Chapter Thirty-Four
Emily
Way before the alarm went off the next morning, I woke up with a ginger paw resting on my cheek and a pair of green eyes staring at me.
“Well, good morning, Mr. Zinn,” I yawned, as I reached out to pat Howard’s head. He blinked twice, then turned and hopped down off the bed and sat on the floor, staring up at me. I took a quick peek at the clock and saw that it was 4 in the morning. I looked down at Howard and sighed, “Breakfast, already?”
Howard mewed once, then turned and swished his tail as he stalked toward the kitchen. I slid out from under the warmth of my comforter and slipped into the fuzzy robe laying on the foot of my bed. It was entirely too early to be up, but I knew that it was unlikely that I’d be able to go back to sleep even if I stayed in bed. I consoled myself with the fact that I could probably get all of the History class’ papers graded before I had to leave for school.
In the kitchen, I started the coffee before I dished up Howard’s breakfast, and when I went to pick up his food bowl, I yelled, “Howard! What the hell?”
Draped across the bowl was the headless body of a mouse. Howard looked at me, then looked away as he began furiously grooming his head with one paw. The mouse was fairly small, but it had obviously met a rather gruesome end. I wasn’t sure what creeped me out more, the headless mouse or the fact that I knew that where there was one, there was likely to be others.
“Way to follow directions, buddy,” I grimaced. I lifted the small gray corpse by its tail and walked to the back door. “But seriously, Howard, this is not a good way to wake up. Next time leave it by the back door, okay?”
I shuddered as I flung the decapitated mouse into the garbage pail just outside the back door, and quickly returned to the warmth of the kitchen. Howard had hopped up onto the counter and watched intently as I scooped out his breakfast kibble and mixed it with half a can of wet food.
“I’m surprised you’re still hungry,” I said, as I set the bowl down in front of him and watched as he dived in. I poured myself a mug of coffee and took it into the living room, where I sat on the couch, flipped open the file of History papers I’d left on the coffee table, and picked up where I’d left off.
I’d worked my way through half of them by the time my alarm went off, and when I went to shut it off, I remembered that I hadn’t checked my phone. I pulled it off the charger and looked at the screen. There was an Amber Alert with Nina’s name on it and three calls from Blake, but only one message. I listened to it, and before it was half over, I was dialing Blake’s number.
“Hello?” Blake answered groggily.
“Blake, it’s Emily,” I said breathlessly. “What the hell’s going on? Did you find Nina?”
“Oh, Em, hey,” he said, as he tried to get his bearings. “No, I drove around for a couple of hours, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.”
“I’m assuming the police issued the Amber Alert,” I said.
“Yeah, they said it’s unlikely she’s been kidnapped, but the alert would mean that people would be actively looking for her,” he said.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t answer my phone,” I said. “I should have left it on.”
“How were you supposed to know that Nina would run away?” he sighed.
“Do you really think she ran away?” I asked.
“You saw how pissed she was at me last night before we left,” he replied. “She can be a hothead when she’s mad.”
“Indeed,” I mused, as I tried to think of all the places where high school kids hung out. “Did you try the back of the Mall?”
“Yep, and the arcade, that dump of a convenience store over on Lincoln, and the high school parking lot,” he said wearily. “No luck.”
“What about her phone? Did you try to find it?” I asked.
“The cops did a search of her number and tried to use the Find My Phone feature, but apparently she turned it off,” he said.
“You want me to come over?” I asked.
“Nah, you’ve got school, and I’ve got to get to the station,” he said.
“Blake, your daughter is missing,” I said softly. “I’m sure they’d give you a day off, if you asked.”
“So I can do what? Sit around the house and be pissed at myself for going out last night and pissed at her for being so goddamn irresponsible?” he shouted into the phone. “No thanks!”
“You don’t have to yell at me,” I said quietly. “I’m just trying to help.”
“Yeah, I know,” he sighed. “I’m sorry.”
I waited for him to speak again, but as the silence lengthened, I began to wonder if he’d hung up.
“Blake?”
“I can’t believe I’m such an idiot,” he said. I could hear the emotion in his voice. “I should have stayed home with her and talked it out.”
“You had no way of knowing she would leave the house,” I reminded him.
“But I knew she was upset!” he yelled. “What the hell kind of parent am I that I leave my child alone when she’s upset?”
“The same kind of parent as everyone else,” I said. “She’s a teenager. They’re moody little beasts sometimes. You can’t stop living your life simply because they get upset. You had no way of knowing she was going to do this.”
“Her mother is going to remind me that I should have known,” he grumbled. “She’s going to have my ass when she gets back.”
“Deal with it when it happens,” I said. “For now, we need to focus on finding Nina.”
“What if we don’t?” he said quietly. “What if something terrible happened to her and I wasn’t there to protect her?”
“Do not go down that road right now, Blake,” I warned. “It’s way too early to think that way, and it won’t do you or Nina any good.”
“I know, that’s why I need to go to work,” he said. “I need to keep busy, or else I’ll go crazy.”
“Okay, well, I’ll grill the kids in Nina’s classes and see if I can come up with anything on her whereabouts,” I said. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Emily…” Blake said, letting my name hang in the air between us.
“No, do not think that,” I said, in my most stern teacher voice. “I won’t allow it. We will find her.”
“I hope you’re right,” he sighed.
“I am. Of course, I am,” I said, projecting a confidence that I didn’t entirely feel. I told him I’d call later, and hung up hoping that I hadn’t made a promise I couldn’t keep.
After each class I taught that day, I kept the girls after and grilled them about Nina’s whereabouts. They all gave me the teenage shrug before saying that they knew nothing about her or where she’d gone. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I knew that badgering them wasn’t going to produce any better results.
“All right, ladies,” I said to the groups of Nina’s friends who’d I’d retained after History class. “If you have nothing to report, that’s fine, but please keep in mind that if Nina is actually in danger, and we find out you did know something about where she was, you can be charged as an accessory to a crime.”
I had no idea if that was true or not, but I knew that if any of the girls was at all wavering, that might push them over the edge and give us a clue as to Nina’s whereabouts. The girls filed out of the room, assuring me that if they found out anything, they’d let me or the principal know. I knew it was a long shot because I still clearly remembered how much information I had withheld from my own parents when I was their age, but I figured it was better to try than to not try.
After school, as I was cleaning up my desk, the classroom door opened and Emma Langdorf slipped into the room. She quickly moved away from the door and pressed her back against the wall as she looked sideways to make sure no one had followed her.
“Miss Fowler?” she whispered softly.
“Emma? What is it?” I said, looking up from my desk.
“Shhh, please don’t give me away,” she pleaded.
“Okay, but you have to tell me what’s going on,” I said, looking back down at my desk and shuffling papers so that anyone walking by wouldn’t know that I was having a conversation.
“Miss Fowler, I think I know where Nina is,” Emma whispered urgently. “No one wants to rat her out, but I think she’s got a boyfriend over at Waltham College.”
“Why do you think that?” I asked, not looking at her.
“She’s been texting a boy for a long time,” Emma said. “She wouldn’t tell any of us who it was, but I saw her phone last week, and someone had texted her a picture of the library and another building, and told her that they’d meet her there on Valentine’s Day.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know who it was,” I said, wondering how much of Emma’s story was truth and how much was a desire to be part of the drama.
“I don’t know who it was,” she said. “I just saw her phone, and at the top of the screen, it said The Boy. I think that’s the guy from the college, but I don’t know for sure.”
“Emma, why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I don’t want the other girls to think I’m a rat!” she cried softly. “They’d never forgive me if they knew I was telling you this, but I’m worried about Nina. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
“Okay, I’ll let the police know, but you’re going to have to talk to them if they need more information,” I warned.
“Can you tell them to come to my house, not school?” she pleaded. “Please, Miss Fowler! Don’t let the other girls know I told you anything!”
“I’ll do my best, Emma, but this is out of my hands,” I said, feeling both sympathetic to her plight and pissed as hell that she’d sat on such important information for so long out of fear of being outcast.
“I have to go,” she said as she peered out the window on the door, quickly pulled the door open, and scampered out into the hall.
I dug my phone out of my purse and called Blake. He didn’t answer, so I left him a message and went to find the police officer who’d been questioning kids all day.