Prescient

Chapter 26

Starla hadn't come home yet.

He'd been keeping a good eye out, and Noel was positive his neighbour hadn't returned. Sure, he'd used the toilet a couple of times – that was unavoidable – and it was possible she'd happened to return at one of those two brief moments, but he didn't think so.

He couldn't hear her moving around in her flat when he tried to listen through the walls. All was silent.

Something felt wrong.

Noel cursed himself for letting her go off on her own like that. He knew she was heading to question the missing girl's father, and he hadn't tried hard enough to stop her.

Following her had crossed his mind.

But he didn't.

Now he sat on his doorstep, waiting for her to return, yet dreading that she wouldn't. He tried to tell himself Starla might have come home when he had ducked back in to use the toilet, then gone straight to bed to lay down and fell asleep. That would explain why he hadn't heard her moving around inside or why the lights were still off, despite the fact it was getting dark.

The time on his phone said it was creeping up on seven o'clock, and still no Starla.

He couldn't wait anymore.

Getting up from his butt-numbing doorstep, he wandered over to Starla's door and knocked hard and loud.

Waiting.

No sound. No movement. No answer.

He knocked again, this time harder and louder.

"Starla," he called out to her. "Starla if you're in there please just answer the door. I'm worried about you."

Still nothing.

For a moment he thought he heard someone calling out from inside, however, he quickly realized it was just Starla's cat, waiting to be fed.

At that moment, Noel made a decision. Something was wrong. He might not be psychic like Lillian or Starla, but he knew when to trust his gut and at that moment his gut was telling him nothing about this situation was okay.

He tried the doorknob.

Locked, of course.

So, looking around to make sure no one was watching, he curled his hand into a fist and gave the door's bottom left-hand window pane a little jab.

It shattered.

A small cut opened up on the side of his hand and although it stung like hell, it wasn't too deep. It only bled a little. He carefully broke away a few shards of glass that were sticking out of the frame and reached his hand through. Turning the doorknob so it unlocked, he withdrew his arm and opened the door from the outside.

Moonlight flooded in through the doorway, illuminating the shattered glass on the floor. He carefully stepped over it and shut the door behind him, not wanting Hamster to get out.

Running his hands along the walls just inside the door, Noel searched for a light switch. He tried to remember if he had seen one somewhere when he'd been there a few nights ago, but of course, he hadn't been paying attention to any details about the place.

He had assumed it would be just to the left on the wall, exactly where the light switch in his flat was, but no such luck.

Instead, he tried the wall on the other side of the door, even though that would be a strange place for the light switch to be seeing as it would be behind the door when opened.

Then it hit him.

He had his phone in his pocket.

Grabbing it, he hit the power button so the screen lit up and used the meager light to find the switch. It was right there on the wall he'd been searching since he walked in.

The light came on, stinging his eyes with is sudden glare after being in the dark for so long.

Looking around the place, he already knew there was no one there except him and the cat. Still, he called out.

"Starla? Starla, you home?"

No answer, as he expected. However, he still had a brief look in every room before being certain he was alone. Hamster followed his visitor through the flat as he went, meowing constantly. Noel wondered if Starla fed her cat before she left. Perhaps it was hungry.

He decided to feed it and set about searching for a tin of cat food in the kitchen cupboards. Finally locating a stack of cat food tins in the cupboard under the sink, after looking everywhere else, he fed Hamster.

At least he accomplished that much.

Noel didn't have the slightest idea about what he was going to do. He couldn't' go after Starla himself because he had no idea where Donald Haydens lived. If he called the police, they would want to know why she was going around questioning people. What kind of involvement did she have in this case? None.

Not like she was a real journalist.

He ran his fingers through his hair, grunting in frustration. That's when he spied a nearly empty bottle of scotch on Starla's little kitchen table, and although he had never been much of a drinker, he felt like one now. So, rinsing a glass off in the sink, he headed for the table and sat down in the lone chair.

His backside barely hit the seat when he noticed a notepad sitting on the table, right behind the bottle of scotch. Sliding the note pad toward him, Noel abandoned the glass and the thought of filling it with scotch as he began to read the hasty scribble on the page the notebook was flipped open to.

Donald doesn't care for the girls

Never around

No custody issues. Don't want them

To hurt the mother???

Drunken hermit arsehole

Addy: 22 Crotty St

Hamster wound in and out of Noels lets purring as if he expected a second helping of dinner but the cat took off fast as Noel pushed the chair back in a rush and ran for the door.

He now knew where to go to look for Starla and he had to hurry. He just hoped he wasn't already too late.

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