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“Plus, instead of thirty, I can get us there in twenty.”
“We need to make it there alive to be of any help.” All of my muscles tensed beneath my suit.
He didn’t say a word, which was so unlike him, as he drove over ninety miles per hour toward the school. Right before we got there, my phone rang again. It was Mason.
“Did you call the PI?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“So, he’s here,” I said, wanting Mason to confirm what I already knew.
“Charles …” The way he uttered my name was the same way he’d uttered it when he called me years ago, telling me that our parents had died in an accident.
“What!” I found myself screaming into the phone as all of the muscles in my body tensed.
“Charles …” His voice shook with full sullen emotion.
“What? Just tell me, Mason.”
I couldn’t take any more bad news. I’d had enough bad news to last me a lifetime. We all had. Any more would break me.
“Paul’s dead.”
Impossible.
The ringing in my ears intensified.
“They did a search on him, and he’d died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
“How can he be dead?” I breathed. Goose bumps prickled the back of my neck. “Then, who the hell has my Mary?”
It happened in a split second as Brad registered my words. His eyes flipped to mine, but in that nanosecond, he didn’t brake fast enough, rear-ending the guy in front of us.
Chapter 39
Becky
“We found her backpack.” A police officer approached me, handing me Mary’sLittle Mermaidbackpack.
I rubbed Sarah’s back, who was sobbing beside me as we sat at the bench overlooking the swing set and slides in the back of the school. I’d never seen Sarah shed a tear, even when she fought with her sister, yet now, she was inconsolable.
“Why would she wander off? Do you think someone took her?” Sarah’s questions came at me, at the officer, at the teachers and principal, who had all tried to look for Mary. When we couldn’t give her the answer she wanted, she burst into tears again.
I rubbed her back and held her close as I glanced up at the officer. He was a taller male with a dust of red hair and sharp blue eyes. “Where did you find it?”
“In the playground.”
“But we went there,” Sarah cried out. “I would have seen it there for sure.”
The officer offered Sarah a small, apologetic smile and motioned toward me. “We are searching the vicinity, outside of the school perimeter too.”
I visibly shook. “Thank you.” I wanted to throw up from the shock of everything happening around me. The guilt I felt was overwhelming, and it left me immobile. Ice spread through my stomach, and I shriveled into myself.
Sarah hugged the backpack, the top pressing against her chin. “Mary, please be okay. I promise to never fight with you again. I promise to let you play with my American Girl doll whenever you want. I promise you can sleep in my bed when you’re scared.”
My eyes became wet with tears. I pulled the bag out of her hands and brought her to my chest, kissing the top of her head. She shuddered against me as Kenzo watched us, only a few steps away.
“Mary will be just fine. She’s probably out somewhere, playing with a lost dog.” I uttered those words even though I wasn’t sure if they were true. I needed them to be true. I needed my Mary to be okay. I needed Paul far, far, far away from the family I’d grown to care for.
