I sat at the edge of the booth, one foot dangling off onto the floor, and drummed my fingers on the table anxiously.
Lucy had texted back to say she’d meet us there, and I could tell she was already curious to see what this was all about. I think everyone was—Scott had promised that he would snake his way out of his double shift later tonight and come down, while Paul and Mary seemed happy just to have an excuse to get out of their daughter’s house for the time being. They’d been staying there since the fire, and by all accounts it was pretty cramped, but they couldn’t go anywhere else till the insurance came through. Though Paul seemed reluctant at first, when we promised to pay for everything, they agreed happily.
I wondered if they knew it was about Ella-shit; I guess they had to. Everyone must have some idea. After all, it had been nine days since she went missing. The clock was ticking down, I already knew in my heart of hearts that the chances of finding her alive were painfully slim, but I did my best to ignore that as I bounced my heel off the grubby tile below me.
Jazz was outside, waiting for everyone to arrive—I could tell that he was craving a cigarette, as he kept reaching absently into his pockets as though he expected to find something in there. It was drizzling rain outside, and I prayed that no one would be put off coming out because of it. Hopefully, they knew it was worth more than a bit of bad weather.
I chewed on my thumbnail, and a waitress came by—it was her third time strolling by my bit of the diner, and I still hadn’t ordered anything. I did my best to avoid her gaze but she paused in front of the table and put her hands on her hips. In a firm but polite tone, she spoke.
“You going to order anything, honey?”
“Just a coffee,” I replied, not meeting her gaze. Then I realized that I didn’t know if caffeine was good for the baby or not, and hurriedly added an addendum. “Decaf.”
She raised her eyebrows and strolled away again, probably thinking that I was going to be the crappiest tipper she’d ever encountered. I couldn’t give her much thought, though, as I stared out across the rain-drenched street outside and waited for everyone to turn up. This was torturous—knowing that we were so close to finally putting our heads together and actually coming up with something, but still stalled until we had the whole group here.
I had no idea if or how this was going to work. Just that more information surely meant that we’d be off on a better foot than we were before. We just needed something, anything to go on—and maybe with all our heads together we would see a connection we’d been blind to before.
Suddenly, I spotted Lucy approaching down the street; I jumped to my feet without thinking and promptly sat down again, self-consciously glancing around to check that none of the patrons of this place were staring at me too hard. She nodded at Jazz as she got nearer, and he gestured inside towards me. She entered, glanced around, and zeroed in on me in my booth. She joined quickly, nudging me along with her hip so she could sit on the same side I was on.
“So, am I to take from this that the two of you are back together?” She raised her eyebrows at me, and I nodded. I couldn’t keep the small smile off my face, despite the circumstances—I was just so happy that we’d managed to find something that made sense somewhere in this entire mess. And we had Lucy to thank for it.
“We are. And…thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t know if he’d have ever come back if you hadn’t spoken to him.”
“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit,” she replied gently. “He really loves you, you know.”
“I do.” I smiled at her, and felt myself tearing up again. Jesus, I really needed to get my shit together—bursting into tears every ten seconds just wouldn’t do at all.
“And the baby?” she prompted—I realized I hadn’t even told her what we’d decided to do, and shook my head, dismissing my tears quickly. There would be plenty of time to be as sad or happy as I wanted once all this was over—right now was the time for action.
“We’re keeping it,” I murmured. “That’s why everyone’s here tonight, actually.”
“What, is this some kind of birth announcement?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s about…it’s about Ella,” I managed, forcing her name from between my lips even though it ached me to say it aloud. “Jazz wants the baby to grow up with its big sister. So he’s giving it one last shot, putting everyone’s heads together in the hopes that we can see a connection we didn’t before.”
“Thank Christ.” She grasped my hand. “Because the thought of him just giving up on that little girl…”
“He would never,” I promised her. “He was just scared and he ran. He’s not going to do that again, not until we know for sure what happened to her.”
“Good.” Lucy met my gaze steadily, and I felt a warm wash of comfort across my mind—despite everything, she made me feel grounded, made me feel as though all of this was possible.
Before I had a chance to get soppy with her once again, Jazz returned from outside and he had everyone else in tow.
“Hey.” He greeted the two of us with a nod, and stood back to let everyone take their seats. “Do you guys all know each other?”
“Uh, I don’t think so,” remarked Declan, eyeing Lucy blatantly across the table. Her eyebrow flickered up at his attentions, daring him to do more, but I could tell she didn’t mind.
“Mona, can you do the introductions?” Jazz asked. “I’m going to get some menus.”
I introduced everyone—it didn’t take long, but it still felt slightly awkward when Jazz returned to the table with the laminated menus and distributed them among us. We were a disparate, weird little bunch who didn’t make a whole lot of sense together, and I couldn’t shake that feeling. We ordered, and soon enough the food arrived; as soon as it had, Jazz placed his knife and fork down on the edge of his plate and took a deep breath. Everyone turned to watch him as he prepared to speak. Even here, in a situation like this, he was respected and in control—there was no arguing with that. He took a moment, reaching for his water and wrapping his hand around the condensation-laden glass, before he managed to get the words out.
“This is about Ella,” he finally began. “As I’m sure you all know.” There was a mutual nod around the table as everyone confirmed their understanding of the situation. “She went missing just over a week ago, and the police haven’t been much help in finding her,” Jazz continued, his voice wavering slightly. I reached for his hand beneath the table—he took it and squeezed gratefully before he went on.
“So we were hoping that by getting everyone here who might be able to help us, we could figure out something that individually we might have missed.” He looked around the table, and I noticed Paul and Mary exchanging a glance; their eyes widened briefly, as though the real meaning of this meeting had escaped them till now. But Mary gave Paul a barely imperceptible nod, one that said “we’re doing this,” and they turned back to the conversation.
“So, this is our last shot. We don’t know how much time we have, but we figured this was better than nothing.” Jazz spread his hands wide, encompassing the whole table. His voice trailed off into nothing, fading out as a lump raised in his throat and he did his best to swallow it. He glanced over at me, and I knew it was my turn to pick up the slack.
“So, here’s what we know so far,” I began, keeping my tone brusque and businesslike. I ran down the events of the last few months—from my arrival in the house, to the discovery of the footsteps, to the visit to Addison’s place, to the fire and everything in between. Everyone listened in silence, taking in every word as though I was recounting the plot of a primetime crime special.
Then I came to a close, mentioning the mangled toys they’d found in the burned-out husk of Mary and Paul’s house. Even the memory of it was enough to send my head spinning, but I did my best to go on and make sure that we had all the facts out on the table before we laid out anything new. Everyone sat there in silence for a moment, not making eye contact, as though if they did they would acknowledge the horror of everything I’d just told them. Eventually, though, someone broke the silence.
“I know something,” Scott piped up. He raised his gaze from the table and looked around, like he was checking that he’d actually said that and not just imagined it. Jazz and I exchanged a look, and then turned our attention to him.
“Something new?” Jazz prompted, and Scott nodded.
“Everything,” he admitted, and ran his hands through his hair. “I did some more research after you guys called me today. I had to. I knew there was something missing, and you know, what with Elijah being out and everything…”
He trailed off, and I could see the pain etched on to his face. He wasn’t the only person who had lost something in pursuit of this. He took a deep breath and carried on. “I managed to go back further in Ian’s file. A lot of it was sealed because he was a juvenile when he was arrested, but I hacked into the servers and managed to find out everything I could about what he was like growing up.”
“And?” Jazz leaned forward. Everyone else was silent, eyes glued on Scott.
“He went crazy when his father died,” Scott explained. “I mean, totally, completely batshit off-the-wall crazy. Dangerous. He’d never been close to his mother, but his little sister and his father—he never got over that.”
“And she was Ella’s age when she died, right?” Lucy cut in, eyes wide. I had only drip-fed her details all this time, and I could tell that the whole truth was freaking the shit out of her. Yeah, well, she wasn’t the only one.
“That’s right.” Scott nodded. “And he was locked up for some serious shit when he was a teenager. Abduction, assault. That kind of thing.”
“Addison said it was just for petty crap,” I murmured, half to myself.
“Guess he was lying.” Scott shrugged. “I’ve got no idea how much his brother actually knows—maybe it was kept from him so he wouldn’t be scared of living with Ian or something, I don’t know.”
“Abduction?” Jazz said.
“Apparently he would play hooky from school and go hang out near the elementary school next door,” Scott went on. “He fixated on this girl, maybe within six months of his sister’s age. He…uh, he tried to run off with her.”
“When was this?” I demanded. How was this the first we were hearing of it? It was clear that this guy was a danger to the people around him, and yet he’d been allowed to move into Jazz’s sleepy little neighborhood regardless.
“When he was sixteen,” Scott replied. “He stole a car and drove off with her, but they managed to catch him pretty quick. He was arrested for that and charged, and then on an assault charge for attacking the mother of the child as well, trying to scare her off, I guess.”
“And then what?” I found myself glued to every word that was coming out of his mouth, but he seemed hesitant—worried, even, as though he didn’t want us to know the full story. I mean, I wasn’t sure I could blame him—so far, it had been pretty fucking disturbing, and I doubted we’d even got to the worst of it yet.
“I found out that he didn’t grow up in the house Addison lives in,” he went on. “He grew up in the house next door to Jazz’s.”
Mary sucked in a sharp breath, shocked—Paul was silent, but I could see the horror written on his face.
“He grew up there and inherited it after the parents passed away,” Scott explained, shooting Mary and Paul a sympathetic look as he did so. “He was obsessed with it. In his psychiatrist’s report, it said that he seemed to be trying to rebuild his life with his family by staying there. By finding a replacement.”
“And that was Ella?” Declan filled in the blanks.
Scott nodded. “As far as we can tell, Ella and Jazz fit the bill for the kind of people he was looking for. I think he started to obsess over them not long after they moved into the house next door.”
“Five years ago?” Jazz shook his head. “How did no one…how did no one do anything?”
“Well, he’d managed to wipe himself off the map by then. He’d dropped out of his psychiatry appointments and he wasn’t required to check in with the police anymore.”
“So people just let him carry on like that?” Jazz replied, his hands shaking. I could hear the rage in his voice, reflecting the anger that burned inside my head. How could they have let this happen? It just didn’t seem right. He was clearly dangerous, clearly a concern. How did he get away with it for as long as he did?
“He did his best to get away from the system.” Scott seemed apologetic, as if he knew that he was part of the system in question and had, by proxy, fucked up. “He knew he had to wriggle out of being observed if he wanted to get everything he thought he needed to make it all better again.”
“Us?”
“Yep.” Scott nodded. “He changed his last name, and I think he would have gotten away with it too if one of the neighbors hadn’t reported him for hanging around her daughter too much. The guy reported for that had a different surname, but the physical description matched.”
“And that’s when he left? When we got the house?” Mary asked. Her face was white, as though she already knew the answer to the question she had posed him. Scott glanced up at her and paused for a second, as though he didn’t want to have to admit the next part.
“We have every reason to think that he didn’t leave,” he replied. Mary clapped a hand over her mouth and looked over at Paul. His face had gone almost grey in tone, and his eyes looked glassy. I couldn’t imagine how they felt, knowing that all this time they had been harboring some kind of criminal without even being aware of it.
“I think, based on everything we’ve found out, that he was staying in the attic after it was boarded up and would come down in the middle of the night from the roof in search of food and what have you,” Scott said. “He was probably up there from the day you moved in to…well, the day of the fire.”
“Did he do it?” Paul demanded. There was that anger again, similar to the rage that Jazz displayed earlier. I wondered if we just set Paul after Ian at that second if he would make it out alive. Judging by the flash of rage in his eyes, I wouldn’t fancy his chances.
“Very probably, in an attempt to cover his tracks.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mary muttered—and hearing the curse words come out of her mouth was so dissonant that I almost laughed. Until, of course, I remembered where I was and swiftly swallowed any amusement on my part.
“So, now what?” Jazz placed his hands on the table. “I mean, now that we know that…what do we do with it?”
“I think I can help you get in touch with him,” Scott finally announced, pulling his phone from his pocket. “When we had him in custody, we managed to get his cell and his number; he took it back, for some reason, presumably so he could get hold of whoever he’s working with.”
“Idiot.” Declan rolled his eyes, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many encounters he’d had with the cops over the years. Probably more than I would care to think about, considering that we were trusting him with all this information. Still, if he was Jazz’s second in command then I would have to trust that he had a good heart even if the rest of him seemed like kind of an asshole.
“We got the number, though, and I called it,” Scott went on hesitantly.
My eyebrows shot up. “Jesus Christ, Scott! Do you know how much danger you could have put yourself in?”
“Of course I do.” He dismissed me with a wave of the hand. “I’m not an idiot. But it’s worth it, if I can take down the guy…”
He trailed off—I knew he was thinking about Elijah, and that it wasn’t going to do anyone any good to get hung up on stuff we couldn’t change now. He shook his head and seemed to center himself again.
“It was worth it,” he finished up, and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I called it, and he answered.”
“Did you get them to track the call?” I leaned forward, using what little knowledge I had from watching police procedurals and hoping that it was enough to actually do some good given our current situation.
Scott shook his head. “Number was scrambled. And besides, he hung up way too quickly for me to do anything of use. But I recognized the voice.”
“So what do we do with just his number?” Jazz wondered aloud, asking the question we were all thinking.
“You can do whatever you want with it.” Scott handed his phone over to Jazz. “It’s not a lot, but it’s something. It’s a start.”
Jazz looked around the table and let out a long breath. “So, any suggestions? What do I do with the number of the guy who kidnapped my daughter?”
There was a silence around the table—no one had an answer for him, or at least one that felt as though it would be any good given the current circumstance. What were we meant to say to this guy, what were we meant to do? He was a psychopath, and we didn’t know that anything we would think up wouldn’t push him towards harming Ella at the end of the day. That was the scariest thing—the thought that if we fucked this up we might be doing more harm than good towards the one person we were trying to keep alive.
“Call him.” Lucy trailed her fingers over the table, in the direction of the phone. Jazz pulled it towards him defensively, as though concerned she might snatch it up and ring him right there and then.
“What the hell good is that going to do?” he snapped, then his face softened at once. “Sorry, sorry. I’m just…wound up.”
“You could try reasoning with him,” she suggested, ignoring his little outburst with a practiced grace. “Seriously. If what he wants is a family, then maybe you could find some way to convince him that that’s what you’ll give him if he just delivers your daughter back to you safe and sound.”
“Or…” Mary jumped in but trailed off, then shook her head. “No. I’m being sentimental.”
“Any idea is a good one right now, Mary,” I assured her gently. She paused for a moment before she went on, as though trying to pluck up the courage to say what was on her mind. She had been shaken by everything that had been revealed thus far, I could tell that much, but she was still here—and that was the most important thing.
“You could try calling him, and all of us, we could tell him how much we want Ella back,” she suggested. “Try to …I don’t know, thaw him a little. Show her how much she’s loved.”
“And show him too.” I nodded. I knew what she was trying to say. It sounded crazy but it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. This had all been about making a family, hadn’t it? Maybe if we could coax him into believing that maybe he would find one if he just brought her back to us. We just needed to get in the same room as him and her—hell, he had made it clear before that he very much considered Jazz and I a part of his dream family as much as Ella was. If we could offer ourselves up too…
“We need to put ourselves out there.” Jazz took my hand again and squeezed—tighter than before, as though acknowledging the danger of the situation we were about to put ourselves in.
“What do you mean?” Lucy furrowed her brow and glanced at me—I knew she wouldn’t be happy with the thought of me putting myself in danger, but that was the only way we were going to convince him to come out.
“We need to get him face-to-face,” Jazz went on. “And I don’t think he’s going to do that for the promise of anything less than finishing off his little dream family.”
“So…the two of you are going to just go offer yourselves up to him?” Scott frowned. “Doesn’t that seem a little dangerous?”
“I can’t see any other way we’re going to get him to take us seriously,” I murmured.
“Won’t that seem a little convenient?” Declan pointed out. “Him, just getting everything that he wants handed to him on a platter?”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Jazz raised his eyebrows at his second-in-command. Like Lucy, I could see that Declan was already crunching the numbers for the kind of danger we were going to put ourselves sin, and he didn’t like the odds any more than she did. They were more alike than Lucy would have imagined. Declan fell silent as he tried to come up with something more convincing than what we had, but he didn’t speak again. The entire table fell silent, in fact, as everyone seemed to come to the same conclusion—that the only way to get around this was for Jazz and I to get in touch with him and hope that he would take our bait. And then what? Use everyone else as backup to prove that she would be better off with us? Hope that he handed her over without a fight? The chances of it going down as we wanted it to seemed slim, but it was the best chance we had now.
“What about the baby?” Lucy blurted, and the entire table seemed to turn to me in the same second. There was a pause as Jazz and I exchanged a look and tried to figure out how to field the inevitable question.
“The baby’s going to be fine,” I assured her.
Mary leaned across the table and took my hand. “Honey, you can’t put yourself under so much stress when you’re pregnant—”
“If I don’t, then our kid might not have the big sister it deserves,” I cut across her, not meaning to sound rude but desperate to articulate just how much this meant to me. “I’m having this baby regardless, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t fight for the rest of our family, too.”
It was the first time I’d thought of us like that, as a family of four—my heart swelled with the image of it, the picture of Jazz, Ella, the baby, and I living together as one unit. I needed to get her back. There was never any doubt in that, but now I needed her viscerally. The thought of raising this baby without her there didn’t just hurt; it felt wrong, off, as though something profound and important was missing.
“Well, you can’t go alone,” Declan huffed. “I’ll get hold of the Marauders. Get them stationed around us. Make sure you don’t get hurt.”
“The Marauders…?” Mary looked confused, but Jazz was already shaking his head.
“We’ll take only who we need.” He glared at Declan intensely. “I don’t want any of them getting into trouble on my behalf.”
“But they—”
“I’m the leader and I think I’m making myself pretty clear,” Jazz spoke over him firmly. “It’s just us. We’ll call the police when and if we need to. Capiche?”
“Fine,” Declan conceded, and slumped back in his chair, looking like a kid who hadn’t got what he wanted. I almost smirked at the petulance of his gesture, until Jazz reached for the phone and took it in his hand. He clicked it on, and was faced with a number—the number of the man who had a member of our family.