“Done!” he says, standing from his desk and walking toward mine. “Do you want to check? I’m pretty sure I got them all right. Math is so easy.”
I give him a questioning look, because those are never words I thought I’d hear from him. “Math is easy? Since when? Last week math was, if I remember correctly, the worst thing ever invented.”
Anthony lets out an exasperated sigh. Because you know, ten-year-olds are so smart. “That was last week, Miss Blackstone. Keep up. Plus, I’m getting older. Which means I’m getting smarter.”
I laugh at his words, but they also make me a little sad. He is growing up. He’s no longer my little protector in kindergarten.
“Are you still going to come and do your homework with me next year even when you move up to middle school?”
“Of course. You’d miss me too much.”
I give his hair a ruffle and give him back his perfect homework. “Grab your things. Your mom will be here soon.”
As soon as I say the words, a sense of dread goes through me. I honestly want to believe that my mom wouldn’t hurt a child, then again, I wanted to believe she would choose me over the boyfriend who got her hooked on drugs, so what do I know?
I gather my things and stick my phone in my back pocket as Anthony and I walk out of my classroom when it hits me that I have to use the restroom.
I debate for a second. I could wait until I get home, but that’s at least a half hour and I don’t think that’s going to work. And Anthony’s mom is always on a tight schedule because of her second job, so I don’t want her to be late.
“Hey, Ben, I’m going to use the restroom real quick. I’ll meet you guys outside.”
I can tell from the look on his face that he’s not too happy with this plan. “We’ll wait for you.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I’ll be out in two minutes. Go ahead and check the bathroom first to make sure it’s OK.” No sense making his mom wait because of me.
Ben checks the hallways again before moving into the bathroom. “It’s clear. Come right out when you are done.”
I give him a mock salute. “I’ll make sure to report to the door that’s ten feet away as soon as my mission is complete.”
He and Anthony head outside and I quickly go into the teacher’s restroom to take care of business. Just as promised, I’m quick, exit the bathroom, and turn toward the exit. I don’t even make it two steps when I feel something pressed against my back.
“It’s about time that guard left you alone.”
I don’t recognize the male voice that is whispering in my ear. He reeks of cigarettes and body odor, and I nearly gag when I get a whiff of him.
“What do you want?” my words coming out more afraid than I’d like.
“Your mama needs to talk to you.”
“Please don’t hurt Anthony. I’ll go. Leave him alone.”
The man turns me away from the exit that Ben and Anthony used and pushes me toward another one down the hall, an object still pressed against my back.
“I’m not going to hurt him. As long as you do everything we say.”
We make it to the other exit, and the car I saw my mom get into at the clinic is parked across the street, far away from any security cameras. She gets out of the driver’s seat and opens the back door, allowing the man, whose face I still haven’t seen, to push me in. He follows, taking the gun that had just been against my back and presses it to my side.
“Did you forget about me?” Mama asks as she gets back into the car. “I thought you would have called by now.”
“Must have missed that part of the conversation.”
“I see that smart mouth of yours hasn’t changed,” the man says from next to me. He seems so familiar, but I can’t place him. He obviously knows me. “You have grown up, haven’t you?”
Bile rises to my throat and it takes all I have not to vomit from his smell, and his words. “What do you want?”
“I told you,” my mom begins, handing the man a needle before driving away from the school. “Money, which you have plenty of. Living in that nice house and shacking up with that doctor. I think it’s long past time that you pay me back.”
“Pay you back? For what? I don’t owe you anything. You have to be crazy if you think—”
I feel the needle go into my leg, but it’s not like I could do anything about it. And though I try to fight it, I can’t. And soon, all I see is black.
Garrett
“Where the fuck is she?”
“You need to calm down, Garrett. We are working on it.”
“Well, work fucking harder!”
I know I shouldn’t be yelling at my brother, but I don’t know what else to do. Since Ben realized that Paige was gone, they have dropped everything to try to locate her. They were able to track her for a while; they were guessing she was in a car driving toward the outskirts of town, then the tracker on her phone that Mark installed went dead.
That was yesterday afternoon. She’s now been missing for eighteen hours.
“Do we know this is the mom?” Mark asks, trying to make sense of the little we know. “We can’t make out the person leading Paige out of the school.”
“I don’t know who else it would be,” I say, wracking my brain, trying to remember any detail she told me. I’ve already told them everything I could. “She said her mom was at the physicals a few weeks ago. If she’s made contact with her again, she hasn’t told me.”
“No way a drugged-out mom could kidnap her and keep her hostage this long all by herself,” Ben adds. “Plus, she wouldn’t have had time to tie Paige up or drug her before driving away. It was barely five minutes when I realized she was gone and there was no sight of them. There had to be a partner. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Paige said that her mom always had a new boyfriend, the next one always worse than the last,” I say.
“If she stayed using all these years, it wouldn’t be a far stretch to say it’s her dealer,” Ben adds.
Mark lets out a sigh. “And if it’s her dealer, he’s probably stoned as well, and probably more unhinged. And if pushed, he’ll have no problem leaving Paige for dead.”
I slam my fists against the table at Cole Security Forces, where we’ve been set up since yesterday. Charlie stayed at home with the kids, and Cassie is at Paige’s house in case she comes back.
So far it’s been radio silence.
“We have to find her, Mark. I can’t lose her.”
“You’re not, brother. Not if I can help it.”
We continue to pore over security footage and phone records, anything we can think of to try and figure out where Paige could be. Unfortunately, looking up Naomi Blackstone didn’t lead anywhere. She doesn’t have any credit cards, has barely held down jobs, and has been off the grid for at least a year. The last thing we can find on her was a minor drug conviction when she served six months.
Since then it’s like she’s vanished.
The sound of my cell phone shakes me, and I scramble to hold it when I see Paige’s face on my screen and a request to FaceTime.