Chapter 5
Afew days later, I’ve almost forgotten that creep Mr. Franklin. Or at least enough time has passed that I can convince myself it isn’t as bad as it actually is. It's been a long day, and I'm anxious to get home and shower it off.
Most of the time there's not that much out of the ordinary at Shady Lake, but today Mrs. McGinty had the flu.
I spent half the afternoon cleaning her up and changing her sheets, because no matter how I encouraged her, the lady couldn't seem to hit the plastic basin when she puked.
Actually, the only place she didn't puke was in the basin.
if she weren't so sweet, I might have thought it was on purpose.
My first clue that something is off is the car parked in my driveway.
No one comes up the hill to my house. No one has a reason to, except for the odd delivery man, and most of those choose to pretend that I'm just another resident of Shady Lake.
It's way easier to drop my packages at the mail room there with all the others than to haul their happy asses up here and then spend fifteen minutes executing a twenty-seven point turn to get back down.
But there it is--a blacked out SUV that I don't recognize at all.
I frown at it as I unlock my front door.
Maybe Alex has a friend over. Though I'm not sure where he would have made a friend--he's always at work or playing that dumb computer game.
I feel nosy as I peer out my back windows, over the pool to his place, but this is my house, too.
Right then, a big guy comes out of Alex's house carrying one of his computer speakers.
Holy shit, we're being robbed!
I should heed my own warning, but instead I run to the back door and start screaming at the guy to get the fuck out of my yard.
His eyes go comically round and I wonder if I still have my dad's shotgun somewhere in the house.
I probably shoved it in the back of the closet.
I have just enough time to wonder--a split second, no more--when he takes off running for the gate.
I'm even more shocked when three more dudes pile out of Alex's house.
It occurs to me that I'm in real danger, here.
But thankfully, they all follow the first guy out, not bothering to shut the swinging gate behind them.
A second later, there's the unmistakable sound of tires spitting gravel as they roar out of my driveway.
"Alex?" I call tentatively as I cross the yard.
Randomly, my eyes fix on something in the bottom of my pool.
It's a pile of beer bottles, and not the kind I keep in the house.
Alex doesn't drink. He's never liked the taste, and now it's a condition of his parole that he doesn't. I can't figure out why I'm standing at the pool's edge staring down into the deep end, dread consuming me.
Then I figure it out--they were waiting here. They drank the beer while they were waiting. For something, or someone. My feet are moving again before the implications fully land.
"Alex? Alex!" I fling myself through his front door into absolute chaos.
Everything has been upended, opened, ripped.
His mattress is leaned against the bedroom wall, all of the stuffing shredded so thoroughly that I can see more springs than padding.
The same thing has been done to the futon.
Even his television is smashed, the electronic guts pulled out and strewn everywhere.
I freeze, staring around in stunned shock, trying to process what I'm seeing.
Because just like the beer bottles in the bottom of my pool, something feels off about this.
This wasn't a robbery--they trashed everything.
Even the speaker the guy was carrying was shredded down the center like someone took a knife to it.
This went way past vandals giving someone a bad day. They'd spent way too much time in here for that.
"Alex?" I called, but he wasn't there.
I shoved my head into the tiny bathroom and even checked the blue-tiled stower shall but there was no sign of him. Probably a good thing, considering the state of things. By the look of the place, I don't think those were the type of guys to be gentle.
I pull my phone out of my back pocket with trembling fingers and call my brother. I turn back toward the house, an ice cube of dread sliding down my spine. When I ran out, I left the back door open.
I can hear my brother's stupid ring tone trilling in there somewhere. But he doesn't answer; it goes to voicemail. Suddenly the house feels even creepier than the pool house, but I go back inside anyway and lock the door behind me. When I call Alex again, the ringing leads me to the dining room.
Sour fear pools in my stomach when I find his computer bag tucked on the seat of one of my dining chairs. Alex never comes in here unless I'm home. It's not that he's not allowed to, but there's this unspoken rule that we respect each other's spaces. He's better at it than I am.
But the even weirder part of this is that he never leaves his personal cell phone.
Not in another room, certainly not in my house.
The only time my brother's personal phone is off his person is when it's charging next to his bed at night or when he’s in the shower or the pool.
It's nearly a tic how careful he is to always put the thing back in his pocket.
"Alex?" I call out softly. "They're gone. You can come out if you're hiding."
I go through the house and search, first just a scan of bedrooms, calling his name, and then a deep, frantic search of every spot that's big enough to hide a person.
But it's no use. My brother is gone.
I sit at the dining table staring at the faux floral arrangement that some influencer convinced me to buy in a moment of wine-and-scrolling weakness. It's pretty, and I'm all for low-maintenance greenery, but right now it's a haze of pink and white.
The sharp panic that I felt when I saw that man in my backyard has coalesced into a solid rock of dread in my stomach. It rolls over with my racing thoughts. I can't call the police, which was my first inclination.
I learned a long time ago that once someone goes to prison, that's their story as far as law-enforcement is concerned. I went on a few dates with a cop once. He was handsome and funny, with the right kind of gallows humor I can relate to.
But the relationship was over the second I told him where my brother was spending the next few years of his life. It was like someone had pressed the button on one of those automatic shades. I witnessed him close himself off to me in real time. He ghosted me after that.
So I know if I call the police and tell them that my parolee brother is missing and describe what happened, they're going to assume it's all Alex's fault somehow. Which, maybe it is. I certainly don't think that those guys were here by chance. Otherwise, they would have ransacked my place, too.
No, they were after Alex. I frown. That doesn't feel quite right to me either, but I don't know why. Did they drink a bunch of beer and then decide to destroy his place? It makes no sense.
And the other, just as pressing issue is that, as a parolee, Alex isn't allowed to go missing. He's supposed to check in with his parole officer once a week via phone or email, and the officer can check up on his work and where he lives. So what do I do?
I take a few deep breaths and do my best to think about it logically. Those guys didn't find Alex. There's no blood, nothing like that.
By the placement of his bag in my house, I think he must have been expecting trouble. So maybe he's somewhere safe. Maybe he got called into work and he's helping Mrs. Kraznik with her Netflix account for the hundredth time. Maybe he's going to stroll in here any moment and explain everything.
I know one thing--if I call the police and say he's missing, it will become a whole huge hairy deal. Mr. Franklin will be notified, and since Alex is supposed to be spending every night here, he'll be in trouble right away.
There's no grace period for parole. There's no "well, it's ok because you were afraid of the big men chasing you.
" It's straight back into the system, and this time they won't send him to Greenvale, with its trees and nice library.
This time, it will be in with the violent offenders, men with nothing to lose.
Alex wouldn't last a year. He'd say the wrong thing to the wrong person, they'd feel disrespected, and it would be all over.
I swipe at the tear rolling down my cheek.
The best I can do for Alex is to wait. He's not real self-sufficient.
He likes his microwave, his mini fridge.
I tsk and shake my head, thinking about the destruction waiting for him when he finally comes back.
With as much as was broken, I should just have a dumpster delivered and call it good.
The urge to clean up the mess itches at me, but I'm going to leave it.
If I eventually decide to call the police, it's better that they see the carnage for themselves.
It's proof that Alex didn't just ditch his parole officer.
Not that I think it will make a difference in the end, but at least it's some defense.
Across the room, Midnight is batting one of Alex's action figures around the room. I don't have the energy to care that she stole it from the mess outside. Most of his stuff is ruined, anyway. I'm just lucky those guys didn't head inside next. They might have, if I hadn't scared them off.
I hope they don't come back, I think. The thought has me off my feet, going from window to window and door to door to make sure everything is locked. Then I rummage through the closets, head upstairs, and rummage through those.
I find my dad's old shotgun in a long sock.
It looks like my Grandma knit it special for the gun.
I'd probably laugh if I weren't so terrified.
At least I know where the shells are--they're in the cupboard above the fridge.
I get everything out and load the gun. It should make me feel better, but it just scares me more.
Not because I'm afraid of guns, but because me loading the gun is admitting that this is serious.
I email Alex, asking where he is and if he's ok. I figure even if he doesn't have his phone, he can still log in somewhere and get his email. Like at the library, or something.
At eight o'clock, I finally break down to Midnight’s incessant meowing and feed him. Then I feed myself rather reluctantly. It's the first time since my brother has been out of prison that he isn't here for dinner.