CHAPTER 68
“So, what are we looking for, exactly?” Ash asked, sliding into one of the old seats behind the desk—the very one I had sat in, the other night, during my short time as an incarcerated person.
“His name was Abe—either short for something, or just Abe. And his surname began with anE,” Mike said.
Ash and Emelia nodded. “Where do we start?”
Mike walked over to one of the massive shelves and started pulling down files. “Well, this is from 1940 to 1950, so let’s start looking here first.”
“All of them?” I asked, looking at the massive files and boxes that were now in front of us on the desk.
Mike nodded. The gravity and enormity of our mission suddenly hit me. There was just so much to go through, this was a name in a haystack, and our chances of finding it were stacked against us.
Emelia groaned and looked at her watch. “It’s eight in the morning. I can’t start doing this without coffee.”
“Me, neither!” I moaned back.
Ash nodded. “Pleeeaaasse. I would kill for a coffee right now.”
Mike gave Emelia a small nod. “Would be great.”
“Okay.” Emelia jumped up. “I’ll go get everyone caffeine.” She rushed towards the door and then stopped herself. “Wait—how do you take it, again?” She turned around and looked at me. “Black with sweetener, right?” she asked.
I smiled and nodded at her quickly. And then something strange hit me. A feeling. Small and almost invisible, at first. It was such a seemingly insignificant gesture, fetching me a cup of coffee, but suddenly I felt included. I felt like I was part of some special group, and I hadn’t felt that in such a long time—maybe even ever. I looked at Ash and Mike, who were already flipping through dusty pages, and smiled at myself, wondering if this was my group.Had I found my tribe?I gave a tiny smile and then looked back down at the first book, opened it and started running my eyes over the names.
We must have been looking through the files for hours when Mike’s phone rang. We all jumped in fright; it was the loudest noise any of us had heard all morning. He answered it straight away, and I immediately knew, from the look on his face and the tone in his voice, who he was speaking to and what the call was about.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” he asked into the phone. He listened and his eyes widened. “And you’re sure everything is locked?” I could hear the nurse’s frantic voice on the other end. “Then she has to be inside. I’ll come over and help you search.” Mike hung up and looked at me. “Petra has disappeared again.” He stood up, reached for his car keys and started moving towards the door.
I jumped up. “I’ll come help you,” I said, following him.
“Don’t you want to stay and continue looking?” he asked.
“We’ve got this, don’t worry,” Ash said from behind us.
“Great. Thanks.” Mike nodded at me and we both ran out and climbed into his car.
“Do you think she’s looking for her son again?” I asked, as we drove off in the direction of the old-age home.
“Probably. The whole place is locked, though, so she has to be inside somewhere.” We drove for three minutes before we got there. This town was quite literally only a few streets big. We jumped out of the car and rushed inside. A group of concerned staff and some of the residents were waiting for us when we arrived.
“I swear, everything is locked.” Cynthia, the nurse, looked devastated and frantic. “We’ve all been so careful since the last time.”
“It’s okay,” Mike soothed her. “We’ll find her. Where have you looked?” he asked.
“We’ve searched all of the rooms on the first floor, and the front garden. We were going to head up to the second floor, now, and then out to the back garden.”
“Okay,” Mike said. “We’ll take the second floor and you take the back garden.”
Everyone nodded and dispersed.
Mike and I headed straight up the stairs to the second floor. This floor wasn’t in use anymore and was nothing more than a creepy corridor of empty rooms, used for storage. We rushed from room to room, careful not to overlook any nooks or crannies, but, after about thirty minutes of combing the entire place, there was still no sign of her. We rushed back downstairs and were just about to head outside when we heard a shout from the bottom of the garden. We rushed over as fast as we could.
“Shit!” Cynthia looked at us as we all stared at the open gate in the staff area. “How did she even get into the staff quarters without anyone seeing her?” she asked, and looked at the other nurses.
“It’s been a busy morning, with the incident in gym class. No one would have been here,” one of the other frantic-looking nurses said.
Cynthia nodded and looked over at us. “Mrs. Louw broke her hip. There was a huge commotion. Petra must have slipped out during that.”
