Pretend She's Here(66)

I snuggled against him under the blanket. His arm was around me. The heat between us made a force field, a safe shield, and no one could get through. But then I saw the Porters’ back door wink open, just long enough for a splash of orange light to spill onto the snow, then disappear. Through the rattling old window glass I heard someone running.

“Lizzie! Get back here right now!” Mrs. Porter’s scream sliced through the cracks in the walls.

It was too dark to see what she was doing. Was she on the way here, to Casey’s? I imagined her flying straight onto the roof like a witch, oozing her way into the attic, enfolding me in black robes and hiding me forever. But then I saw car lights flickering through the branches and thick pines. I imagined something even worse than the witch coming here: She was going to Black Hall. I jumped up.

“She’s leaving! We have to stop her!” I said. “Chloe, you know where she’s going to go.”

“Here,” Chloe said. Her hands were trembling as she handed me her cell phone. “Call your mother and warn her.”

Just the idea of being able to call home shoved a sob into my throat. I was shaking so hard, my fingers slid all over the numbers and I couldn’t dial. Car lights flickered closer to Casey’s house—had Mrs. Porter driven straight next door, coming to find me at the Donoghues’s house? But they weren’t just headlights; the pulse of blue strobes sparked the black sky. A police car sped into Casey’s drive. It stopped short, and two police officers got out.

“What’s going on?” I asked, staring into his eyes. “Did you call them?”

“No,” he said. “I promised you I wouldn’t. Did you, Chloe?”

She shook her head. “No.” Her voice came out in a whisper.

I had no idea why they were there, I didn’t even think about it, but I ran downstairs so fast my feet slipped, and I slid halfway down the second flight, barely catching my balance, my hand on the banister. Casey was right behind me.

The doorbell rang, and he stepped forward and opened the door. The officers stood there, a man and a woman. They wore thick black uniform jackets and watch caps. The woman’s brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

I waited in the dining room, but I peered around the corner.

“We’re looking for a missing girl,” the officer said.

Casey was silent.

“She’s from Connecticut. Have you seen anyone like that?”

Still, Casey said nothing.

“Two nights ago, a call was made. It pinged off the cell tower on Deer Rock Road, up near Benjamin’s tree farm. Were you up there?”

“Yes,” he said.

Night before last, tobogganing. Casey had handed me his phone on that hill in the wilderness, and I’d dialed home, but the signal was dropped. I’d thought the connection hadn’t been made.

“The Connecticut State Police traced the call to a cell phone registered at this address,” the officer said. “Did someone here try to call Mary Lonergan in Black Hall, Connecticut?”

I walked out of the dining room, stepped around Casey.

“I did,” I said.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Emily Lonergan,” I said. “I’m Emily. I’m the missing girl.”

And then I started to cry.





But there wasn’t time to be emotional.

“This is life and death,” I said to the woman officer. I read the name tag sewn on the breast of her black Royston Police Department jacket: CLARKE. “I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The people next door—they’re going to kill my mother!”

“Okay, hold on, slow down.”

“No, you have to go there now, right away. If they see you here, they—well, she, Mrs. Porter—is going to go to Connecticut and murder my mom. Please hurry, stop her now.”

Officer Clarke just stood there, an expression of apprehension on her face. The male officer, Peterson, had circled around to stand behind Casey and Chloe. I felt as if they were trying to herd us together.

“Why don’t we all go down to the station,” Officer Peterson said. “And we can sort it out there.”

“You don’t get it,” I said. “We have to do something now.”

“Emily, why did you run away?” Officer Clarke asked.

“I didn’t,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady and low, in case Mrs. Porter was lurking in the bushes.

“She didn’t,” Chloe said.

“Who are you?” Officer Clarke said.

“Chloe Porter.”

“And you?” she asked Casey.

“Casey Donoghue,” he said. “That was my phone Emily used to try to call her parents—to ask for help. This is my house. Mine and my dad’s.”

“And you helped Emily run away? You’ve sheltered her?”

“You’re not listening!” Casey said. “She didn’t run away; she was kidnapped. We were just waiting for my dad to get here, so he could call you and the people next door wouldn’t know.”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” I said, boiling over with panic. “They’re going to hurt my mom. Please go there now—she, Mrs. Porter, is probably already on her way. I’m sure she saw you pull in. She swore to me if I told, she’d kill her. Please let me call my mom, I have to warn her …”