wait. We should go check out the old church that burned down.”
“Why?” Luke asked, but he pulled down a side street and then turned again to almost take us the way we’d come from.
“That happened last night, didn’t it?” Gabriel asked. “There might be someone still around to tell us what happened. We need to find the fire print.”
“What’s a fire print?” I asked.
“It’s how a fire started,” Gabriel said. He held his hand up, counting off by touching a finger each time he made a point. “There’s when the fire started, the accelerants used, wind conditions, locations, point of entry...”
“It’s how you ID an arsonist,” Luke said. “It’s really hard to do. Mostly it works with serial arsonists. Sometimes fires are started by accident, or for insurance purposes, so it only happens once. Serial arsonists are really hard to catch, though. Evidence gets burned up, which makes it difficult to trace. Basically you have to get lucky or catch them in the act.”
I pressed my fingers to my eyebrow and rubbed. “So how will knowing the fire print help us find Theo?” I asked.
“We’re more concerned if he’s been setting anything on fire. Or if these fires aren’t him, if it will trigger him to start,” Gabriel said. He sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. His lips pursed. “If that motherfucker screws up Silas somehow with this...”
“We don’t know what he’s doing,” Luke said.
“But we can’t keep chasing him around when there’s people out there stealing Kota’s car, or the bomb threats we’re supposed to be dealing with. We’re already wasting time trying to babysit him when he’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing. And now he’s climbing out the window? That’s not what a normal person does.”
I wanted to suggest something, a way to fix it. I didn’t want Silas in trouble, but I also felt Theo needed someone to understand him. How many times had I escaped out the back door when I felt too confined? I was suspected of doing wrong constantly within my own home without any proof. Maybe Theo did something bad back in Greece, but being locked away like a dirty secret would make anyone want to escape, at least for a while.
Luke turned down another road, and before he finished straightening the car, I could see the ruins of the old church. Three of the walls were still intact, with scorch marks rising over the broken-out windows. The roof was gone, and it looked like a back wall might have crumbled. There was a heavy smell of burned wood seeping in through the car. I swallowed, tasting it at the back of my throat.
Lines of yellow police tape crossed over a wide area. The street was quiet, and the place appeared to be mostly abandoned.
Luke pulled up to the old parking lot, and parked close to a set of trees by the road. We sat in the car, looking out
