Prescient

Chapter 6

Fussing around the kitchen preparing vegetables and roast for dinner, Tanya found herself glancing out the window, at the clock, and down the hallway every five minutes or so.

Her daughter should have been home by now.

Kaylah finished school at three. It took twenty-five minutes to walk home, and although Tanya knew her daughter spent around fifteen minutes waiting with Marcy for the bus to come, she was rarely home later than a quarter to four.

It was now almost five-thirty.

When Tanya saw the digital clock on the microwave reading 4:13 PM, she assumed Kaylah probably stopped at the shops on the way home. Sometimes she would, to grab a smoothie or an ice-cream or a new lip-gloss.

Although, she always sent a text, and she sure as hell never turned her phone off. I fact, that thing never even went flat. As a typical twenty-first century teenager, Kaylah needed her phone to survive. She couldn't live without it. Letting it go flat just wasn't an option for her.

So why was it that when Tanya tried calling her daughter at 4:35 PM...?

Hey, you've reached Kaylah...

Again at 4:56 PM...

Hey, you've reached Kaylah ...

Once again at 5:18 PM...

The same miserable message sounded before the phone even rang.

Kaylah's phone was off.

The acrid worry was eating at her. Bad things happened to beautiful young girls all the time. Every day, somewhere in the world, young girls were hurt, or snatched up—or both—and although part of Tanya wanted to believe something like that would never happen to either of her daughters, the mother in her was worried all the same.

After all, she could think of nothing that would make Kaylah do something as irresponsible and inconsiderate as not returning home from school without a word of explanation to her mother. She'd never done anything like that before.

Kaylah never did anything irresponsible, or thoughtless. Kaylah was the perfect daughter—unlike her sister.

If Maggie had not returned home from school on time—which used to happen quite a lot—Tanya wouldn't be so concerned. Not because she loved her eldest daughter less or because she didn't worry about her—she probably worried about Maggie more than Kaylah on the whole. But this was a typical Maggie thing.

If Maggie was almost two hours late home, Tanya would think:

So she's somewhere with another boy again.

Hanging out at a friend's place getting stoned, no doubt.

Probably wasn't even at school today, and lost track of time.

These were likely scenarios for Margaret Grace Haydens. Not her well-behaved little sister, Kaylah.

For a while, Tanya found her thoughts drifting off towards her oldest daughter. Wondering where she was, how she was doing, had she hit rock bottom yet and if not, how long until she did?

They hadn't heard from Maggie in months. Her last mobile number wasn't connected anymore and Maggie had given up asking for money—hence the lack of communication. They couldn't contact her and Maggie only called them when she wanted something.

The front door opened, yanking Tanya's thoughts away from her oldest daughter, right back to her youngest one. She hopped up to the tips of her toes, leaned right over the kitchen counter, and peered down the hallway.