A thin curl of smoke rising #3
Maple Hill isn’t far, but every red light stretches unbearably long. I inch forward at the first one, jaw tight and heart racing, resisting the urge to run it. Stacey’s voice replays in my head, and my throat closes as images start forming without permission.
Elle in the back of a car she doesn’t recognize. Elle asking questions in that small, polite voice she uses when she’s unsure. Elle looking around for me or Evan and not seeing us anywhere.
“She’s brave,” I mutter, gripping the wheel harder. “She’s kind. She’s okay, she knows to stay with people she knows.”
What if she thinks Stacey is someone she knows? She knows she’s her mom, so maybe she thinks she’s safe, too?
The thought hits, and I suck in a sharp breath as I take the turn onto Maple Hill Road too fast, the car swaying slightly before I correct. The road narrows as it climbs, trees closing in along either side. The old tower rises ahead, rusted and stained against the sky.
I pull up and park on the side of the street, half up against the curb, engine still running for a second before I kill it. The silence that follows is immediate and heavy.
Wind cuts across the open ground, catching in the tall, dry grass and making it whisper. The tower above creaks faintly, and my hands sit on the wheel longer than they should. There are no other cars parked nearby, no sign of Remi’s SUV. No sign of Stacey, either.
This feels wrong.
My phone is already in my hand as I climb out of the car. I should try one more call. To Evan, Remi, anyone.
But then I hear a scrape or something shift inside the tower, and my heart slams in my chest.
“Elle?” I call, and my voice breaks around her name.
There’s no answer, of course there’s not. I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder, closing the car door.
“She must be inside,” I murmur. “And if she’s not, then I’ll leave.”
The air smells dry and dusty, and the path toward the tower is uneven, the gravel shifting under my shoes as I clamber over it fast.
“Elle?” I try again, but all my voice does is carry and disappear.
I swallow hard and push forward, ducking beneath the rusted framework and into the shadowed ground-floor room of the abandoned tower.
It’s cooler under here. The ground is packed with dry dirt and scattered debris—old beer bottles, cigarette butts, pages from old newspapers, and flattened cardboard shoved into corners like makeshift bedding.
“Elle?” I call out. “Bug?”
My eyes adjust as a figure steps out from behind one of the steel support beams of the building.
Stacey.
Her hair is pulled back, and it’s thinner than I remember. Her face looks sharper, and the skin around her eyes is hollowed out in a way that makes my stomach twist.
Behind her, leaning lazily against one of the steel supports, is a man I don’t recognize. Mid-thirties, maybe. He’s not big, but there’s something meanly solid about him. His dark hoodie is pushed up over tattooed forearms, and a scruffy beard creeps unevenly across his jaw.
He watches me with his head tilted, and I immediately hate the way it feels as though he’s assessing me.
I ignore him and scan the space again.
“Where is she?” I demand, already moving toward Stacey. “Where’s Elle?”
Stacey doesn’t answer immediately. She glances at the bag on my shoulder instead.
“Did you bring the cash?”
“I asked you where she is,” I snap. “Put her in front of me. Now.”
“She’s not here,” Stacey says.
My brain scrambles, and the words don’t make sense at first.
“What?”
“She’s not here,” she repeats slowly. “She’s with Remi.”
Relief crashes through me so violently, my knees nearly give out. She’s safe.
She’s safe.
But then the rest of the sentence catches up to me like a blade sliding between ribs.
“If she’s with Remi, then why did you say you had her?”
“I needed you to come,” Stacey says, her voice holding that same careless edge it did on the phone. “And I knew you would.”
The man shifts his weight, boots scraping against dirt, and understanding moves through me in stages. Confusion is replaced by the hollow drop in my stomach, then the sharp, burning clarity of it.
“You lied.”
Stacey shrugs. “It’s not personal.”
The words hit harder than anything else she could have said. Because it is. It’s very fucking personal.
“You threatened to take her,” I choke out. “You used a five-year-old girl to get money.”
“I wasn’t actually gonna take her,” Stacey snaps defensively. “Jesus Christ, Penny. You’re acting like I killed someone.”
My lip trembles, not from relief—from rage.
“You made me think she was gone.”
She looks away. “I just need the money.”
“For what?” My voice cracks into a hysterical pitch. “What could possibly justify that?”
The man pushes off the beam then, stepping forward just enough to make his presence felt.
“For the debt she owes me,” he says mildly.
A cold wave moves through me as he scratches at his beard and looks me over, trying to decide whether I’m worth the trouble I might cause.
“How much?” I ask Stacey, ignoring him entirely.
“Quite a bit,” the guy replies before Stacey can.