Chapter 9 - Gone

I don’t remember getting to the car.

I remember the feeling, though.

That instant hollowing-out in the center of your body when your worst fear stops being a fear and becomes a fact.

Emma was gone.

I called the school while backing down the driveway so hard my tires screamed.

“She signed her out?” I barked.

“Yes,” the receptionist said, already crying. “She had old authorization in the file—”

“She did not have authorization.”

Detective Ortiz answered on the second ring. “Tell me.”

“Claire took Emma from school.”

“I’m putting out a BOLO now. Vehicle?”

“White Range Rover. Plate ending 6KJ.”

“Any likely locations?”

I thought fast and hated every possibility.

“The lake cabin,” I said. “Or the marina. Or my mother’s.”

“Do not go alone.”

“I’m already moving.”

My phone buzzed with a video call request from Claire.

I accepted instantly.

Emma appeared first.

She was sitting on the floor somewhere dim, eyes swollen from crying, still in her school cardigan.

“Daddy,” she whispered.

Then Claire’s face leaned into frame.

“If you want her calm,” she said, “you’ll do exactly what I say.”

My hands locked around the steering wheel. “Where are you?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Put her in the car and bring her back.”

Claire smiled. “No.”

The signal shifted. In the background, behind Emma, I saw rusted corrugated metal and a strip of dirty water.

The marina.

“You are out of your mind,” I said.

“No,” Claire said. “I’m the only one who has ever been honest with you. Emma destroys everything she touches and you worship her because she looks like Melissa.”

Emma started crying harder.

“Stop,” I said. “Don’t do this in front of her.”

Claire’s eyes glittered. “Come alone.”

The call ended.

Ortiz called immediately after.

“We have her vehicle pinging near Bayline Marina,” she said. “Units are on route.”

I was already cutting through traffic.

When I reached the marina storage lot, the Range Rover was there.

Empty.

Wind rattled the chain-link fence. Boats knocked softly against their slips. Somewhere, a gull screamed.

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Then I saw something tied to the fence wire.

Emma’s blue ribbon.