39
ELLIOT IS IN A GOOD MOOD when he's done at that guy's place. He's even laughing at something I said when we get back to the house. There's a pair of shoes I've never seen before on the mat, and as soon as the door closes, Elizabeth's quivery voice calls from down the hall.
"El? Is that you? Get in here. Now, please."
Elliot and I exchange an uneasy glance before we go to the living room. Maddy, Charlotte's best friend, is bawling her eyes out on the living room couch. Her black hair falls in blades over her cheeks as she covers her eyes, and Elizabeth is beside her looking ten shades paler. Adam stands with his hands on his hips, his eyes dead on the floor. Ollie's on the rug holding Ana, and a sick feeling emerges within me.
Where is Charlotte?
"What's going on?" Elliot asks.
Elizabeth draws a breath. Her hands are shaking, but she holds them together to try to stop it. "Sit down, please. Both of you."
We take the loveseat. Elizabeth looks to be on the verge of tears, and I've never seen her lose face like this before.
"Mom?" Elliot asks. "Dad? What's going on?"
Elliot's dad lets out a long sigh through his nose. "You sister is missing, El. We can't find Charlotte."
Silence. My first thought is that she has run off to party. But something in the air feels more serious.
"I'm so sorry." Maddy sobs into her palms. "I didn't know what to do. She made me pinky promise not to tell. But I can't get a hold of her. I don't know where she went or who she's with. She said if I ratted on her again that she'd—" She lets out a cry. "She said she was never coming back and now she won't answer her cell!"
Elliot's brows pinch, and he sits up. "Was she off with some guy? Dave?"
"I think so," Maddy said.
"Who the hell is Dave?" Adam demands, his authoritative voice bouncing off the walls, and Elliot shrinks.
"I don't really know, Dad... I saw him on her phone... maybe her boyfriend?"
"I've never met him," Maddy says, "but he's way older than her, I don't know, I knew it was a bad idea but I just—" More sobs, but Maddy's words ring in my head.
Older than her.
Adam pulls up a chair and sits in front of Maddy, clasping his hands together. "We aren't mad at you, Maddy, but I need you to describe the vehicle she got in."
Maddy dabs her eyes with a tissue and takes a deep breath. "Um, right. It was like, green. And it was a car."
Adam blinks. "Good. You're doing great, Maddy. Was it a truck? SUV? Sedan? Did you happen to get the model?"
"Um, it was like a box car? I don't know... I don't know cars!"
"A box Chevy," I say.
I don't even think before speaking, because my head is spiralling. I know that car. Brett has one. So does Colt.
This has to be a mistake.
How could he even know who Charlotte is?
Has he been watching me?
"Yeah." Maddy nods and dabs her eyes. "That's it. It was a box Chevy."
I press my hand to my forehead and stagger back. A ringing pierces my ears and my vision fades to white. I'm falling, plummeting to the earth at an inconceivable rate.
I land in Elliot's arms.
"Lucy, what's wrong?" It's Elizabeth, but I can't see a thing.
Colt has Charlotte. I led him right to her doorstep. After everything this family has done for me—
Clutching at Elliot's hoodie, I bury my face in the crook of his neck. His heart pounds against my forehead.
"Hey, it's okay." He rubs my neck. "Lucy, come on, what's wrong?"
Nothing is okay, and everything is wrong. Colt didn't set me free. He didn't go anywhere. He replaced me, found a younger me, a more corruptible me. This is his revenge. This is how he takes my life away.
I've been so fucking blind.
I can hardly think, but I manage to croak out, "I... I think I know who took Charlotte."
* * *
I tell Adam everything.
At this point, I don't have a choice.
We're in a tiny, cramped police interrogation room with concrete walls, because as soon as I started confessing, Adam went straight from Elliot's Dad to Constable Wexler. He wants everything on record, and now I'm shaking in my boots, not just because it's ice cold in here, but because part of me is terrified they're going to throw me in a jail cell.
"Is that all of it?" Adam asks. Another cop, a young woman with short brown hair, sits across from me while he stands over the desk. I don't know if it's an interrogation tactic but it sure as hell feels like one.
"Yeah." My hands tremble around the cup of apple juice they gave me. "That's all of it. I really don't know where he took her. But I'd bet my life it's him."
Adam grits his teeth. "All right. I that's everything... we're done here. You can go, Officer Shelly."
The woman nods at me before she leaves. The door shuts behind her, and I flinch with it. Adam's stare weighs ten tonnes.
"Am I being arrested?" I ask.
"No." It isn't anger on his face—more of a tepid frustration. Relief warms my cold body, but the anxiety doesn't fade. If I'd said something sooner like Elliot wanted me to, then Charlotte would still be here. Another girl wouldn't be suffering at Colt's hands. The apple juice tastes like piss and I think I'm going to throw up.
"Lucy." Adam sits across from me, eyes tired and grey. "What do you think he's doing with her?"
"I—I honestly don't know."
"What did he do to you when you were first with him?"
I bite hard on my lip as shame courses through me. I can't let my own pride prevent me from telling Adam the truth. After everything I've caused, I'm done lying. "He drove me out of the city, took me from motel to motel, and convinced me to do hard drugs like heroin. It made it easier for him to get me to sleep with him. If I didn't want sex... he would just take it."
Adam covers his mouth with his fist and clenches his eyes shut.
"I'm sorry," I say, tears dripping down my cheeks. Adam just nods and refuses to look at me.
"You know, I knew there was something I recognized about you," he says quietly, and the hairs on the back of my neck raise. "The case of the missing Pembroke girl—some of my colleagues from the south end precinct were on that case." He looks away, almost in shame. "How could I not realize it was you?"
I'm quiet, because I don't know what to say. I wonder if he's thinking about my father. If he's questioning whether or not the rumours about who he really was—how he treated his family—were true.
They were.
But Adam is too respectful to ever ask something like that. Instead, he says, "Come on then. Let's go."
"Just let me get my stuff from your place and I'll be gone."
"No. You should keep staying with us."
"What? No, I'm going to a shelter."
"Listen." Adam's gaze land firm on mine, and I shrink beneath it. "As long as you're helping with the investigation, I'd rather you stay with us. El needs you. Just... stay, all right?"
My chest pulls. I can tell Adam doesn't want me within a meter of his household, and frankly, I don't want to be anywhere near it either. I destroy everything I touch. But because I'm powerless, I go with Adam anyway.
The drive home is eerily silent. He won't turn on the radio, just focuses on the road, doesn't say a word. We're in the family SUV but I might as well be cuffed in the back of a cop cruiser.
Every promise I wanted to make to Elliot is unravelling.
I wanted to be there for him and help him through his issues; truly, in my heart, that's all I wanted. I wanted us to help each other heal, and be there for each other, and never have to be alone again. But I've done nothing but hurt him and his family.
Out of respect for Adam's request, I'll stay for a little while longer. But the truth is Elliot and I were over the moment his sister disappeared.