The Concert
“Oh come on! What the hell happened to the lights?” Sergeant Chambers asks.
Dean answers. “It’s a planned outage so the crowd can experience the comet together in the pure black night.”
Claudia suddenly remembers that they were going to have a moment for Mike that would last three excruciatingly long minutes. “Change of plans,” she mutters, breaking away from Dean.
She gropes her way to the stairs, then crawls up them onto the stage. Claudia’s suddenly terrified to walk in case she’s pointing the wrong way and steps right off the stage and drops the eight feet to the ground, but she continues on anyway.
“Turn the lights on! Turn them on!!!” she screams at Zane.
She can barely make out his silhouette. His arms are up in the air, as if he’s reaching for Mike in the night sky. The cheers from the audience die down, and her voice rings out. “Elliott is missing. So are your girls.”
ZANE — 11:17 P.M.
The concert ends abruptly, exactly like the life of the man they were there to honor.
The lights are turned up to full brightness.
Sergeant Chambers walks out to center stage, hitching up his utility belt with authority.
The crowd turns on him and immediately starts booing.
Zane gestures for them to quiet down, panic filling his body while his brain tries to catch up with what’s happening.
“That’s enough everyone. We’ve got an emergency! ”
More booing.
“SHUT UP! Fucking shut up! My kids are missing! Quiet down and listen to the officer.”
Chambers gives him a grateful nod. “All right, everyone stay calm and remain where you are. We have three missing children, including a baby, so we’ve got to act fast to find them.”
Claudia grabs Zane’s hand and pulls him off the stage. Rusty and Steven follow while Sergeant Chambers reads out descriptions of each child.
“Come on! We’re going to search the trailers!” she calls to them, quickly dropping Zane’s hand before Sienna sees them.
Minutes later, Zane rushes up the step to Steven’s trailer, not knowing that what he’s about to see will change everything in a heartbeat.
He hears a loud screech before it registers that it’s Ivy doing the screeching.
When he sees her face, he is immediately relieved.
Then he glances down, and it hits him. His little girl is nude.
In Steven’s trailer. She’s fumbling to cover herself up with a blanket.
A rush of fury overtakes him. His muscles fill with blood, his veins with adrenaline. He turns, ignoring Ivy as she says something about it not being Steven’s fault. He yells for Sienna, his voice booming.
Sienna, who was checking their trailer with Kitty, comes running. “Did you find them?”
“Ivy’s in here,” he answers, clenching his jaw so hard it feels like he could snap the tendons.
“Thank God!” Sienna rushes in with Kitty at her heels.
“Oh, Ivy! No!” Sienna hisses.
Kitty gasps and covers her eyes with her hands.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Zane grinds out. “I swear to God. I will kill him with my bare hands.”
“It’s not what it looks like!” Ivy sobs. “Nothing happened! I wasn’t going to go through with it!”
Claudia manages to squeeze past Zane. “Oh, God, Ivy. No. Don’t do this.”
Sienna glares at her. “I don’t think my daughter is going to take advice from a woman like you.”
Kitty makes a tsking sound. “Sienna, that’s a little harsh.”
Ignoring her, Sienna turns back to Ivy. “Listen to me, we’ll deal with this later. Right now, I need to know where Poppy and the baby are.”
“What?” Ivy asks, her face blank.
“Ivy, you came back to the trailer with Poppy, and we know that Lisa left Elliott with you two,” Kitty said. “But at some point, you left them to…” Her voice trails off, and she lets out an ugh sound.
Claudia takes over the questioning. “Were they in the trailer when you left?”
“Yes, and they were both fast asleep. I swear!”
“Are you sure? Because they’re not there anymore.” Sienna’s voice was soothing.
Ivy’s eyes fill with tears. “They were there, Mom. I promise. I made sure they were both asleep before I left.”
Sergeant Chambers stands next to the door and calls inside. “Ivy, did you see anyone hanging around that shouldn’t be here?”
Ivy covers her mouth with one hand and sobs. “Oh, God! You think someone took them?”
“No,” Sienna said. “We don’t know, but we need you to calm down and answer the question. Did you see anyone?”
Sniffing, she shakes her head. “No, there was no one.”
Zane keeps his eyes trained on the low ceiling. “Ivy, are you sure?”
“Positive. I made sure to look because I didn’t want anyone to see me.”
Sienna’s stomach turns to stone as she listens to her daughter. But there’s no time to think about what her eldest child was going to do. She needs to focus on Poppy now.
Sergeant Chambers’ voice comes from outside the trailer. “All right, our best guess at the moment is that Poppy and the baby left the trailer on their own. Most likely the baby woke up and started crying and Poppy went for help but got turned around.”
Zane’s face pales and he puts both hands on top of his head. “Oh God, oh god, oh god.”
“Zane, what? What’s wrong?” Claudia asks.
He stares at Sienna, looking like he might throw up. “She’s just a little kid, right? She wouldn’t … do anything.”
Sienna’s head snaps back. “Like what? Hurt the baby? Of course not. What the hell are you talking about?”
“No, you’re right. Of course not. It’s just that a few weeks ago…” He trails off, then his voice goes quiet. “She said she wished he was dead.”
SIENNA
Sienna glares at Zane, knowing what will come next.
Kitty narrows her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. Why would Poppy want Elliott to die?” She lets out a gasp. “Oh, no. Oh, Zane, you didn’t.”
A wave of desperation hits Sienna. “No, Kitty, it’s not that… Come on, we need to find my daughter. Can we just focus on Poppy right now?”
“And my son!” Claudia snaps.
“Obviously,” Sienna says.
Kitty sits down on the narrow couch, looking visibly shaken.
Claudia lets out a sob. “Do you really think Poppy would…”
“Of course not!” Sienna shouts. Turning to her husband, she barks out, “Are you insane? Do you even know our child?! She makes me take spiders outside instead of killing them. She would never hurt a baby!”
He holds up both hands. “All right, all right. I’m sorry. I’m just … trying to figure this out.”
“Well, if that’s the best you can do, keep your dumb ideas to yourself!” She looks down at the linoleum floor, trying to think of anything that might help. And then it hits her. She lifts her eyes to her daughter. “Oh, shit, did you write about doing this in your diary?”
Zane, who clearly had his ego bruised, shoots Sienna a dirty look. “What does that have to do with anything?”
She ignores him and continues to stare at her daughter. “Ivy? Did you?”
Ivy nods.
Sienna covers her mouth with one hand. “Poppy must have been trying to find me.” She turns to Kitty, needing to share her confession with a mother who would understand.
“She tried to tell me last night, but I wouldn’t listen because she’s not supposed to be reading her diary.
” Her eyes fill with tears, and she starts shaking.
“I got so mad at her. But she was just trying to protect her sister.”
Kitty doesn’t offer her any sort of comfort. No hug. She doesn’t tell Sienna not to blame herself or that she is doing the best she can. Instead, she sits there, her nose wrinkled in disgust.
Sergeant Chambers cuts into the conversation from his position at the doorway. “Okay, so the most likely scenario is that she went looking for help and got lost.”
Zane nods a few times. “That’s good, right? They’re not kidnapped or something. They’re just lost.”
“Yes, it’s our best-case scenario, but out here, it’s still bad,” Sergeant Chambers says. He turns to Ivy. “How long ago did you leave them alone?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe an hour ago?”
“Did you hear anything outside?”
“No, just the music and the crowd.” Ivy breaks down sobbing. “Oh, God, it’s all my fault. I never should’ve left!”
“You’re damn right you shouldn’t have left!” Claudia yells.
Sergeant Chambers takes hold of the situation with a quick shout of, “Hey!” He pokes his head in and snaps his fingers at Claudia. “You, come on. We’re not going to find your son in here.”
Claudia stalks out, leaving Sienna, Zane, Ivy, and Kitty in the trailer.
Kitty gets up and walks out without a word.
Zane sighs. “I’ll go too. Ivy, get dressed and get back to our trailer.”
ZANE
Zane lumbers down the steps and spots Steven. He lunges at him, shouting, “You son of a bitch!”
A security guard blocks his way while Steven ducks and covers his head with both hands. “What the hell, man?”
“I knew it! I knew you wanted to…” He shook his head, unable to say it. “With Ivy?! She’s a fucking child.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
A rush of fury filled Zane. “Don’t you dare act like you didn’t know she was in there waiting for you!”
“I didn’t!”
“Like hell! I’m going to fucking kill you!”
The security guard tightens his grip. “Come on, man. This won’t help anything.”
“But it’ll fucking feel great,” Zane spits out.
Ivy steps outside. “Dad, stop it! He didn’t know.”
Zane crumbles as he looks at his daughter. “Why would you want to…? Is it to hurt me?”
She nods and tears fill her eyes. “You deserve to hurt. After what you’ve put us all through. I just wanted you to feel it too.”
Zane’s head hangs down and he lets out a shaky breath. The security guard lets him go and Sergeant Chambers glares at Zane. “Can you keep it together or do I need to put you in the back of a squad car until you calm down?”
“Yeah, I’m done.” He glances at Steven, who looks thoroughly betrayed.