The Last House on the Street(70)

Chapter 33



KAYLA


2010

My daughter is missing.

Samantha Johns shows up at the same time as my father, this time with siren blaring. I can’t remember her name to introduce her, even though it’s been barely a week since she helped me clean the trash off my lawn. We stand in the driveway next to that lawn now. On the street behind us, the sound of hammers and saws fills the air.

Daddy goes into the house to check every nook and cranny, and Officer Johns—Sam—asks me questions. Where was she? How long was she out of my sight? I feel like we need to be moving. We need to do something.

I see Ellie and Brenda coming quickly up Shadow Ridge Lane toward us. Ellie’s at a jog, Brenda trailing a few feet behind. “What’s wrong?” Ellie calls out before she reaches us.

“Rainie’s missing,” I say. “My daughter.”

“Oh no,” Brenda says. She’s winded from rushing up the street, her face flushed and glistening with sweat. The longer side of her angled haircut is pasted to her damp cheek.

“What happened?” Ellie asks.

“We need to start looking for her!” I say. All the questions make me feel like a terrible mother. I am a terrible mother. I left her out there alone because I was more worried about my damn window treatments.

“What happened to your hands?” Sam asks.

I look down at my hands. My palms are dirty and beaded with blood. “I ran up the trail to try to find her and tripped.”

Sam lifts her phone and makes a call, relaying information about her location and Rainie’s disappearance. Daddy comes out of the house then. I look at him hopefully, although I know he couldn’t have found her inside, and he shakes his head. Then he notices Ellie, and his steps slow.

“I didn’t know your father was here,” Ellie says in a whisper.

“Hi, Brenda, Ellie,” my father says formally when he reaches us. “Good to see you.”

“Hey, Reed,” Brenda says, but Ellie looks away without a word.

“Let’s go check out that trail,” Sam says, hooking her phone back to her belt. She looks toward the vans that line the street and the unfinished houses full of carpenters and handymen. “We need to speak to some of these guys, too.”

“A lot of them only speak Spanish,” Ellie says. “I’m fluent. Want me to see if they know anything?”

“Great.” Sam and Ellie quickly exchange names and phone numbers, then Sam looks at me as Ellie heads back down the street. “Where is the trail?” she asks.

“This way,” Daddy says. He’s already walking toward the side of the house, heading for the deck and the trail. “We should split up,” he calls to us over his shoulder. “I’ll take the path on the right.”

“It’s a circular trail,” I explain to Sam.

She nods toward Brenda. “You go with him,” she says, pointing to where my father disappeared around the corner of the house. She looks at me. “You come with me.”

Sam walks the trail much more slowly than I think we should, but I can tell that she’s searching the woods and undergrowth with an eagle eye. “She might have gotten lost out here,” she says. “Woods are disorienting, and this trail has some spots that might be confusing to a small child.”

“You’re right,” I say, and I begin doing what she’s doing—searching the woods as we walk, not just the trail itself. In the distance I hear my father and Brenda calling for Rainie, an echo to my own calls.

We finally reach “Little Hell Lake” and I change my call to a shout, my panic growing as I look across the tangled brush toward that murky water. But there’s no sign of Rainie. My phone rings. I stop walking and quickly pull it from my pocket, answering it without even looking at who the call is from.

“Kayla?” a woman asks.

“Yes?”

“This is Amanda from the Curtain Shop. I just—”

“I can’t talk right now, Amanda. I’ll—”

“I’m just confused about these faxes we got from you,” she says. “Why did you send them?”

“Someone there said you lost my orders and I had to resend them. But I can’t talk—”

“I’m the only person who makes customer calls,” she says, “and your order is well underway. There was no need to—”

“You’re kidding.” I stand stock-still. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Who did you speak with?”

“I’ll call you later,” I say, hanging up. I look at Sam. “I think someone called me earlier just to keep me doing busywork so she had time to take Rainie.” I hear the fear in my voice. I feel so helpless.

Sam’s phone rings before I even finish my sentence. She looks at the screen. “Your friend,” she says, pressing the speaker button so I’ll be able to hear. “Anything?” she asks Ellie.

“One of the workers saw a woman walking through the woods near the side of the house a while ago,” Ellie says. “He said it wasn’t the woman who lives there. It wasn’t Kayla. He wasn’t very close to her, but he’s pretty sure she was talking on a phone.”

I lean close to the Sam’s phone. “Did he say what she looked like?” I ask.