“Come on, girl. We’re going to the cemetery.”
Parker was crying in the bedroom, still on the phone with Rose. I stopped in the doorway and waited for half a second until she saw me.
“Parker.” My sharp tone took her by surprise and she immediately snapped to attention, glaring at me with so much emotion and fear that I hurt for her. In a few quick steps, I had her face in my hands and her eyes on mine, breathing with her until she calmed down enough to listen to me. “I love you. But you need to focus and tell Rose to call 9-1-1. I’m going to call it in, too, but she needs to officially report it so that they can get details from her that we wouldn’t know.”
Parker nodded, and I heard Rose mumbling on the other end of the line as well before Parker dropped her hand with the phone in it to her side.
“I need to go with you,” she mumbled and grabbed some clothes.
“No.” I shook my head. “As much as I love you and want to take you with me, I can’t. I need you to go to your house. Just in case he went there.”
Parker stared at me with wide-open eyes and a flushed look to her skin. “This can’t be happening.”
Ignoring the growing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, I led the woman I loved down the stairs toward the front door. “We have to check the cemetery and your house, Parker. Just in case. I can’t tell you not to panic, because I’m a fucking wreck right now. But we need to hold it together just long enough for us to find him.”
“Remy?” Parker’s tremble and gasp filled my ears, and I was afraid to risk looking over my shoulder at her. “Remy, what if the stalker got him?”
“We’ll find him, Parker.” We have to, I silently added.
Less than two minutes after Rose’s call, we were both slamming the front door. I stared at Parker for a second and then pulled her into my arms.
It was entirely selfish, I knew. But I needed to feel that she was real, that she was still there. That my life hadn’t become a nightmare. She clung to my back, breathing deeply as she tried to focus and calm down.
“I … I can do this,” she announced into my chest.
Then I watched as she pushed back and stared at me with a determined expression. “This is my son, Remy. My only reason for living for the last six years. We’re going to find him.” I nodded, ignoring the slight stutter of her words and the tremor in her shoulders.
Without another word, Parker got into her small car and started the engine.
Daisy jumped into her place in the back seat of the cruiser when I opened the door and we waited for Parker to pull out of the driveway before leaving.
“Don’t worry, girl,” I whispered when Daisy whimpered in the back seat. “We’re going to find him.”
I dialed dispatch as I sped down the road, not giving a shit that my phone wasn’t in the Bluetooth cradle and completely against policy. I’d take whatever disciplinary action the chief wanted to give me. Although, he’d probably end up in the doghouse when my mom found out about it.
“Remy,” Teri’s voice broke in on the fourth ring. “I just got the call from Birch County. Rose called it in.”
“I’m on my way to the cemetery to check, and then I’ll go to the Hayes’ house to get Daisy tracking him.”
Teri typed away in the background, and the sound of other officers calling in to tell dispatch that they were en route to the scene did something visceral to me. My brothers in blue, responding to a call to help my family, felt like a knife to my gut and the perfect reinforcement of why I did my job.
“I’m on scene.” I pulled into the cemetery, shining the spotlight in my cruiser around the headstones, unable to see anyone there.
I didn’t need to ask what Nox was wearing. He always wore green pajamas, though it felt like Parker had told me that a lifetime ago. I’d washed his laundry, helped him put it away, and even picked up his dirty clothes from the bathroom floor. I knew every single piece of clothing my kid owned.
My kid.
Teri hung up before I could. Then I let Daisy out of the car, saying a silent prayer that Nox was sitting right on his father’s grave, again.
My kid.
When in the fuck had I started to think of Nox as mine? The answer, though, had always been there. Racing through the cemetery to the area illuminated by the only walking path light, I thought about Nox. Picturing his smile, the way he followed me around the house, and the way he insisted on doing everything for himself.
“I’m gonna find him.”
I didn’t know who I was trying to convince because Daisy ignored me completely. But I repeated those words like a mantra.
When Daisy didn’t alert, when she didn’t even move from her spot at my side while we practically ran through the cemetery, I broke. A single, solitary sob escaped, and I thought about turning around. About going to Parker’s to start the search. But Danny’s grave lay just ahead, bare except for the flowers that Parker had brought him every week for some unknown reason.
Knowing that Nox wasn’t there, I still approached and searched the area. Just in case Daisy was wrong. I should have known she wasn’t, though. There wasn’t anything out of place, not a single sign of Nox being there at all. In fact, other than the new headstone and grave in the empty space that sat next to Danny’s, there wasn’t a single thing out of place.
“You fucked up, Danny.” I stared down at his name and date of death, wishing that he were here so I could beat the shit out of him. “The minute you hurt her and took something that didn’t belong to you.” I wanted to spit on Danny’s grave for the pain he caused Parker, the pain he’d caused all of us. For the lives he’d almost ruined. “Nox is missing; otherwise, we’d be having words.”
I turned my back on his grave and walked away without another word. When Daisy stopped to squat on his grave to relieve herself, I think Danny pretty much deserved it. He deserved that and so much more for what he’d done.
Forgoing the radio in my cruiser, I picked up my phone and called into dispatch. This time Teri answered on the first ring.
“Is he there?” Her worry was palpable, and it actually hurt me to give her the update.
“No.” The admission burned.
“Fuck.” Teri started typing in the background. “I’ve updated the CAD, and I’ll let the others know.”
“I’m heading to the house now.” This time, I hung up, and then dialed Parker’s phone.
“Remy?” She hesitated, hope and fear stretching between us for a millisecond.
“He’s not here.” I kept my eyes on the road, rather than on my phone where I wanted them to be, while I waited for her answer.
“He’s not here, either.” She sobbed. “Please, Remy. Help me find him.”
I didn’t hang up even though I’d pulled up to the house. I could already see her there, in the front yard, clutching Linc’s arm in the early morning light, and I just about lost it.
“We’re going to find him,” I reassured her through the phone and watched her face as she heard my words.
The way her eyes sought mine out, across the yard, through the window, ignoring every other person there.
I hung up and got out of the car after grabbing my gun, badge, and a few other things I’d usually have on my utility belt including a flashlight. As soon as I was out the door, I found myself flanked by my father and Parker’s uncle as I let Daisy out of the back.