Brian and Marissa had told everyone they were taking Mason to Florida for his birthday.
It was supposed to be a simple family trip.
Mason got his birthday away from home, Lily rested with her aunt, and everyone came back Sunday.
That was the version I had been given.
So I asked the obvious question.
“Where’s your mom? Where’s Brian?”
Lily stopped talking.
That silence frightened me more than if she had started crying.
Finally she said, “They left.”
I was already getting out of bed.
I pulled on jeans with one hand while keeping the phone pressed to my ear with the other.
“Are the doors locked?”
“I don’t know. My head hurts. The kitchen light is on.”
Her words were slow, as if even forming them required effort.
I told her to stay with me.
She whispered that she was scared.
“I’m coming,” I said.
There are promises you make because they are comforting.
There are others your body begins keeping before your mouth has finished saying them.
I was out the door almost immediately.
Brian’s subdivision normally took about fourteen minutes from my house.
I don’t remember much of the drive in order, but I remember the dashboard reading 2:06 a.m. when I turned onto his street.
I remember my fingers aching from how tightly I held the steering wheel.
I remember repeatedly checking that Lily was still connected to the call.
And I remember speaking to Carol under my breath.
Not praying exactly.
Not expecting an answer.
Just saying her name because she had always been the person who could hear danger inside an ordinary sentence before anyone else did.
The street looked almost insultingly normal when I arrived.
Dark windows.
Parked cars.
Quiet driveways.
Brian’s driveway was empty.
No SUV.
No luggage stacked near the garage.
No sign that two adults had simply run out for something and intended to return in a few minutes.
I got out and went to the emergency key hidden near the porch.
Brian had shown me the spot years earlier for exactly the kind of boring family problem everyone expects emergency keys to solve: a lockout, a lost key, a kid coming home early.
Not this.
I pushed the door open and immediately smelled something sweet and medicinal.
Cough syrup was the first thing that came to mind, mixed with stale warm air that made the whole hallway feel closed up.
