Best Friends Forever

Chapter 5: The Nightmare

The nightmare was an endless stream of questions.

"You didn't see anything?"

Emily didn't know how many times the detective was going to ask her. She was tired of talking, her mouth a hollow hole of sand.

She shook her head.

He paced across the flawless beige carpet. She watched his thick-soled shoes make imprints in the deep pile, vanishing in slow motion. Sometimes he overlapped his steps. She found herself fascinated by the effect it had on the indents.

"Emily?" She no longer rejected the touch of others. Her father's hand on hers got her attention without the habitual flinch. She looked up into his eyes and wondered why he looked so concerned.

Reality rushed back. Her mini carpet coma was over.

Cole.

"I didn't. See anything." She had to lick her lips twice. They were salty. She had done a lot of crying. "I told you." She wished she had. She wanted to give the angry looking detective something, anything, if he would just stop looking at her like that.

He snapped shut his notebook and tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit coat, eyes never leaving her. He looked familiar. Why was that?

"No one in the park saw anything either?" Pamela's voice cracked down the middle. Emily couldn't look at her.

"No one has come forward." Why was he staring at her like she was guilty?

Because she was.

"Emily has told you everything she knows, Detective Brandsom," Harris said. "Are we done here?"

Their next-door neighbor, Mr. Harris, stood next to Jack in his expensive suit. Who knew the man with the friendly beagle was a lawyer? He showed up the moment the police car did, bristling silver mustache on the attack. Blue eyes stripping her to nothing right then and there. The scent of his aftershave hung in the air, making her stomach roll.

Still. At least someone was standing up for her. Especially when she had no desire to do it for herself. She might even hug him later.

Emily was distracted from that line of thought by the detective's name. Brandsom. It tickled her, but she couldn't remember why.

The detective shrugged. "I'll check with the search teams. Just hang tight, folks."

His shoes made no sound on the carpet. His footprints did their vanishing act, like he was never there. Like none of it had happened.

Except her mother wouldn't touch her and her father wouldn't let her go.

Emily's eyes slid sideways. Pamela turned a red t-shirt over and over in her hands. The blue one Cole loved the most was with him, the yellow one he hated with the search team.

For the dogs.

That was the theory. The woods. Even her father warned her. Those woods went on forever, a tangled mess into the Northern California wilderness. Emily walked a path through a corner of them to get to school. Just a bunch of trees and shrubs and dirt.

But he was ten and it was dark and there was a good chance if they didn't find him soon he would never come home.

Harris leaned forward, the odor of him filling her whole world.

"My advice is to co-operate as best you can. But be careful."

Jack seemed suddenly surprised out of his fear for Cole. "Why?"

The lawyer shrugged, his shoulders shifting his jacket enough that it pulled tight across his slight potbelly. His glasses caught the light, reflected back into Emily's eyes so she had to look away.

"In cases like this, they look at the family first."

For what? Just the idea that any of them would have hurt Cole made Emily flinch. She pushed away from the couch, leaping to her feet. The air was impossible in the formal living room, tainted by the smell of lawyers and cops.

"Why are we even in here?" Normally, she and her brother trod that floor on pain of death. Pamela was as protective of that damned carpet as she was of Cole and used to be of Emily. Until he came along. Then everything changed.

"Emily-" Jack reached for her but she lurched from the room, heard Harris tell her father to let her go. Gratitude filled her. She needed oxygen, not the wasted, poisoned stuff they were forced to breath inside the house where all that sorrow hung, but the real thing.

A young officer tried to intercept her on the way to the back door but she beat him to it and slammed it in his face. Emily threw herself down the three steps of the deck and to the grass, heaving for air. She was hot suddenly, and confined, weight pushing on her chest and shoulders. The black hoodie left her in a wrenching motion, puddling like a damaged thing in the flowerbed next to the house.

The stars winked at her. Those same stars. But there was no booze to cut the edge, not yet at least. There was only the cold, harsh truth that hit her in the gut over and over again.

Cole was gone and it was her fault. More, the hurt and dying Emily who took him to the park hadn't cared. If she had, he would be safe. And she would be free to go.

It was still her plan. But she had to know he was safe first.

The cool night air did her some good. The desperate need to fill her lungs dissipated, then left. Emily hugged herself and turned toward the house. The downstairs glowed with light, every bulb lit. Her mother's beacon to her missing boy, her favorite.

Emily shuddered and went inside.

She couldn't bring herself to go back to her parents. She hovered near the bottom of the back stairs, considering her room. She was on the second step when she heard someone in the hall.

"This is the third boy." One of the other detectives. Graham? Gormley? His whisper carried. She stopped to listen.

"I'm telling you, there's no connection." Brandsom. Third boy?

"And if there is?"

Emily's heart clenched. Three boys. She knew what that meant.

"Just let me handle it, will you? I have no intention of getting these folks riled up for no good reason."

Emily turned and descended before she knew she was moving. She saw the shock then anger on Brandsom's face, the guilty half-smile from his partner.

"Is he right?" She felt good asking questions of her own, deflecting the blame from her own heart for a change.

"You should be with your parents, Miss Underman." Why was he so familiar? But there was no warmth to him and it seemed like an important omission.

"You said Cole is the third boy to go missing." She would make him tell her. "Are the other two..." She couldn't ask it. The words refused to come.

The younger detective finished it, blue eyes full of sympathy.

"Only one of them."

She choked on her fear for a moment, a living thing clawing its way to her mouth.

"The first boy died in an accidental fall," Brandsom said, though his face told her he hated explaining himself, "and the second was taken by his father in a custody case."

"We think." Emily liked the second detective's eyes. They were kind. She wished she could remember his name.

"This is not the time or place to have this discussion." She knew immediately Brandsom had gotten through. The two men turned and left together, though she appreciated the gentle look on the young detective's face when he glanced back.

Anger surged. They were keeping things from her parents, from her. Important things. She cut through the family room on her way to the front of the house. Her parents had to know.

She found them saying goodbye to the police at the front door. Only Harris noticed she returned and made a space for her.

"We'll have an officer posted at your gate for the rest of the night," Brandsom said directly to Pamela. "I promise we'll let you know the minute we find anything."

"We want to join the search." Emily understood Jack's need. He still clung to the flashlight. It hadn't left his hand since he returned under police escort.

"Please, Mr. Underman. We told you it's best if you stay here in case Cole comes home on his own. You need to get some rest. We'll be in touch."

Brandsom glared at her over her father's shoulder. Emily dropped her eyes.

The door closed. She looked up, moving forward in the same motion, hand outstretched to her mother, mouth open to speak. Her fingers brushed Pamela's hand, sliding across the soft red shirt.

"No!" Her mother jerked away from her, stumbling into Jack. "Don't touch it!"

Emily froze, words forgotten. "Mom..." She tried again, a feeble attempt, knowing the outcome.

"Don't touch me!" Pamela collapsed against Jack, knees buckling beneath her, face a mottled mask of hurt and despair. "Don't look at me! Don't talk to me! Don't..." She hit the floor, her feet sliding out from under her, the tile tearing a hole in her pantyhose, skirt riding up to her thigh. Coughing sobs echoed down the hallway, each one punching a new hole through Emily's soul.

"Pam! Pamela!" Jack rocked her and she clung to him, but it did nothing to stop the gaping wound from tearing wider. Emily felt the gulf growing between her and them, the last thread keeping them together a limp red t-shirt.

And then that too was hidden from her, clutched to Pamela's chest, crushed between her and Jack.

The thread snapped.

When her father looked up at her, she met his eyes, only to confirm what she already knew. But it was Harris that gave voice to it, his shadow and bulk suddenly blocking her from her parents.

"Maybe it would be best if you went to your room," he said.

***

The backyard is still, lit only by the stars. The house is finally asleep, or, at least, dark. Sleep will be a long time coming.

A shadow slides across the dew-wet grass. It falls over the flowerbed and the discarded sweater. A sigh of air, an intake of breath as nose meets fabric.

When the shadow leaves, the hoodie goes with it.

***