Page 96 of The Vanished

“What about the main house?”

Gabe nodded. “There is a camera by the front door that covers the car park and the drive up, but no one arrived this morning.”

Quinn was crying again, and Gabe held her tight, his cheek resting on the top of her head. He didn’t offer pointless clichés, and for that she was grateful. She didn’t want to be lied to or soothed with empty reassurances. She knew bad things happened—perhaps better than most—after everything she had witnessed in her visions and endured in real life. She would have given anything to turn back the clock to last week, when Logan and Max had been safe and her biggest worry had been meeting the deadline for the article she was writing. How could everything have changed so quickly and so catastrophically? What had happened to Logan, and where was Max? She prayed he was safe and that whoever had taken him meant him no harm.

“Are you hungry?” Gabe asked quietly.

Quinn shook her head. “I can’t even think about food. The kids ate, though. Can I make you something?”

The idea of doing something normal helped steady her, and she pulled away from Gabe and went to the kitchen. She filled the electric kettle, turned it on, and set two slices of bread into the toaster. With a weary sigh, Gabe sank into a chair and looked down at the table. Quinn knew he felt he had failed her, but the only person she blamed was herself. She had heard something and chosen to go back to sleep. She could have saved Max, or maybe could have caught a glimpse of the person who took him through the window and given the police a description. Because he had to have been taken. If he’d left on his own, he would have been found by now, since he couldn’t have got far. Now the police were working blind, and it was entirely her fault. And considering the statistics, it was all too possible that Max would never be seen again.

Quinn made Gabe a cup of coffee, buttered the toast, and set the plate in front of him. He nodded but didn’t reach for the food. He wrapped his hands around the mug and looked out the window, his jaw tightening as his thoughts likely ran along the same painful path as hers. The children remained in the bedroom, too upset to come out, and she was grateful she didn’t have to speak to them just yet. She had no strength left, so she slid into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Logan had trusted her with Max, and she had let him down.

A sharp knock jolted both her and Gabe out of their misery. Gabe was on his feet instantly and pulled the door open. DS Coyle stood on the threshold. She nodded to Gabe, but her eyes went straight to Quinn.

“We picked up Max on a traffic camera,” she said. “He’s with a man driving a rental car.”

She held out her phone to show Quinn a grainy still. The man sat behind the wheel of a two-seater, and Max was beside him in the passenger seat. The child’s face barely cleared the dashboard, but he looked unhurt and was held in place by the seatbelt. The driver wore a cap that cast a shadow over the upper half of his face. All Quinn could make out was that he was white, unshaven, and married. A glint of light caught the wedding ring on his left hand.

“We’ve dispatched a patrol to intercept the vehicle,” DS Coyle said.

“What can we do?” Quinn cried.

“Nothing. Sit tight.”

SIXTY-FIVE

The next hour was spent on tenterhooks, waiting desperately for word that Max had been found and was safe. Quinn and Emma sat together on the sofa, Emma clutching her mother’s hand for support. Quinn’s heart lodged in her throat as her mind spun out terrible images of a police chase gone wrong—the car flipping, skidding off the road, tumbling down an embankment. She needed something to distract herself, anything, but now was not the time to retreat into her own thoughts. She had to remain present and alert, ready to go to Max the moment the call came.

Quinn clung to the hope that he would be returned unharmed and that the police would take over the investigation without pressing him for details. Max was only a little boy, and he was surely traumatized already. Perhaps he didn’t even understand what was happening and thought he was going to see his dad, or that he would be brought back to Quinn and Gabe once the man got what he wanted from him.

Alex emerged from the kitchen, his teddy bear held to his chest. “I fixed it,” he said proudly.

“How?” Emma replied.

“I used a packet of honey to stick on the eyes. Seemed right, given it’s a bear,” he said, but the joke nearly made Quinn cry.

“The honey will dry up, and the eyes will fall off,” Emma said, unimpressed.

“They will hold long enough,” Alex said, clearly offended by Emma’s lack of faith in him. “Max will want his bear when he gets back.”

The children fell silent, and Quinn got up for the hundredth time and went to the window, desperate to see an approaching police car. But all was quiet. Gabe came to stand behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

“You’re trembling,” he said.

“I can’t bear this waiting.”

“Go,” Gabe whispered into her hair. “Escape for a little while. I will come and get you if there’s any news.”

It felt wrong to escape to the past, but Quinn was so tightly wound up, she thought she might crack if they didn’t hear news of Max soon. She longed to step away from this terrible uncertainty for even a few minutes.

“Go,” Gabe said again.

She nodded and headed to the bedroom. The earring was in its container on the bedside table, the gold and delicate gems winking in the bright light. How sad that the earrings and a bangle were all that was left of a beautiful young woman who’d still had so much living left to do.

“What happened to you, Geneva?” Quinn whispered as she reached for the container and opened the lid.

She sat on the bed, leaned against the headboard, and dropped the earring into her hand. The world around her fell away, and she was once again in 1923, on the night of the New Year’s Eve celebration.