Chapter Thirty #2
I lock up the house, and pull my phone out.
I try to call even though I expect Lottie has already tried her, but I hear a ringing.
My head snaps around, looking for the cause, and that’s where I see the light of her phone on the ground.
It’s right by the driver door of her car.
I pick it up, looking at the photo of us that’s lighting up the screen.
We’re smiling goofily. How rarely I look like that.
It seems only with her I’m so uninhibited.
Despite the circumstances, hope springs in my chest that she hasn’t removed our picture from her background.
She really was going to give me another chance. And now she’s gone, disappeared.
I try the driver door and it’s unlocked. Mia would never be so careless.
The realization that something terrible has happened hits me like a sucker punch. I can’t breathe. I fight the urge to keel over and catch my breath; I don’t have time. I need to find her. I need to do something.
That’s when I call the police.
◆◆◆
“Sir, we can take your statement, but from the looks of it, no crime has occurred here.”
“Are you fucking joking with me?” I spit as Lottie places a hand on my forearm.
“Officer, Mia and I were meant to meet two hours ago, and she didn’t show. Alfie found her phone on the ground, next to the car door, which was unlocked. She’s missing. We need to find her and make sure she’s okay.”
She’s calm, using that tone she does when she wants someone to do exactly as she says. Without wasting time, she adds, “My father, Henry Buckingham, will be saddened to hear that you didn’t take this seriously.”
The officer’s eyes widen after a brief second, and his eyes roam down Lottie’s body in obvious recognition.
“We don’t have time for this,” I hiss.
“Patience,” she sings beneath her breath.
“I’ll call the missing persons team; they’ll be here shortly,” the stocky cop mutters before heading back to his car, leaning down to speak into the radio strapped to his chest.
The other cop rolls his eyes, like Lottie throwing her weight around is the only reason he’s agreeing to do his actual fucking job. My skin boils with annoyance. Mia is fucking missing, and this guy looks like I’ve asked his grandmother out on a date.
“Does Miss Sinclair have any enemies? Ex-boyfriend? Anything like that?” he asks.
“It’s Dr. Sinclair.” Not that that's important right now. “No ex-boyfriends. Not in this state anyway.” I think for a moment, looking back toward my office.
Nate.
How could I not have thought about it before? He talked numerous times about Mia; he actively disliked that I was with her romantically. He even brought her up when I called him about missing his new therapy sessions. Not to mention the creepy-as-fuck notes he’d been leaving her.
“I have an ex-patient. I referred him to a new doctor because he was making inappropriate comments about Mia. Leaving her notes and flowers. He was becoming fixated on her, and I put her needs above his and moved him to another doctor.”
“What’s his full name?”
“Nate Everly. I can call his doctor now.”
“Give me the details, and I’ll follow up with him in the morning."
“No, not in the morning. Fucking now!” I bellow. “I’m not waiting around for something to happen to her. I’m finding her tonight. With or without your help.”
I storm off as Lottie placates the laziest cop in the fucking world.
Before I’m out of earshot of the officer, I’m dialing Dr. Abraham’s number.
“Alfie, it’s very late.”
It’s ten o’clock, you fucking wet lettuce.
“I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t urgent. My girlfriend Mia—she’s missing. Nate Everly, the patient I referred to you after he made inappropriate comments about her, has he been attending sessions?”
“Yes, we had our second one this afternoon. He didn’t display any concerning actions or behaviors. He was attentive, engaged, and actively seeking advice on how to improve his chances of attaining a relationship with a previous partner.”
Emphasis on previous, I note.
“I don’t think he was referring to Mia. Although he did mention in our first session that he was unhappy with you and how things had been left. He felt that he’d be targeted.”
“That’s in line with my assessment of him. He has narcissistic tendencies with a victim mentality.”
The doctor hums for a moment, the noise making my neck itch. “That is true. I’m not faulting your assessment of him, Dr. Adams. I’m merely suggesting that a broken clock is still right twice a day. Perhaps Nate wasn’t the one leaving the notes.”
Fucking useless.
It’s the last time I refer a patient to him again. Absolute waste of time. “Thanks for your help, Dr. Abraham.”
“I hope you find her, Alfie. Just remember what I said. I know tensions are high, but think about who else this could be. I genuinely don’t think this is Nate.”
I hang up after thanking him again and step toward the police officer.
“Well?”
“He had a session with Nate this afternoon. He confirmed there wasn’t anything alarming in their appointment.”
The police officer nods, eyeing me like there must be something else for me to say.
I’m not going to tell him anything that might prevent him from looking for Mia.
My gut is telling me Nate has something to do with this.
He was the only one who had the opportunity to leave them at Mia’s desk.
She was nearly always gone by the time his session finished.
The only other person was Sean, who had never met Mia.
Despite this, his similarities to Nate, he could be a person of interest. But it’s a loose link. She was always gone from the office when he came in for his sessions. Besides, Mia has read my notes. She’s seen his name, his age. If she had known him, she would have told me. It can’t be him.
We’ve been standing outside of Mia’s house for hours now, and Lottie’s shivers are turning into full-on shakes as we finish up with the police. They leave, promising to follow up in the morning, and Lottie and I head toward my house.
When I sink into the couch, the embers of the wood-burning stove glow dully. Lottie places another log inside, blowing gently on the embers until they catch the small kindling she’s delicately placed around the wood.
A knock at the door has me jumping out of my seat, but it’s only Caleb.
“I came right after my shift. No news of her at the hospital, and I called the other emergency departments in a fifty-mile radius. She hasn’t been admitted, and there are no Jane Does that match her description.”
I appreciate his foregoing the niceties and getting straight to the point. He tugs off his jacket and goes to put it on the rack, but when he sees Lottie, he brings it with him, the huge puffer wrapping her up like a duvet.
She nestles into it, her fingers tucking up into the sleeves. I should have brought her here sooner. I could have waited with the police by myself. The end of her nose is pink, her cheeks rosy, the light of my living room highlighting her features.
“I don’t know where to go from here,” I whisper, holding my head in my hands.
We wait on the couch, but as two a.m., then three a.m. rolls around, we hear nothing.
Lottie’s soft snuffles are the only sound as she tucks herself into Caleb’s side.
His huge frame engulfs her. Eventually, his head lolls against hers, his leg twitching every now and then.
I check my phone one more time, leaving it on loud in case the police call.
By the time I wake up a few hours later, there are no missed calls.
◆◆◆
Lottie and Caleb head to the rink in case Mia shows up there for our arranged meet up, but I know it’s a waste of time. She’s not going to be there. Certainly not if she hasn’t reached out to Lottie to explain why she didn’t show up yesterday. And without her phone? No way.
I decide to call the detective from missing persons to check what they were doing today to find Mia.
“Detective Jenkins.”
“It’s Alfie Adams. I’m calling about the missing persons case that got opened last night for Mia Sinclair.”
“Ah yes, Dr. Adams, isn’t it? We’re making some inquiries this morning, but I’ll be around to talk to you this afternoon. I have a few follow-up questions.”
“Can we do this now? I want to make my own calls today to find her.”
“Alright,” he huffs. “We spoke to Mia’s mother this morning, Mrs. Angela Sinclair.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, she seems to think that this isn’t a big deal. She says that Mia has a history of running off when things get tough.”
Is he goading me? I can’t imagine Angela saying anything like that about Mia.
“I don’t agree with that. Besides, Mia made plans to meet with Lottie last night, and then with me today. Why would she do that if she was going to run?”
I try to keep my voice even, but it comes out gruff and indignant all the same. I don’t know why I’m trying to manage my emotions when I’m clearly losing it. How incompetent can these cops be?
“Did Miss Sinclair have a relationship with a teacher when she was in high school, which led to her leaving home?”
Fuck.
“Yes, but—"
“And you are her boss, aren’t you? In a position of power over her career, so to speak?”
“That’s not—"
He interrupts again. “Let us do our job. If the mother isn’t concerned, I don’t know why you should be.”
“Because she’s fucking missing! She doesn’t have her phone; her car was unlocked; she’d been receiving creepy notes from someone at her place of work, dammit.
Just please don’t write this off. Something’s wrong.
I can feel it.” I grip my phone so tightly, I feel like it could crack at any moment.
My lungs are scorched, my heart racing. I bend over for a moment resting my free hand on my knee, desperately trying to catch my breath and calm my racing pulse.
“Are you feeling okay, Dr. Adams? We can send someone over there to check on you.”
“I’m fine, I’m stressed obviously. I want her back.” I lift myself up, scraping my palm down my face.
“Dr. Adams, you know there is one more person that could have left her those notes, like you said.”
“Who?” I rack my brain trying to think. What use is studying the mind for the last fifteen years if I can’t even get a handle on my own thoughts?
“You, Alfie,” he says softly. “My colleagues never asked you this last night because it didn’t occur to them. But did you hurt Miss Sinclair?”
“It’s Dr. Sinclair, and no, of course not. I love her.”
I love her.
I love her.
Oh my God.
This is my fucking fault. Everything that’s happened in the last five days is completely and utterly of my own doing.
If we were still together, this never would have happened.
She would have been staying at my place and nowhere near her house.
Okay, a few hundred yards away, but still, I could have protected her, but I didn’t.
I chose to protect myself instead. I put myself above her.
“People do a lot of things to the people they love. I’m sure you know that, given your profession.”
“That’s not—that’s not what happened here.” He’s accusing me of doing something to Mia. Of orchestrating this missing persons case. They’re not even going to try and find out what happened because they assume that I’m the one that’s hurt her. “I have to go. Please keep looking for her.”
I hang up before he can respond.