Chapter 42
LEONORE
My phone rings from somewhere in the tangled sheets.
I pat the sheets, looking for it. When I find it, I look at the name on the screen.
Nessa.
I fight the urge to answer, but Nessa isn’t much of a caller which makes me think something is wrong. A bad feeling sinks into my stomach, and although I told her I was walking away, I can’t help but worry.
I swipe to answer, and the first thing I hear is crying.
But it’s not Nessa’s crying.
It’s Larissa.
“Auntie Leo?”
Her voice is small and broken, and the sound cuts through the lazy haze of the afternoon and obliterates everything else.
“Larissa? Honey, what’s wrong?”
Beside me, Silas goes rigid at my tone.
“Mommy is gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean, baby?”
“I came home from school, and she’s not here,” Larissa says in a confused, little voice. “Mrs. Curnow dropped me off, and when I came up the stairs, the front door was open, and Mommy’s not anywhere.”
I sit up in bed and pull the sheet against my bare skin. Mrs. Curnow is her sitter and picks her up from school and drops her off at home.
I turn to Silas. He’s propped up on one elbow beside me, his dark eyes alert and sharp.
“Larissa, listen to me.” I press the phone harder against my ear. “I need you to be really brave for me, okay?”
She sniffles, then says with a small voice, “Okay.”
“That’s my brave girl. Now tell me exactly what happened. Start from the beginning.”
She takes a breath. “Mrs. Curnow dropped me at the door downstairs like she always does. But when I came up the stairs, our front door was already open. And the apartment is all messy. The coffee table is knocked over, and Mommy spilled her coffee, and she didn’t clean it up. But she’s gone.”
My stomach drops. Nessa would never leave with Larissa due home.
“I looked everywhere. I looked in Mommy’s room and the bathroom and even the laundry closet. But she’s not here, Auntie Leo. Where did she go?”
My eyes close.
I’m going to be sick.
This is unlike Nessa.
“Okay, sweetheart, it’s going to be okay. Do you know any of your neighbors? Is there someone you could visit for a little while?”
“No. Mommy says we don’t go to Mr. Denton’s apartment. He’s a mean old man. He yells at me if I make too much noise. And he smells like cabbage.”
In another scenario, I’d laugh at that. But I’m not capable of laughing right now. Because I know without a doubt that my best friend is in real trouble.
“Okay, forget the neighbors. I want you to go to the front door and lock it. The deadbolt, the lock at the top that you have to turn. Can you reach it?”
“If I stand on my tippy-toes.”
“Good. I want you to lock that door and stay inside until I get there. Don’t open it for anyone until you hear my voice. Do you understand?”
“Okay.” She sounds better now. “Auntie Leo?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Can I have a bowl of Froot Loops while I wait?”
I smile. “Of course, you can.”
Her question is a silver lining. Because it tells me she doesn’t realize the severity of what’s happening. She thinks her mom is running late and forgot to clean up before she left.
“I’m coming over right now,” I reassure her.
“Okay. Can we watch a movie when you get here?”
“Of course we can.”
While we talk, I scan the sunlit bedroom for my clothes. Silas is already out of bed and getting dressed. I pull on a pair of jeans and a shirt.
“I won’t be long. What phone are you on, baby? The phone on the wall?”
“No, I’m on Mommy’s cell phone.”
More dread churns in my gut. Nessa would never leave her phone. A small part of me hopes this is a misunderstanding somehow. That Nessa simply stepped out for a moment and will be back any second. But knowing that Konstantin is in town changes all of that.
I struggle to keep my voice even. In my mind I can see the overturned coffee table and the open door, and I know she fought whoever came for her, but she lost and they took her.
“Okay, I want you to stay on the line with me. Okay, baby?”
“Okay … but—”
The call ends.
I look at my phone, then press it to my ear again.
“Larissa? Baby? Larissa, can you hear me?!” My voice ends in a shrill note, and I turn to Silas. “The phone went dead. Oh God, Silas, what if she’s been taken too?”
“The phone probably needs charging,” he says, his cold and calculating voice sinking me like an anchor.
“Do you think so?”
I redial Nessa’s number but can’t get through. Then I try the landline, but when I get no response, I remember Nessa had it disconnected a few months ago, saying they never use it and it’s just another bill.
I go through the motions, but I’m internally panicking as I follow Silas to his car.
Everything just got so much more real. I was so focused on proving that I’m strong and can fight this that I never thought about the others who might get involved.
Especially since I’d already put distance between us.
“She locked the door. She’ll be safe,” Silas says. He takes his eyes off the road to give me a reassuring look. “We’re only a few minutes away.”
The afternoon traffic is thick and slow. Sunlight glares off windshields and bumpers as Silas drives fast but controlled, weaving in and out of traffic with the expertise of a race car driver.
My mind is a storm, tearing through every possible explanation for Nessa’s disappearance at a speed that makes me dizzy.
Who would take Nessa?
Was it because of Ben? Maybe it has nothing to do with me.
Has he gotten them into something? He was always straddling the line between lawful and illegal, or so he suggested.
He never came out and said it, and I never pressed him for details.
But I do know he does something in finance and makes a lot of money for a lot of powerful people.
Did he fuck up, and now Nessa is paying the price?
But even as the theory forms, another one quickly follows. And this one is much darker.
What if it’s not about Ben?
What if it’s about me?
What if Konstantin has found me and is going after the people I love?
I’m untouchable in Silas’s fortress. What if he’s taken my best friend to smoke me out?
Oh God… What if my secret has gotten my best friend kidnapped and…
I can’t finish the thought because if I do, I will shatter into a million small pieces, and no one will ever be able to put me back together again.
I hate it in this helpless place. It takes me back to the edge of when I was sixteen, and I stabbed the man multiple times for trying to force himself on me.
Or when my husband hurt me a few too many times, and I had, had enough of being a pawn in a man’s world.
But this is different. Nessa and Larissa are innocent.
“Hey.” Silas’s voice cuts through my panic. “We’re going to get Larissa, and then I’m going to find Nessa. And I promise you, baby, I’ll deal with whoever did this.”
I nod because I can’t speak or swallow around the cold lump in my throat.
I don’t give a fuck about how I look right now.
All of my bravado has leaked out of me. But if I had to choose, the only person I would have led to see me at the core like this would be the man beside me, assuring me that everything will be okay.
“Breathe,” he says.
I take a deep breath and let it go slowly. But it does little to ease the fear chewing me up from the inside out, and by the time we reach Nessa’s apartment several minutes later, I’m barely holding it together.
What if the phone dying wasn’t the reason the call with Larissa cut short?
Questions fly around in my head.
I barely wait for Silas to bring the car to a stop and hit the ground running toward the apartment complex. I punch in the security code, and the door from the street unlocks. Racing up the stairs, my heart is pounding, and when I reach the front door, I knock rapidly.
Nothing.
“Larissa, baby, it’s Auntie Leo.”
Still nothing.
My heart stops.
I knock again. “It’s okay, Larissa. You can open the door now.”
I hold my breath.
Come on, baby. Answer the door.
Inside, the deadbolt turns, and a wave of relief rushes through me.
Oh, thank you, God.
The door opens, and the smell of sugary cereal hits me before anything else.
Larissa stands there with a milk mustache and a wide grin.
“Auntie Leo!” She throws herself at me, and I drop to my knees and pull her into my arms.
She’s warm and sweet and smells like milk and Froot Loops. She squirms because I’m squeezing too hard.
“Auntie Leo, you’re squishing me.”
I loosen my grip just enough to pull back and look at her. Her eyes are bright and happy.
She has no idea what is going on.
“Mommy is such a silly billy,” she says as she takes my hand and pulls me inside. “She forgot to close the front door. Anyone could have walked in.”
My eyes sweep the apartment. Warm afternoon light pours in through the windows as I take in the overturned coffee table and the dark stain of spilled coffee on the carpet.
But I also see the other things Larissa didn’t notice.
Like the split timber in the doorframe from the door being kicked in, and the small smear of blood on the wall near the doorway.
My stomach twists.
“I tried to clean up the coffee for Mommy, so she doesn’t have to when she gets home,” Larissa says, leading me to the coffee stain on the carpet. Beside it is a stained dishcloth. “But I couldn’t get it out. I scrubbed really hard, Auntie Leo.”
“You did a good job, baby.” I force a smile that takes everything I have. “That was really thoughtful of you.”
Silas stands in the doorway. His poker face is in place as his gaze moves over the apartment, absorbing every detail.
“Pack her a bag,” he says. “She’s staying with us until her mom gets back.”
I look at him, and despite the sickening uncertainty of what’s happened to my best friend, I’m hit with a feeling of love so powerful it almost knocks me over.
“Larissa, guess what?” I crouch to her level and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re going to come have a sleepover with me.”
Her eyes go wide. “A sleepover? Really?”
“Really.”
“For how long?”
“For a little while. Until Mommy gets back.”
“Yes!” She bounces on her toes and claps her hands together. “Can I bring my coloring pencils?”
“You can bring whatever you want, sweetheart.”
She takes my hand, and we walk to her bedroom to pack a bag.
She chatters the whole way about which stuffed animals are coming to the sleepover and which ones have to stay to guard her bed.
And I am so grateful. She clearly doesn’t know what happened here today or that her mom is actually missing.
In her sweet head, her mom is simply being forgetful.
While we pack her unicorn backpack with clothes and stuffed toys, Silas remains in the lounge room and makes some calls while he looks around. He’ll be looking for anything that might give him a clue to what happened here this afternoon.
A new wave of fear crashes into me, and I want to cry because I know something terrible has happened to Nessa.
But I tell myself to be strong for Larissa.
She’s humming again as she stuffs coloring pencils into her backpack, and for her sake, I can’t afford to break.
I need to focus on getting Larissa to safety and protecting her as best I can.
Only then will I let myself wrestle with the question that’s eating me alive.
Was Nessa kidnapped because of me?