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When the cab pulled into the driveway, I saw that all the lights were off. I shrugged it off, thinking Nina had gone to bed and forgotten to flip on the porch light. I entered the house as quietly as I possibly could, and tiptoed down the hall to Nina’s room. I put my ear to the door, and when I couldn’t hear anything, I cracked the door and peeked into her room.
Nina’s bed was empty.
Thinking she might have fallen asleep on the couch while watching a movie, I walked back out to the living room to check. She wasn’t there.
“Nina?” I called, in the empty front room. “Where are you? Nina?”
When I got no response, I marched over to the back door and flung it open yelling into the yard, “Nina Marie Gaston! Where are you?”
No one replied.
“Jesus H. Christ, where the hell are you?” I muttered, as I went back into the house and searched every room, yelling Nina’s name as I checked bathrooms and closets.
When it became clear that Nina was nowhere in the house, I picked up my phone and called her, but was sent straight to voice mail. I sent a text that simply said, “WHERE ARE YOU?” before I called Emily. She didn’t answer, so I left a message and then sat down at the kitchen table to try and make a list of all the friends Nina might be with and all the places they might have gone.
I methodically called each girl on the list of friends and was only mildly surprised to find them still up on a school night. Not one of them would admit to having seen or heard from Nina, and since I couldn’t see their faces, I had no idea if they were telling the truth or simply covering for my errant daughter.
With every call, I became more worried. I began wondering if Nina had been taken rather than run away. I quickly dismissed the idea since there was no evidence of a struggle. After the last girl claimed she knew nothing about Nina’s disappearance, I called Emily and was transferred to voice mail.
“Em, Nina’s missing,” I said. “I’ve called all her friends, and now I’m going to go out and check out the places where the kids hang out. If you can think of anything I might have missed, will you call me?”
I waited a few seconds, wondering if I should say something else, and then hung up. I thought about driving over to Emily’s and waking her up, but I knew she had to be at school early and I didn’t want to keep her out all night chasing a daughter I should have kept an eye on.
“Goddamn it, Nina!” I shouted at the empty house. “Your mother is going to have a shit fit about this, and will definitely blame me!”
I thought about calling Remy, but the prospect of having to deal with her rage over the phone was more than I could handle at the moment. I was holding out hope that I’d find Nina hanging out with friends somewhere in town, and I didn’t want Remy to punish her — or me — for Nina being an irresponsible teenager.
I grabbed some bottled water, a couple of granola bars, and pulled my coat back on before heading out to the truck. I quickly mapped out a route that would take me past all of the places where teenagers had a tendency to hang out in Waltham, then backed out of the driveway.
At the first stop, a convenience store on the edge of the city, the kids in the parking lot said they hadn’t seen Nina since school let out earlier in the day. I asked them if they knew where she might have gone, and they shrugged as they suggested around the back of the Waltham Mall or maybe the arcade. I suspected that they knew more than they were telling me, but I had no proof, so I let it go and headed toward the center of the city.
The Mall parking lot was deserted, and at the arcade, none of the kids hanging around playing 80’s video games had any suggestions for other possible hangout spots. I left the arcade and sat in the cab of the truck, wracking my brain for any clue that Nina might have dropped.
All I knew was that when Emily and I had left for the game, Nina was in her room. I tried Emily again, but only got her voice mail. This time I didn’t leave a message. It was well past 2 in the morning, and I was officially worried.
I sighed as I put the car in drive and headed for the Waltham Police Department to file a report and see if I could get some help locating my daughter.
Remy was going to kill me.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Emily
Way before the alarm went off the next morning, I woke up with a ginger paw resting on my cheek and a pair of green eyes staring at me.
“Well, good morning, Mr. Zinn,” I yawned, as I reached out to pat Howard’s head. He blinked twice, then turned and hopped down off the bed and sat on the floor, staring up at me. I took a quick peek at the clock and saw that it was 4 in the morning. I looked down at Howard and sighed, “Breakfast, already?”
Howard mewed once, then turned and swished his tail as he stalked toward the kitchen. I slid out from under the warmth of my comforter and slipped into the fuzzy robe laying on the foot of my bed. It was entirely too early to be up, but I knew that it was unlikely that I’d be able to go back to sleep even if I stayed in bed. I consoled myself with the fact that I could probably get all of the History class’ papers graded before I had to leave for school.
In the kitchen, I started the coffee before I dished up Howard’s breakfast, and when I went to pick up his food bowl, I yelled, “Howard! What the hell?”
Draped across the bowl was the headless body of a mouse. Howard looked at me, then looked away as he began furiously grooming his head with one paw. The mouse was fairly small, but it had obviously met a rather gruesome end. I wasn’t sure what creeped me out more, the headless mouse or the fact that I knew that where there was one, there was likely to be others.
“Way to follow directions, buddy,” I grimaced. I lifted the small gray corpse by its tail and walked to the back door. “But seriously, Howard, this is not a good way to wake up. Next time leave it by the back door, okay?”
I shuddered as I flung the decapitated mouse into the garbage pail just outside the back door, and quickly returned to the warmth of the kitchen. Howard had hopped up onto the counter and watched intently as I scooped out his breakfast kibble and mixed it with half a can of wet food.
“I’m surprised you’re still hungry,” I said, as I set the bowl down in front of him and watched as he dived in. I poured myself a mug of coffee and took it into the living room, where I sat on the couch, flipped open the file of History papers I’d left on the coffee table, and picked up where I’d left off.
