"Vincent," Cooper repeated stiffly. "Where is he?"
Calla's initial worries faded to bemused puzzlement. "Is that what you're so wound up about?"
"Yes."
She shrugged. "I don't know where he is. Why does it matter? Maybe he went downstairs."
Cooper shook his head, adamant. "We were just down there."
"Okay, then he's in the bathroom. Or maybe he's dead on the third floor—"
"That's not funny," he hissed, and she was surprised to hear real panic in his voice. "Just...stay here."
She frowned after him as he took off for the stairs, shoving people out of his way without any regard for their disgruntled murmurings. Stay here. Like hell she was just going to stand around while he made a fool of himself—
Someone tapped her shoulder before she could follow after him. "Hi," Natalie said, lifting a red solo cup in greeting.
Calla pasted on a quick smile. "Hey." It was hard not to notice the absence of a six-foot-six quarterback on her arm, especially after the scene Cooper had just caused. "Where'd Vincent run off to?"
She gestured to the windows, indicating the cold night beyond. "No idea. He said he had to step outside—"
Calla grabbed her arm, her earlier skepticism forgotten. "When was this?"
"Huh?" Natalie glanced down at her arm, caught off guard. "I don't know. Maybe ten minutes ago. Why?"
"Calla—" Cooper skidded to a halt, glancing between the two girls. His hair looked as if he'd been dragging his hands through it, over and over again. "What's up?"
"Vincent stepped outside," Calla intoned lifelessly. "Ten minutes ago."
They exchanged a significant look. Calla had mastered the art of arranging her features into a pleasant enough mask, but Cooper, who carried his heart on his sleeve for everyone to see, couldn't quite disguise the stark horror on his face. Natalie stared up at him, confusion giving way to fear. "I don't understand. What's wrong? What's going on?"
"Nothing," Calla assured her, shooting Cooper a warning look. "We'll be right back. Call us if Vincent turns up, alright?"
"But—" Whatever else Natalie might have said was lost in the crowd as Calla and Cooper hurried over to the stairs, their echoing steps and the throaty hum of music reverberating through the wall the only sounds in the stairwell.
"Calla, what if he's—" Cooper started.
Calla shushed him. "Not yet," she said, glancing at the group gathered in the kitchen. He trailed after her, brimming with a nervous energy she could feel, causing the hairs at the back of her neck to prickle.
"Cooper—" Calla warned once they were safely outside. But he either didn't hear her or, more likely, he didn't particularly care what she had to say, because he surged down the sidewalk without a backward glance, jogging blindly into the night.
She followed after him with a swift curse, heeled boots slamming into the concrete. "Cooper!" she called, easily matching his pace. Passerby edged out of their path, watching them hurry off into the night with curious eyes. "Maybe Natalie's right," she tried to reason, though the words sounded false to her own ears. "Vincent's probably right around the corner—"
"Not this corner," Cooper shot back, the streetlights overhead casting his eyes in shadow. They stopped at the next intersection, breathing hard. Beside them, a family of four waited on the light to turn, their takeout bags smelling faintly of Chinese. Calla's stomach growled.
I would kill for some takeout right about now, she thought, eyeing their bags. Literally.
"Vincent had no reason to leave the immediate area, Calla," Cooper continued quietly, forcing her to brush aside her hunger. "If he needed some fresh air or whatever, there's plenty of it right outside the front fucking door."
The man beside them, his arms full as he cradled his daughter to his chest, scowled in their direction.
"Language," Calla chided under her breath.
Cooper closed his eyes, lashes brushing the curve of his cheekbones. "God, this can't be happening. Not again."
He started to cross the street, light or no light, but Calla held him back, curling her fingers around his sweater. "Cooper. Wait. Breathe." He tried to brush her off, but she steeled her hold on him. "Don't bother. I could pin your ass to the sidewalk and you know it."
He stopped struggling at the reminder. "Language," he said, a mocking edge to the words. But the family at the corner had already moved on, muttering under their breath about college towns.
Once they were out of earshot, Cooper turned to her. "We have to keep looking—"
"We will. But Coop," she gestured down the darkened street ahead, lit in irregular intervals by muted orange light, "there's nothing down there. We're not going to find him by checking every hedge and gutter in the neighborhood. We need to head for...civilization, or something." She released her hold on his sweater and crossed the street adjacent, at the end of which was the more promising glow of storefronts and distant sound of passing cars. "Come on. Maybe someone saw something. We've gotta start somewhere."
Cooper followed without question, fingers brushing hers in silent thanks. Calla knew it would be futile trying to reassure him further; the odds that they'd find someone who'd seen anything out of the ordinary was incredibly slim. More likely than not, Vincent was already knocked out cold, bound and gagged, or worse—dead in the detective's trunk, his corpse slowly desiccating...
She tried to envision Michaels catching Vincent unawares on the brownstone's front steps, but the mental image, while vivid, stirred within her a spark of doubt.
"Hold on." Calla stopped, holding out her arm to halt Cooper in his tracks.
"What? What do you see?" Cooper asked, peering down the street to the convenience store just ahead.
"This doesn't make any sense," she said, looking over at him. "Vincent's a big guy. Assuming Michaels was even following us in the first place, and we have literally no proof of that—"
"Except for the fact that he's followed you everywhere else," Cooper muttered.
"—logistically, it's still a stretch," Calla continued without pause. "So, what? Michaels just snatched Vincent right off the steps?"
"He's probably got a gun," Cooper argued. "It's not that far-fetched. Mike managed it well enough when he dragged Vincent from the Diner, didn't he?"
"Yes," Calla agreed patiently, pulling him toward the convenience store. They paused in the glow of the store's neon WELCOME sign, standing well away from the road. "But that was a nearly empty parking lot, Coop." She made a vague gesture to the passerby on the sidewalk. "There were at least a dozen people wandering around the neighborhood when we left. Not really an ideal night for a kidnapping."
Her words washed right over him. He shook his head, scanning the sidewalk, the nearby buildings, the cars rushing by. "Michaels is crafty. He could've pulled it off somehow."
But why? Why Vincent? Why not you? Calla wanted to ask. You're the one who matters. Not Vincent. Michaels has to know that.
She kept a firm grip on his hand, holding him in place even as he tried to turn away, to take off once more into the night without a word or a thought or even a wisp of a prayer. "I need you to calm down," she started to say, agitated, glancing at the neon sign flickering out of the corner of her eye—
Her brain momentarily short-circuited at what she saw.
Unbelievable, she thought, staring into the convenience store's grimy window. "Cooper." He ignored her, analyzing the alleyway to their left. Calla rolled her eyes and tugged on the back of his Santa sweater. "Look."
She pointed at the store. Cooper looked at her finger and then to the store, mouth popping open in a silent oh.
Because in that store, carefully appraising a selection of discounted beers in the back, was Vincent fucking Townson. Safe and sound and completely, utterly oblivious.
"I'm going to kill him," Calla said aloud. And this time, she meant it.
"He..." They traded a disbelieving look. "He went on a fucking beer run?" Cooper asked.
"Looks like it." Calla ripped open the store's clear-glass door. "Oh, he's so going to get it—"
"Wait." This time, Cooper was the one to hold her back. A bell over the door chimed softly, announcing their arrival. He swiftly pulled her aside, beyond Vincent's line of sight. "Vincent doesn't know what's going on. Remember? He's not gonna understand why you're so pissed."
"Do I need a reason to be pissed?" Calla demanded, seething.
"Uh...kind of, yeah." Cooper pulled her close, his relief palpable in the slant of his shoulders and the faint smile turning the corners of his mouth. "It's fine. Vincent is fine."
"Oh, that's rich, coming from Mr. Charges Off Into the Night Without Thinking," she muttered, burying her cold nose into the collar of his sweater.
From somewhere behind them, Calla heard Vincent's familiar voice ask, "Cooper?"
She straightened, scowling ferociously in his direction while Cooper grinned, his earlier panic discarded. Vincent glanced between them, bewildered. "What are you two doing here?"
"Looking for you," Cooper said with a laugh. "What are you doing out here?"
Vincent held up a pack of beer. "Kevin sent me on a beer run."
"Kevin sent you on a beer run," Calla repeated, her anger giving way to wary skepticism. "Alone? There was still plenty of beer upstairs."
"He thought we might run out." Vincent shrugged. "No biggie."
She stared at him while Cooper asked what beer he'd grabbed and if they'd need more, her thoughts spinning round and round, wary skepticism giving way to dark suspicion.
You seem to be laboring under the delusion that there's still a move here for you to make. Michaels' smile as he stared her down, smug and sure. I can assure you, my dear, that the board is already set, and you are in check.
Her thoughts flickered to Olivia. Olivia, who dared Vincent to leave the apartment. Go outside and serenade the first person you see. And thoughts about Kevin. Kevin, who sent Vincent out in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Alone and in the dark. Vulnerable.
Wild, unreasonable thoughts. And yet...
And yet.
"Calla." Cooper looked back at her, hand braced against the open door. "You coming?"
She mustered a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, Cooper's own smile slipping into doubt the longer he looked at her. "Right behind you," she said, tucking aside her strange suspicions and following him outside.
"I feel like I'm missing something," Vincent said, swinging his pack of beer as he walked. "Did something happen while I was gone?"
The noise of the busier street soon faded behind them. "Later, man," Cooper reassured him, clapping Vincent on the shoulder. "Later."
"This is one of those need-to-know type things, isn't it?" Vincent grumbled.
"That's right." Cooper beamed up at him, and the tension lingering in the air faded as the conversation turned to the upcoming championship match and that one homework assignment that ended up screwing Vincent out of a B in statistics. Calla let the boys do the talking, her thoughts scattered as she carefully considered each pair of headlights in the road, wondering if she might spot a silver Honda lingering in her periphery.
Michaels isn't here, she told herself, over and over again. But he's definitely in my head.
The walk back was a hell of a lot longer than the walk there had been; despite the cold, Calla felt quite warm by the time Olivia's apartment came back into view. She slowly ascended the brownstone's steps, still contemplating her next move when Vincent sighed.
"Seriously." She turned to find him lingering on the sidewalk, the pack of beer dangling from his fingertips. "Screw this need-to-know shit. What's going on? You two are acting even stranger than usual, and that's saying something."
Calla drummed her fingers against the iron rail that trailed the stairs, green ivy creeping up its spires. "It's need-to-know for a reason, sweet Vincent."
"Don't call me that."
"Alright then, sweet bastard."
"You're such a—"
"Actually," Cooper broke in from where he stood between them, staring down at his phone, "there's definitely something going on."
Calla shot him an exasperated look. We're crossing that bridge we talked about a bit early, aren't we? she wanted to ask.
But then he held out his phone, and Calla realized he wasn't referring to this particular conversation with Vincent at all. She trotted back down the steps, wary. Vincent huddled in close as he joined them, squinting down at Cooper's phone as he struggled to make out the words on the screen.
"It's an email from St. Clementine's Clinic for Mental Ailments," Cooper explained at their blank looks.
"St. Clementine's," Calla muttered, Vincent's brow furrowing in confusion. "I recognize that name."
"You would. It's a high-security psychiatric hospital." He lowered his phone as recognition sparked in their eyes. "Wanna guess who just added me to their list of approved visitors?"
Calla and Vincent shared a startled look, neither one of them deigning to say the name aloud. There was no need. They knew only one person who'd ever been admitted to a place like St. Clementine's.
Stephanie.