AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I was doing the dishes, Mr. Winters… I thought he was doing his homework…”
She starts to cry, and my heart wrenches again. There’s a furious part of me that wants her fired as a gut reaction, but my rational side knows kids are unpredictable, and that hell will freeze over the day I find a nanny more reliable than her.
“Lilly, I told you this is not your fault,” I say, as kindly as I can, “Next time just sit him in the kitchen with you!”
I say it with some laughter, and she cheers up a little. Still sounding like a little drunkard, Harlan raises his little voice to say, “Dad, I wanna take a nap!”
“Not now, buddy. Perk up and stay awake!” I look down at him, still in my arms.
That’s when my phone pronounces itself alive. “I hope it’s not bad news again…” I say, picking it up.
It’s Bella, and her voice on the other side of the line is the foreshadowing of bad omens. “Alex! I… I…”
“Spit it out, Bella!” I say with little to no patience.
“We’ve lost Liv!” she says exasperated. “I was distracted making interviews, and when I realized she wasn’t there! The security guards are looking for her but no luck so far!”
I smash a palm against my face and suppress the urge to scream.
“Alex? What should I do?” Bella says, finding my silence strange.
“Take these two useless maggots thatI hopeare still with you and go inform the police about it,” I say, collecting myself. “I’ll be right there.”
I’m about to hang up when she yells, “How’s Harlan?”
“He’ll be fine!” and I poke the screen to shut down the call.
The doctor soon comes with the papers, and I take Harlan in my arms to take him to the car. Once he’s installed on the back seat, I give my keys to Lilly.
“Take him home. In case I don’t come back, I was in Helding Heights.”
“Mr. Winters…!” she looks in awe to the BMW. I don’t think she’s ever driven it.
“Go, Lilly,” I push the keys against her chest, and she finally takes them.
As she goes, I call for an Uber. It’s a decent ride all the way from this fancy part of town, and I don’t think anyone wants to end up in Helding Heights, so I get a few cancellations.
Luckily, one brave soul takes me there, a man who tells me he needs to put his daughter through college.
We arrive at Helding Heights and I take his business card, promising some sort of help. I step out and into the middle of a dwindling party, and I see Bella sitting in the back of a police cruiser, accompanied by a young officer. She’s fumbling with a laptop.
"What are you doing?" I approach them, only to find a GPS map on the screen.
"I still have Liv's login details on my computer..." she says, focused. "We wanted each other to have the ability to find the other in case of an emergency. I can track down her phone with it!"
“Genius!” I approach my eyes to better see it. “Savannah Street, 156. Let’s gather the cops and go there!”
The officer raises a hand and pleads for me to remain calm. “That place is dangerous, sir. We are waiting for reinforcements,” he says.
Bella shakes her head in negative, and I’m utterly baffled at it. “They’ve said it’s believed to be a meeting point for the dealers around here.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I say, taking a few careful steps back, and slowly disappearing around the next corner.
Savannah Street is only three blocks from here, so I jog, mixing with the crowd to not be seen by the police.
The streets grow desolate in that part of the neighborhood. It’s almost 8 PM, pitch dark, and under a broken streetlight, I find the infamous number 156.
The two-story building has boarded-up windows and is covered in graffiti — it’s the only house in the neighborhood we could never touch, as the mysterious owner never allowed it.
