Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
The most important thing I learned from years of watching procedural investigation shows with Harper? The first forty-eight hours after a person goes missing are the most crucial. And with each minute, the missing person gets farther away and harder to find.
Two hours ago, the detectives followed my family home from the bookstore, and another squad car pulled up behind them, four rookies spilling out in separate directions to search. One hour ago, a third squad car came. This one had a dog in it.
Browning and Gonzales have asked every question under the sun, and then some. Jasper’s habits, his favorite places to go. Whether we have any other family in the area, or anywhere, for that matter. If my mother has any enemies. If my aunt does. Where my dad is and why he isn’t here.
Through all of it, I have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. All we’re doing is wasting time.
“I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight.
I should have been paying attention. It’s my fault,” Margot says.
She’s sitting in the middle of the couch, my mom and aunt on either side of her.
Browning and Gonzales sit in the antique chairs across the hundred-pound coffee table.
Despite bringing cups for everyone, no one has touched Paige’s coffee but Holden, who has been here almost as long as Jasper has been gone.
He sticks close to Paige, touching her arm each time her frustration pushes her to the brink or picking up takeout so we don’t forget to eat.
“Rehashing the past won’t bring you any peace,” Gonzales says. He’s gentle, more so than his partner, the gruff Browning. His tone is not condescending when it easily could be. “And it won’t help find Jasper.”
Margot nods, sniffling and swatting tears from her eyes as if frustrated they’re falling.
“We’ve got another search party heading out in an hour,” Holden says. “We’re combing the woods past the creek in case he managed to swim across.”
“He was scared of the creek. He wouldn’t cross it,” I say.
“No stone left unturned, yeah?” he asks.
“It’s entirely possible,” Browning begins, “that he simply wandered off.” I can tell he doesn’t mean it to come out so sharp, but there isn’t a way to sugarcoat those words.
They always say that in the TV shows, too. People vanish without a trace. They leave, and they don’t tell a soul they’re doing it. It just happens.
“Larry,” Holden says, his voice hard.
“Wandered off?” I ask, aware my tone is hard and not caring. “He’s seven. He knows he isn’t supposed to go past the driveway.”
“All I’m saying is that kids do things like this. They lose track of time or simply don’t care enough to keep track of it,” Browning says.
“He didn’t leave,” I say. On the couch, Paige reaches over to push my mother back down as she starts to stand, presumably to tell me not to argue with authority.
But all I can see are the detectives in the doorways of other families’ houses, saying the same things about their missing kids. Writing them off before they’ve even been given a chance.
“No one’s saying he did.” Except he is, without explicitly doing it.
Anger burns up my throat, but before I can spew it at Browning, Gonzales speaks.
“We shouldn’t assume the worst,” he says, glancing between Browning and me.
To my mom and Paige, “His description has been sent out to every officer in the county. I have deputies canvassing and interviewing neighbors and a missing child alert out through the state.” Gonzales looks among us all.
To my mom, “Diana, you said your husband lives out of state?”
“Ex-husband,” Mom says. “And yes. He was in Boston for a show, but he already has a ticket booked for the red-eye out tonight.”
I shouldn’t be shocked that my dad is on his way, but the news hauls me back in time to another emergency.
My father doesn’t fit into our world. The days after the hospital are a blur, my mind still fogged by the medication, and the round-the-clock attention.
Paige is in from Blackridge and settles easily into a routine with my mom and Margot.
Someone is on Jasper duty, someone watches me, and the last keeps the house from burning down.
And then there’s my dad. Fluttering about, unsure.
He’s asked me about a hundred times how I’m feeling. How I’m doing. And the answer is always the same: I don’t have an answer. Maybe I’d be honest with Margot, or Harper herself, but I can’t bring myself to say the words to him.
That I wish it had been me.
And then, after six awkward days, he comes to sit on the end of my bed.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says. A part of me recognizes how hard he’s trying, but the rest of me sees how many years he didn’t. “I’ve got to head back.”
An uncomfortable feeling swirls inside me. Like as much as I might miss him when he’s gone, I’ll be more relieved than anything. And there will be guilt at that relief.
I hold my tongue. My dad’s chin dips, and he cracks his knuckles; I remember that about him, the nervous tic.
“Unless you need me,” he adds, and I can tell he both hopes I do and hopes I don’t. We’re alike in our confounding feelings. “If you want, I can stay—”
“It’s okay,” I say. My voice comes out as a croak after days of disuse. “You can go.”
He pushes to his feet. Hesitates, then leans over, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“If you need anything, you call me,” he says. For that second, I can see the father he could have been in another life.
“Thanks for coming,” I say, aware the words fall flat as soon as they leave my lips.
And he leaves exactly as he came, without so much as a ripple.
The officer’s voice drags me back to reality.
“Good. We’ll need to speak with him as soon as he arrives.”
“You don’t really think he’s responsible,” Paige says.
Gonzales shakes his head. “We have to check all the boxes. But we are doing everything in our power to find your boy. I promise.”
My mom, aunt, and sister are soothed by this assurance, but it only makes my stomach churn. If this were an isolated incident, maybe the words would carry more weight. But on the backs of over a dozen other kids, they’re empty.
“Jo.” The voice comes from behind me, low and strained. I turn to find Aisha standing in the kitchen, worrying one of her braids between her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she says. She flicks a glance toward the doorway, where the detectives and my family are still deep in conversation.
I move into the kitchen.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“We checked everything on this side of the creek. Every bush, every branch, every inch. Your brother isn’t there,” Aisha says with a grimace.
I slump back against the counter, reaching back to grip the edge.
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks for looking.” I scan the kitchen. “Where’s Sloane? And…”
Aisha’s lips pull thin. “They’re across the street. We can go as far as the back fence of the vet clinic, so they’re checking everything they can.”
Even if they did find something, some bright neon sign that directed them toward some underground bunker or shed with them and Jasper inside, it’d be a moot point.
The four of us are powerless, non-corporeal and tangible alike.
The most they could accomplish is laying eyes on him.
And that’s if their predictions are correct and the kids are stuck on the property because their bodies are there.
I still don’t understand the rules of this half-life they’re living. I’d barely wrapped my head around ghosts, but this is something else. Their bodies, their living bodies, might be trapped somewhere, but their souls peeled off. Like some form of astral projection gone wrong.
None of it makes sense.
“Did Finn…Did he mention….” Did he mention that he’s pretty sure you’re all still alive is a question I can’t force out of my mouth.
“He told us his theory. And it makes a lot of sense.”
“But it’s a shot in the dark.”
“I’m so sorry.” Aisha’s eyes glitter with unshed tears.
Aisha should be doing arts and crafts in elementary school, playing kickball at recess, and swapping candy at lunches.
Even after the accident, I didn’t feel this powerless. Like I’m watching sand in an hourglass, and with every falling speck, my brother gets farther away from life and closer to appearing in this very kitchen as a phantom.
I don’t know how to stop any of this.