“I’m thinking we need to figure out a way to crawl to heaven and beg for our daughter’s safe return. You really think we’ll find her?”
The whites of his eyes cut to mine. “Yes, we’re going to find her.” His arms glide around my waist once again. I don’t think in the entire history of us James has ever held me so much. “I know we will. I’m certain of it.” His grip gets a little bit tighter.
And I wonder.
How can he be so certain?
* * *
At one o’clock sharp, James and I step out onto our porch to an audience of thousands. Bodies congest our keyhole street along with camera equipment in every shape and size, cropping up like mushrooms along the periphery.
“Holy shit,” James mutters as we ogle the swelling crowd.
Odd thoughts go through your mind at times like these, but the words break a leg keep circling my brain.
James has donned a suit that I helped iron this morning. I’m wearing a blue and white polka dot dress with a belted waist, patent leather heels, looking every bit the average 1955 Stepford wife. James slicked his hair back and shaved. His skin is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I went through the trouble of putting on foundation and a swath of red lipstick. We look psychotic, deranged, like skittish wild animals pinned against a wall.
McCafferty waltzes up with her dismal sense of style, that constant frown of disappointment she wears just for us. “Keep calm.” She pulls us both along like children to the lawn where twin giant posters stare out at the crowd, Reagan and her innocent toothless smile. Her school picture was taken back in California, but the photographer sent the proofs to the police department as soon as Rich filled him in on the details. Marilyn thought it was pertinent to have her latest picture available to the public. The charcoal sketch of Ota stands proudly by her side, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from running over and tearing it down, scratching that little terror’s paper eyes out in front of the rabid crowd.
Rich introduces us to the waiting throngs, does a little police department tap dance regarding how they are doing everything in their power to bring our little girl home, but my eyes keep flitting to the camera crews, CNN, FOX to name a few, including all the local channels, and some cable outlets I’ve never even heard of before. My body shakes right down to the core. This is real. This is happening. Reagan is gone, and we are now that family. This was something that happened to other people, and now we were those people. The shit had hit the fan. The other shoe had dropped, and every other shitty euphemism was taking shape and coming to life in my worst nightmare.
James steps up to the mic. “Thank you for coming out today.” He nods into the crowd as if he were the pastor of some monstrously large congregation. The Church of Missing Children. An apostate church, and we are the heretics that run it. “My name is James Price, and this is my wife, Allison.” He pulls me in and nods to the crowd, stunned to have so many prying eyes staring us down at once. “My wife and I are grateful that you’ve come to help us find our daughter. She’s a good girl.” His voice warbles and he pulls back to swallow down his pain. “She has the best personality.” His voice cracks when he says best. “We would give anything to have her back. Please, if anyone knows anything. We would—” James gets distracted by something to his left and I notice a woman in a fur coat rocking herself side to side. “We would give anything to have her back.”
My eyes cut to the woman again. I recognize her from the Boys and Girls Club. The hugger. She’s eyeing James as if he were her favorite dessert. Not that I could blame her—most women do. But something about the way he paused alarms me. What if someone else picked up on this? It’s bad enough I noticed.
“What would you like to say to the person who has her?” one of the reporters from the front row shouts.
He leans into the mic. “I would say please for the love of God return my baby. Bring her to a safe place, a grocery store, a fire department, a library, anyplace. Just bring her to safety and let her come home.”
Another reporter waves over at us. “What about the other girl? Who is she? Why hasn’t anyone filed a missing person’s report on her?”
“She was friendly.” The words come from me numb.
Rich comes up and we voluntarily step aside as he takes over and fills the crowd in on the meager details we do know before fielding questions.
After twenty uncomfortable minutes of standing behind Rich, listening to him say we don’t know over and over again, Marilyn McCafferty pulls James and me to the side.
“ZNet and FOX both want to do an interview—this is evening television, the widest market to the nation. You’ll have to do it.”
“Yes, of course.” I shiver. “Anything.” I glance back at the burgeoning crowd and feel the sting of people craning their necks to get a good look at us. We had offered ourselves up to the public like creatures of interest, a novelty. We were on exhibit and the house was our habitat.
James and I are shuttled off to the living room where ZNet comes in first with its oversized cameras and takes the better half of an hour to set up. A makeup artist powders my face before adjusting a microphone down my cleavage and pinning one to the lip of James’ shirt.
The interviewer, a woman named Gretchen MacAfee, with short red hair, a country twang, and an overall irate view of life beaming from her eyes, sits across from us.
“Welcome to the show, Mr. and Mrs. Price. I’m so very sorry about the situation brewing around your daughter.” Her sentiment feels about as genuine as Naugahyde.
James and I exchange a quick glance. Situation brewing around our daughter?
“I’d like to start by asking you both to tell me exactly what happened that day your daughter went missing.” That curt tone, those accusing eyes. Each of my nerves catches fire like dominos.
“I’ll start.” My voice hitches and McCafferty pushes a glass of water my way. “I was out running errands. I’m usually the one that picks up Reagan from school. But that day James stepped in. By the time I came home, she was already missing, only we didn’t know it at the time.”
“And you, Mr. Price?” Her dark eyes shoot their venom at us as if we were the perpetrators.
“Yes, Allison is right. I was home. I’m the one that approved Reagan going over to Ota’s house. That’s the name of the little girl who was with her. She mentioned she lived down the street. I had seen Ota around the house ever since the day we moved in, and I thought it would be okay.”
“But it wasn’t okay, was it?” Her strangulating demeanor sharpens like daggers. A flashback of me hurdling furniture to tackle McCafferty comes to mind and my thighs twitch as if readying for the effort. “Where were you during the hours your daughter went missing? What were you doing at home while she supposedly went over to this friend’s house?” She stabs an accusing finger at him, her thumb in the air as if she were mock shooting him.
James expels a choking sigh. “I thought—I was at home cooking dinner for my family. Allison showed up, and that’s when the panic started.”
“I see.” The redheaded devil gives a sharp look to the ceiling. “How long have the two of you been living in Concordia? It’s my understanding that you were new to the area.”
“A couple of weeks,” I offer. I can feel my anger boiling over at the way this woman has chosen to treat us. “I met Ota that first day we moved in.” A vision of that patch of dying grass where her feet stood pulses through me. “She seemed like a normal child.” Lies. She was anything but and I sensed it from the start.
“And did she ever tell you anything about her family outside of the fact she mentioned she lived down the street?”