35. Atlas
35
ATLAS
“ W hat do you mean she’s not in the house?”
I’m bellowing at Marquis Henley, who has been Grimstone’s sheriff for exactly one year.
Our last sheriff was murdered. This one is about to be murdered if he keeps telling me Elena is not in Lorne’s house.
“I went inside personally. I looked.”
“You searched every single room?”
“ Yes.”
“Then you didn’t see her. If he’s there, so is she.”
Henley frowns. He is not a fucking idiot like Sheriff Shane, and he does not like that I’m talking to him like one.
“Look, Atlas, we went up there like you asked. Didn’t have a warrant, don’t have probable cause. He threw the door wide open, invited us in. The fiancé’s not there—only the daughter.”
“Did you talk to Ivy?”
“You said the kid doesn’t talk.”
“She can still communicate!”
“Well, she didn’t,” Henley says flatly. “And I asked her. I said, ‘ You were at the fair with your daddy’s girlfriend, right, honey? Do you know what happened to her? Do you know where she is?’ She wouldn’t even look at me. Just stared at the wall.”
“You have to go back.”
“And do what, Atlas?”
“Arrest him!”
“For what? He had twenty, thirty minutes tops before we got up there. His kid was with him the whole time.”
“ He took Elena!”
I’m bellowing again. Henley places his hat back on his head to start the process of leaving. He’s not going to take my nonsense, no matter how well we get along generally. “We’re still searching the fair, the park, the beach…”
And you’ll keep finding fuck all because I already know where she is.
But I don’t bother saying that to Henley. It’s obvious I’m going to have to handle this myself.
“You sure you got the straight story from this girl anyway, Atlas?” Henley stands with his feet apart, tucking his thumbs into his belt, creating a more impressive silhouette than when our old sheriff used to do it because while Sheriff Shane was turnip shaped, Henley resembles a mocha Mr. Clean. “Isn’t she from some foreign country? Maybe she ran off.”
Henley may not look like Sheriff Shane, but he’s starting to sound like him.
I give him a cold look. “Shane used to say that, too, you know—when he didn’t want to do his job.”
Henley swells up and gives me a look like I just used up my one and only strike with him. “Watch yourself. I’m not him.”
Remi waits until he’s gone to come back into the lobby. “What’d you make him so mad for?”
This is rank hypocrisy since Remi was the number one person on our late sheriff’s most-hated list. But I’ll point that out to her another time.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Well, hold on!” Remi chases after me. “I’m sorry for losing track of that old biddy. I was right there?—”
“It’s not your fault. I was right there, too.”
Lorne swooped in like a bat and swept Elena inside the haunted house before I could move five feet through the crowd. By the time I got inside, they were lost in the warren of rooms. Dane circled around immediately to the exit, but as the groups streamed out, no Lorne, Elena, or Ivy emerged.
Precious minutes ticked past as I searched the rooms, shoving forward and backward through the crowd. Elena was gone, like she’d vanished.
The heat and noise were maddening, the howls of the dressed-up actors and the screaming crowd jerking me left and right, thinking one could be Elena.
When I finally found the side door and came out into night air that felt crackling cold, Remi ran up to tell me she’d seen a black delivery van speeding away, driven by someone in a Mary Poppins hat. Lorne’s faithful servant, helping him abduct Elena, I’m sure of it.
But Sheriff Henley doesn’t quite see it that way.
And where the fuck was Elena when he went up to the house? That’s the part that’s driving me insane. He couldn’t have hurt her already… He wouldn’t… That’s not what happened; that’s not what’s going to happen…
Every minute the cops spent searching was torture, until sickening hours slipped past. And then it was all for nothing . I should have gone up there myself immediately; I should never have let her out of my sight. And now I’ll never forgive myself if?—
No, I can’t even think that.
I I have to believe; I have to know she’s going to be okay.
Because I’m coming to get her.
I barrel through the front doors, striding for my car. Rain spatters down, but it doesn’t deter the tourists choking Main Street, shouting and carousing with increasing levels of inebriation.
“Wait for us,” Dane says sulkily, using his long legs to catch up with me. Remi has to sprint. He’s sulky because he wanted to be alone with Remi long before now—the “other humans” portion of the evening was supposed to be limited.
“Your legs are literally two miles long,” Remi pants as she jogs to keep up. She left her skateboard in my lobby, not that it would help her weave through the dense crowd. She jerks her head toward her rusty orange Bronco. “I’m parked over here.”
I’d rather drive, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to get my car out from where it’s parked.
Dane offers me shotgun for the first time in our lives, which concerns me. He must think something awful is happening.
“Drive, Remi,” I say.
“I’m going, I’m going! I can’t run over all these people…”
I wish she would.
Her Bronco inches painfully through the costumed jaywalkers until we can finally accelerate down the two-lane highway out of Grimstone, Remi’s tools rattling in the trunk.
“New project?” I ask her, glancing back at the dusty pile of heavy implements.
“I bought the old Redbird place,” she says. “Got a pretty good deal on it.”
I don’t doubt it. Redbird died fourteen years ago, and it’s been empty since.
“How’s the reno going?”
“I’ll let you know when I get to the house.” Remi sighs. “I’m still cutting my way through all the dead brush in the yard.”
She’s speeding, foot heavy on the gas, hands locked on the wheel. The roar of the engine becomes the sound of my agitation.
“You really think he kidnapped her?” says Dane quietly behind me.
I’m looking ahead, anticipating the appearance of the castle with its hunchbacked roof, its mismatching walls and chaotic corridors.
As the first twisted spires rise over the pine tops, I say, “I know he did.”