LANA
After heating up my lunch, I check my watch, wondering if maybe I should just go ahead and call Mrs. Heston and check on her to see if I need to come on in. I’m sure Nomie would be okay with Olivia coming over for a little while.
I blow on the leftover spaghetti, the steaming hissing from the plastic container, and sigh to myself as I shove it back and grab my phone. I’ll get to it in a few minutes, anyway. “Hi, Mrs. Heston, it’s Lana. I wanted to see if you would be needing me tonight.”
“Oh, hello, dear. I’m entertaining at the moment, but I don’t think I’ll need you to visit today. Why don’t you…” but the phone beeps in my ear, and I see Nomie’s name scrolling across the screen.
“Sure,” I say to Mrs. Heston, not entirely sure of what she’s just said. “Sounds good. I will go ahead and let you get back to your guests, then. Thank you.” I quickly click over to Nomie. I suppose I can always just call Mrs. Heston back later and see what it was she said.
“Lana? Where are you?” Nomie asks, the tone of her voice instantly prickling my skin.
I shake off the goosebumps. “I’m at home, why?”
There’s someone whispering in the background—Katie maybe? “Did you pick up Olivia from school?”
The blood drains from my face. “No. Where is she?”
“All right, um, okay. Lana, I don’t want you to freak out but… I went up there to pick her up and they said she’d already been picked up. They had her marked off as having left early. I tried to ask them who it was that picked her up, but they were adamant they couldn’t tell me which just makes no sense.”
I’m breathing hard into the phone, everything in me screaming for this not to be happening.
“Lana, can you hear me?” She sounds miles away.
“I… I…”
“Listen, we’ll find her, okay? He can’t have gotten very far with her. Maybe he just wanted to take her out to lunch or something?”
But we both know she’s only trying to comfort me. Because Javier is not the ‘take my kid out for lunch and bring them back’ kind of guy. I force myself to stand up, I need to…
“I need to call…shit. Let me call you back, Nomie,” I manage to say, not even bothering to wait for her goodbye before I end the call, quickly pulling up Michael’s phone number from the recent list. “Michael?” I wheeze, the room feeling as though the air has been completely sucked out of it.
His voice urgent on the end of the line. “What’s wrong?”
“Did you…please tell me you surprised Olivia and had someone sent to pick her up today from school. That you’re taking her to Disneyland. Please,” I moan, the tears slipping down my cheeks as the desperation inside of my stomach builds up. I already know the answer but can’t help but let out a sob when he tells me no.
“I’ll be there soon. I’m already on my way,” he says. The phone line goes dead in my hand, my mind racing.
I throw open the door to the apartment, looking around before knocking on apartment A. “Hello?” I shout.
My neighbor, Rick, I remind myself, answers looking agitated until he sees the panic on my face. “I was worried you’d be coming over here.”
I brace myself. “Why’s that?”
“That man was here again. I saw him coming up the sidewalk there earlier today. I stopped him before he started banging on your door again. He looked like a smug bastard if I ever saw one. He’s lucky I let him go, the way he was leering at me.”
“Did he have my daughter with him? Did he have Olivia?’
But Rick just shook his head. “Nope, I’m afraid not. It was just him, and then he peeled off out of here, lickety-split. Is there anything I can help you with, though?”
I wave him off, panic threading through every thought of mine as I race to the sidewalk. I hate having to do it, but I call Javier, hoping I’m just jumping to conclusions here.
The line rings. And rings. And rings. I call him again, but nothing. I call him and let it go to voicemail. My hands are shaking. I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.
Leaning over, a sob wracks my whole body, and I gasp for air, all of the thoughts swirling around my head violently, desperately wanting Olivia to be safe in my arms. Someone pulls at my arm and I lash out, screeching for them to let me go.
“Whoa, whoa. Lana, what’s wrong?”
It’s Joseph, alarm very clear on his face. Everything in me crumbles and I don’t care at all as I fold myself against him, sobbing. Joseph buckles under my weight, but holds me steady, pulling me tightly against his chest as he tries his best to console me.
“He’s got her! He’s got my baby…Javier has Olivia and she’s gone!”