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That night, Frost took a moment to escape his grieving, silent family and retreated to the bathroom to shower. I stayed with Mrs. Frost and Ryan as they watched some kind of mindless sitcom for a few minutes, but my stomach churned with the guilt and before too long, I excused myself abruptly to Frost’s bedroom. When I had shut the door behind me, separating myself from the silent, hollow mother and son, I leaned back against it and clutched at my cramping stomach muscles, trying desperately to control my racing breath. My side ached terribly where Mr. Aaron had stabbed me, reminding me none too subtly of his letter at the hospital. I gritted my teeth and breathed through them, wishing to God that my life could just be simpler. I only wanted the horror scaled down a bit. That was all I would ask.
Tears came to my eyes and for the first time since I was four years old, I whispered a prayer to a God I didn’t really believe in, just in case there was someone up there who would show me some pity.
I had scarcely closed the prayer when I heard a knock at the apartment door. My stomach muscles reasonably well-controlled, I vacated the bedroom. Immediately, I froze in the living area. The room was lifeless, vacant. The TV still blared laughter and inappropriate jokes, but Mrs. Frost and Ryan were gone.
I rushed to the front door and opened it to find Liz and Justin waiting. “Hey,” Liz said quietly. She offered a large bag of take-out to me. “We’ve got the food.”
“Did you see Mrs. Frost and Ryan?” I asked, panic and guilt flooding my veins again and clenching my muscles with adrenaline. The color immediately drained from Liz’s face and Justin pushed past me into the apartment, whirling around as if to ensure that I hadn’t missed them somewhere. “We didn’t see them,” he said quickly, “But they could’ve gone down the stairs or second elevator.”
I was still staring at Liz’s white face in horror as I whispered, “What have I done…”
Liz quickly regained some of her composure and threw the take-out bag on the kitchen counter, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Poe, relax. You don’t know that anything’s wrong…”
“Liz,” I said miserably, “I knew they were dead the moment I smelled gasoline in that house. We have to go after them and find them before it’s too late.”
Justin swore in a sort of furious panic and began dialing numbers into his cellphone, talking rapidly to someone on the other end. “Poe,” Liz entreated fearfully, “Poe, calm down. You don’t know that…”
“I don’t care!” I shouted. “I don’t care. I’d rather know for sure that it’s nothing than have to ID their bodies tomorrow!”
“What?”
We all fell silent and I turned to Frost, who was standing in the bathroom doorway with wet hair. I tightened my eyes shut in sick regret. Maybe if I hadn’t shouted, he wouldn’t have had to hear it like that. Maybe he never would have known my suspicions. If I could have just kept the volume down, I might have found them in the lobby or checking out the swimming pool and nothing would have come of it. But it was too late.
“Poe. What did you say?” Frost asked, his voice cracking in the effort to spit out the question he already knew the answer to.
I shook my head apologetically. “Frost, I’m sorry…”
“What the hell is going on? Just tell me that.” I opened my eyes as he crossed the room, standing only about a foot from me. His gaze was cold and determined. “Stop trying to spare me because you’re just making it worse by keeping me out of the loop and faking everything. Just tell me the truth and get it over with!”
“Your mom and Ryan are gone.”
Frost put his head in his hands, then spun quickly and punched a wall hard enough to break a hole in the plaster. Liz jumped at the action, but neither Justin nor I reacted. I just waited for silence to fall again, then spoke once more, this time much softer. “I haven’t got a clue where to start, but I’m going looking for them.”
He nodded, not turning back towards us. “Fine. I’m coming too.”
“We’ll all go,” Liz piped in, to which Justin nodded. “The PD is sending a few teams out looking too,” he added.
“All right,” Frost said. “Then let’s go.” He kicked on his shoes without another word, then pulled on his jacket as he stalked determinedly to the door. The three of us followed him. We continued down the hall and took an elevator to the lobby in silence.
Justin grabbed my elbow and we fell a few steps behind Frost and Liz. Over the din of the people in the lobby around us, I knew the others wouldn’t hear his whispered question to me. “Poe, what happens if we don’t find them? Or worse?”
I knew exactly what he meant by ‘worse’ and didn’t ask for any clarification. “We’ll pick up the pieces.”
----
We ended up fanning out, all going the same direction on parallel streets. Justin went one block to the right, Frost one block to the left. I stayed on the same street with Liz. Shortly after the men had left, we continued carefully scanning the crowd on the sidewalk with us, peeking in windows of stores and restaurants, and checking out passing taxis, but Liz swallowed anxiously, then began, “We’re not going to find them, are we? They could be literally anywhere in the city by now.”
I shook my head. “There’s not much in this direction. We’re only about eight blocks from the waterfront. There are plenty of places they could be, but we won’t be walking far.”
“But what if they went one or two blocks this way, then turned and veered off our path?”
Sighing mournfully, I stopped, catching her eye. Liz also stopped and I shook my head sadly. “Liz, we’re going to find them. I know without a doubt that we are.”
She swallowed hard again, maybe choking back tears. It was hard to tell in the surreal light of Baltimore at night. “But not alive.”
Liz was strong, just like Justin, just like Frost, just like me. “No. I don’t think they’re alive,” I said. “I think they’re already dead or will be soon.”
Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears, but none ever fell. “I think so, too.”
