Chapter 4
Chapter four
The Search
“If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful.” - Alexandre Dumas
“Hailey…” a wavering voice called.
Hailey rolled over and sat up, knuckling her eyes, and when she opened them, it was horror.
There was Holly—standing next to the bed, ashen-faced, shivering, and covered in dirt, blood oozing from a wide-open gash on her forehead.
“Help me, Hailey,” she breathed, tears streaming down her face.
Holly reached out, but when she did, her hands fell off as if they’d been lopped off by a pair of invisible blades.
They landed in Hailey’s bed, two muffled thumps against her quilt.
Blood spurted from Holly’s wrists as she raised them up.
Gaping in horror, she flicked her eyes to Hailey and whimpered.
“Hailey, help me!”
“Holly!”
Scrambling out of bed, Hailey lunged for her sister, but Holly was yanked into the shadows before she could reach her.
Purple eyes flashed in the darkness, and Hailey screamed, “NO!”
A heavy hand fell on her shoulder.
She drew a quick breath.
“You’re awake now, Hailey, don’t be afraid,” whispered a gentle voice—his voice—next to her ear, and the room came into focus.
Hailey whipped around, furiously scanning the dark, but the room was empty, still. The silence only amplified her heartbeat as it hammered in her ears.
Uncle Pix burst through the door, and Hailey jumped.
“She’s here, Uncle Pix, she was just here.” Hailey darted to her bed and rummaged through the blankets. “Her hands fell off, they’re—they’re here…somewhere…”
Pix hurried to her side, grabbed her flailing arms, and pulled her into a tight hug.
“Shhh, Hailey, it was a dream. Just a dream, Hailey.”
A dream? Hailey’s shoulder still tingled where the Envoy had touched it. THAT was no dream. She buried her face into her uncle’s shirt and sobbed.
Uncle Pix tucked Hailey back in bed, but that first night without Holly didn’t get any easier. In between her nightmares, Hailey cried—cried and worried and wondered why someone would… would…
She shuddered, pushing the image of Holly’s shoe from her mind and wiping her face on her sister’s pillow. Then she hugged it tight.
She had to do something—go outside and search, post flyers… something.
As Hailey pulled herself up and through the house, things in her periphery quivered.
More than once a shadow budged, startling her.
After seeing three shadow monsters, she’d had enough and turned on every light in her path until she found her Great Uncle Pix sitting in the living room, staring at the door.
She sat on the couch and stared with him.
Uncle Pix, whose real name was Donald (but nobody called him that), looked like a grumpy old man and insisted he now stood a full five inches shorter than he did when he stepped off the boat from Ireland fifty years ago.
To everyone else, Pix was a grouch, but to her and Holly, he was just a big teddy bear.
Hailey remembered well the night they came to stay with him after the fire.
He’d fixed them hot chocolate with whipped cream before rolling out the sleeping bags and camping with them right there, on the living room floor.
“Your grandfather’s coming,” Pix said suddenly.
Right now? Hailey looked at Uncle Pix then back at the door, half-expecting it to swing open. “Oh,” she managed.
Hailey hadn’t seen her grandfather in…well, ever.
He’d gone back to Ireland 30 years ago and had been living with the silent monks ever since.
The only thing Hailey really knew about him was that his real name was Seamus.
Pix only ever referred to him as Wimp, though, which was a misnomer.
In his heyday, he was a bare-knuckles fighter in the Navy.
“Your great uncles too,” Pix added.
Uncle Pix had four brothers. In addition to Wimp, there was Dale, Skeet, and Johnny.
Hailey couldn’t force words to respond, though she did wonder if Uncle Pix was keeping vigil for Holly or waiting for his brothers. Whatever his reason, she watched the front door with him, biting her thumbnail and shaking her leg until dawn.
At seven a.m., the coffee pot turned itself on, and Uncle Pix finally blinked. He rubbed his face with both hands and sprang to his feet. Hailey got up and followed him. Though she hadn’t slept at all, she felt remarkably alert and ready to hit the pavement in search of her sister.
“I think we should call the hospitals again,” she said as she moved to the phone.
Pix grunted his usual pre-coffee grunt and pulled six mugs from the cupboard.
“When are your brothers due in?” she asked as she dialed.
“Got in last night.” He impatiently stared at the coffee pot.
“Last night?” She held the phone to her ear. “Where did they st—Yes, hello, I’m calling to find out if my sister was brought in overnight—Holly Hartley? Yes, I’ll hold.”
She placed her hand over the receiver.
“Where did they stay?”
“The pub, of course.”
“What? They slept on the fl—Yes! I’m holding for the E.R.—” Hailey listened intently for a few seconds then sighed heavily. “No, Holly’s twenty years old,” she explained, her voice half disappointed, half relieved, “—and thank you for checking,” she added before hanging up.
She put her hand on her hip and turned to her uncle, who had shoved the pot out of the way and was holding his mug directly under the coffee dispenser.
“Why didn’t they stay here?”
“Didn’t want to disturb the house.”
“We’re already disturbed,” she argued.
Just then the latch at the front door clicked.
“Holly!” Hailey sprinted to catch the door and threw it open.
Standing on the doorstep were four geriatrics, all of whom looked strikingly similar to Uncle Pix—short, gray-haired, and grumpy.
Three stood solemnly, hands folded politely.
One was naked, shoeless, shivering and rolled up like a burrito in a rug Hailey recognized from the pub.
She couldn’t help but stare at the scrawny old man legs poking out of the bottom of the rug.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Dale,” her uncle’s voice boomed from the kitchen. “Where’s yer drawers?”
“Didn’t survive the flight,” he answered.
“And took your shoes with’em,” Pix concluded, as if these were normal casualties of commercial flight. “Well, get yerselves in here before the neighbors get an eyeful.”
The brothers shuffled inside, each taking their turn to introduce themselves to Hailey.
“I’m your Uncle Dale,” said the first with a hint of shame as he waddled past and into the kitchen.
“Hailey!” said the next, and he hugged Hailey so tight, her feet came off the floor. He was amazingly strong for a geezer. He patted his chest. “I’m Skeet. You’ll remember we met at your parents’ funeral.”
“Of course,” said Hailey, not wanting to admit she didn’t really recognize any of them.
Pix shook his hand. “What’s the story, horse? Any luck with your boy?” Pix asked him, and Skeet shook his head.
Hailey motioned the third brother in, who simply said, “Johnny,” and pecked her on the cheek before turning to Uncle Pix.
“Lorelei sends her love,” he said, and Pix grumbled.
The brothers chuckled, and before Hailey could ask, Pix blurted, “A wretched hag!”
Wimp came in last and folded Hailey into a gentle hug, patting her twice on the back.
Hailey closed the door and followed them into the kitchen where Pix was pouring cups of coffee and handing them around. When he got to Dale, who was still wrapped in his rug and using both hands to hold it closed, Pix shook his head.
“Well, go sort yerself out,” Pix ordered. “Yeh look like a fool in a rug.” He pointed to the laundry room.
Moments later, Dale emerged, fully clothed and motioning for coffee.
The brothers stood around the kitchen sipping from their mugs while Pix filled them in on Holly’s disappearance. Hailey didn’t care to hear the details again, so she left them to it, closing her bedroom door quietly behind her.
From her room, she heard a sharp knock at the front door, and a muffled Uncle Pix offered the greeting he reserved for all uninvited guests.
“Who are yeh?” he growled.
Hailey shook her head and went back to her internet search. Just as she found what she was looking for, Uncle Pix stuck his head inside her room.
“May I come in?”
“Sure,” said Hailey, untroubled by his tip-toeing. She looked up in time to see his lips press together and his eyes well.
“She’ll need one of these when she gets back,” said Hailey simply. She pointed to the screen and scanned the specs on a prosthetic foot with hydraulics.
“Alright, Hailey.” Pix’s voice was shaky. “The detective is here, dear—”
“Did they find her?” Hailey said, jumping up.
“No, dear. They haven’t found shite,” he huffed, and Hailey frowned, turning back to her screen. “But he wondered if you would talk to him and go and look at some photos at the department.”
“Just a second,” she said, waving him off as she studied a carbon fiber model.
“I’m ordering information on this one now.
” She turned her head slightly as she read.
“It’s designed for dancers, and it takes four weeks to make.
She’ll have to have it fitted…” She looked up at Uncle Pix matter-of-factly.
“Holly will want to start dancing right away when she gets home.”
Pix nodded, his chin trembling, and he left her to her project, closing the door quietly behind him.
Hailey tapped the keyboard, nodded triumphantly, and joined the crowd in the kitchen, where a tall, broad-shouldered man, sporting a sandy blond flattop and wearing a suit and a badge stood in the middle of the brothers, who formed a half circle around him and took turns pelting him with questions.
Except for Wimp, who stood quietly with his coffee, looking thoughtfully from brother to detective to brother and back again.
Hailey slid into the kitchen unnoticed and stood silently against the counter, safely out of the line of fire as the conversation heated up.