I walked outside and turned the corner to where Nick’s car was parked. The music from the party died down as I continued down the street. It was freezing out, the sky was blanketed in clouds, and I realized I was probably going to see rain in Los Angeles for the first time. I missed that. I loved the sun, but I’d grown up in a place where rain and cold were the order of the day.
I looked around the grass next to the car but didn’t find anything. I was about to go back to the house and ask Nick for the keys so I could see if I’d dropped my phone inside the car, but I heard someone behind me.
Irrational fear overtook me. I had the sense I was being watched. I turned around but saw nothing other than the evening shadows. Heart pounding, breathing hard, I started to walk back, but then the person emerged from his hiding place. It was Ronnie.
“What’s the rush, bae?” he asked, a smile on his grotesque lips.
I stopped. I was ready to scream if I had to, or so I thought, but the fear that had overtaken me was so powerful that I wasn’t sure if any sound would come out if I tried.
“I don’t know what you want, Ronnie, but if you take one step toward me, I’ll start shrieking like a banshee,” I said, unable to conceal the panic behind my words.
“There’s someone who wants to see you, Noah. You’re not just going to leave him hanging, are you? You got his letters, right?”
I tried to turn around and felt hands grabbing me from behind, covering my lips before I could make a sound.
“If I were you, I’d try to behave,” Ronnie said, coming close as two men immobilized me. “Your papa’s waiting for you…and we both know he ain’t a patient man.” He gestured to the two men behind me.
They lifted me up while I thrashed around and tried uselessly to escape. They stuffed a damp, stinking rag in my mouth and covered it with duct tape. The last thing I remember seeing was the face of my father, the same man who’d almost killed me.
44
Nick
I hadn’t seen Noah in twenty minutes, and already, I was missing her. I looked around and couldn’t find her anywhere.
“Jenna, you seen Noah?” I asked, walking to a corner where she was drinking and dancing. She stopped to look at me.
“I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, she wasn’t here. Sophie said she was asking if anyone had seen her phone.”
I decided to go outside to look for her. It was freezing, and there was no one around. I looked left and right, even toward the woods behind us, but there wasn’t a trace of her. I went back in and checked the bedroom with an uncomfortable pressure in my chest; she was nowhere to be found. Finally I checked every room one by one, shouting her name and dialing her phone. Nothing. Not a single sign.
I ran downstairs and found Jenna and Lion by the front door.
“I don’t know where she is,” Jenna said, now worried.
A horrible fear overtook me, and I ran around the corner, with Jenna and Lion close behind me. Turning the corner on the way to my car, I saw footprints on the grass. I followed them, my heart in a knot, and when I reached the place where they ended, I found her high heels lying there as if they’d been thrown down.
“Noah!” I shouted desperately, looking from side to side. “Noah!”
Jenna and Lion shouted, too. No response.
I remembered Ronnie’s threat. Had that son of a bitch taken her somewhere?
* * *
“Call the cops,” I told Lion when I got over my panic.
Lion looked surprised, but he took out his phone. As he dialed, we went back inside. I walked into the DJ booth and made him cut the music. Everyone hissed and jeered, but I didn’t give a shit. “Has anyone seen Noah?” I shouted. I got up on a chair and stared out at the crowd, wishing I would see her there and hating myself for leaving her alone.
Everyone jeered and shook their head. I got down and clutched my head in my hands. Dammit… Dammit…
“Nicholas, calm down,” Jenna said.
“You don’t understand!” I screamed, not caring if anyone heard. “Ronnie’s been threatening her.” Just then, Lion grabbed me.
“Nick, the cops,” he said, handing me the phone. “They want to talk to someone from her family.”
I grabbed it and put it to my ear.
“My girlfriend’s disappeared. I need you to come right away,” I said, knowing I should control my tone better but unable to.
“Sir, calm down and explain to me what happened,” the voice on the other line responded. The person was calm, as if we were talking about the weather and not the entire purpose of my life suddenly vanishing.
“What happened is my girlfriend disappeared, that’s what’s happened!”
“Calm down, sir, we’ve already sent a patrol car, and when they arrive, they’ll search the area, but for now, I need to you to tell me exactly where you saw her for the last time.”
I told the operator what happened, but it was as if I were in a bubble and none of what was happening were real.
Soon a cop car pulled up and everyone in attendance rushed out. I didn’t care; I already knew who had done this.
“You are…?” the officer asked after taking my statement. I couldn’t believe he was dragging his feet like this; something needed to be done, and now.
“I’m Nicholas Leister,” I said for the second time that night. All these questions were absurd; what we needed to do was go find Ronnie wherever he was and rescue Noah.
“So you’re her boyfriend?” I nodded, impatient, while Jenna and Lion talked with two other cops. “Noah Morgan…is she a minor?” the officer interviewing me asked. Shit. I hadn’t thought of that.
“She’s seventeen. Look, she’s my stepsister, our parents got married a few months ago, and I already told you, I know who’s behind this. Please, we’re wasting time and they could be hurting her.”
The cop frowned at me.
“To start with, you’re not immediate family, so we don’t need to tell you anything. What I’m going to ask of you is that you call her parents or legal guardian and inform them of what happened. The law says we can’t file a missing person report for twenty-four hours, so—”
“Are you not listening to me?” I shouted, losing my nerve. “She’s been kidnapped. Now stop fucking around and do something!”
I didn’t realize how close I’d gotten to him until he grabbed me and slammed me against his car.
“Calm down or I’m going to have to arrest you,” he said.
I cursed between my teeth until he let me go.
“Now call your parents or I’ll do it myself,” he said, puffing out his chest and trying to intimidate me.
I turned around, took out my phone, and dialed. Dad picked up on the fourth ring.
“Dad…I need you to come. Something’s happened.”
* * *
Four hours later, we were back at home. Nobody knew where Noah was, but there were people milling all around and plugging in machines to trace our calls in case her captors tried to get in touch with us. William Leister wasn’t a nobody, and when his stepdaughter disappeared, the first thing people thought was that it was a kidnapping for ransom. I’d already told ten different cops two hundred times about Ronnie’s threats, but what I didn’t know was that they’d found the threatening letters in Noah’s desk drawer. When I realized her father was the one who’d kidnapped her, I nearly lost control.
I was a disaster; I couldn’t believe what was happening. They’d had to give Raffaella a tranquilizer when she’d found out, and now she was in one of the bedrooms with a friend trying to calm her down. My father was on the phone the whole time, talking to cops and officials. All I could do was smoke one cigarette after another and try to ignore the hundreds of horrible images flashing through my head.
Lion and Jenna had come over, Jenna’s parents, too, but I had no idea what they were up to. It was past five in the morning, and no one had heard anything.
“If something happens, I’ll never forgive myself,” I said, almost hyperventilating. “All this is my fault… Dammit! Why didn’t she tell me?”