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“Octavia? She was inside with you. I…” He falters, his eyes widening. “She’s not?”
“No, she’s not,” I say tiredly even as my heart booms and slams around inside my chest as if trying to break out. “Tell John Elba that Octavia’s missing.”
Time is a blur, a broken-up movie. I miss whole stretches of what happens next. One moment I’m talking to the middle-aged cop, and then next I’m inside the house, the kids crying in my arms.
Then I’m slathering peanut butter and jelly on slices of bread for them to eat—and suddenly I’m sitting with them on the sofa, John in a chair across from me.
“Hansen. Are you with me?”
I stare back at him, forcing my mind back into the game. “What?”
“I said I know you’re in a bit of a shock. Today has been a rollercoaster of a day.”
No shit. “Do you… did you find out how…?”
Hell. And I was in the next room. Again.
“We think we have an idea. Cane and Jameson say they didn’t see anyone approach the house, except another cop. They thought it was Every, but turns out Every was sent to Octavia’s mother’s house.”
“He dressed up….?” Jesus. “Fucking hell, man. Find her.”
“We will. We’re searching Jeff Adams’s motel room for any clues we might have missed. Calling everyone who knows him. We have cars patrolling the streets, asking anyone who might have seen them.”
Right. Not likely.
“He’ll probably give us clues,” John says, reading my mind. “Looks like it’s his MO.”
“Unless he doesn’t want us to find her so soon,” I whisper. “Unless he wants to hurt her.”
Mary is crying. Cole is sobbing.
God fuck, this isn’t good. The kids shouldn’t be hearing this shit, shouldn’t be put through this.
But Octavia isn’t here to take care of them.
Because she’s the one missing.
“Listen,” John says, and I do my fucking best to pay attention. “We’ll find her. She’ll be fine.”
But I’m done with people promising what they can’t deliver.
It’s time to take things in my own hands.
And time to make some phone calls that had been a long time coming.
It’s late at night when my doorbell rings. Close to midnight. I’ve been sitting in the armchair, staring at the TV. It’s off, the screen dark.
The kids are asleep on the sofa because no way am I leaving them alone in another room. My eyes keep closing, and I keep starting awake, terrified they’ve been taken away from me.
The doorbell rings again, finally registering.
I shoot out of my seat and go check through the peephole, blink at the persons standing outside.
Stepping back, I open the door and let them in. “Kaden.” I nod at my brother. And then, “Mom.”
She looks… older somehow, although it’s only been a few weeks. More fragile, more stooped. More sad.
I open my arms and she comes and hugs me. “My Matt,” she whispers, and it makes my eyes hot and my chest tight. “Missed you. How are my babies?”
