If I Go Missing

by Leslie Wolfe

How could we be over, when a part of him was growing inside me?

If she knows Taylor is my daughter, she must know Ray is her father.

Just like eleven years ago, the tendrils of Chloe’s manipulations clutch me in their grip, suffocating me, sending me into a state of sheer panic.

Although I like to think I never twisted the facts; just my emotional responses to them.

why she pretended to be my friend.

But now, I don’t even have the legal right to call Fernandez and ask him why the hell he’s not finding my little girl.

Because I can’t bring myself to get pregnant again, to carry a growing life inside me, knowing I’d be desperately afraid I might somehow lose another baby.

My life resembles a kintsugi bowl, built from the shards of a once perfectly fine existence, only the lacquer holding the pieces together is not powdered with gold dust, but with tears and resilience and courage.

“We’re suspects, Alana. We are officially suspects in her kidnapping.”

The truth swirls in my head, a yarn of multicolored threads, each in itself a possibility. Taylor. Nikki’s death and that threatening letter. Ray and his unsettling interest in me. Then Chloe’s name comes to mind, the one truthful answer that rises above the rest, while the lie I told still echoes in the grim silence of Daniel’s disbelief. Where the hell are you, Chloe?

“Don’t make me testify in front of a jury that you had it coming.”

Ignorance is bliss for a reason.

The truth will prevail at some point, as scary as it is for me to admit that, and they’ll leave him and his diner alone. He didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is about him.

He’s got a daughter. My husband, Ray, has a child. With her. With Alana, the bane of my existence, the ghost who keeps on haunting me and will haunt me until the day I die.

If she was so desperate to keep Ray away from me, if she hated me so much, why did she move next door?

Mr. Avery, however, is visibly distraught, his face stubbly and drawn, his eyes marked by dark circles, his almost entirely white hair in disarray. His shirt and slacks look slept in, but he doesn’t seem to have caught a wink of rest since Chloe vanished.

“I’m charging you with Taylor’s kidnapping. I don’t care that you have an alibi. You could’ve paid someone to take her.”

My life is over.

Feeling horribly powerless when my entire life is unraveling is frightening, paralyzing even.

Only Daniel and Jason? Whose truck is it, then? Jason drives a brand-new blue Mazda.

He unlocks the truck, then hops behind the wheel and drives off. I’m speechless. Jason? Why?

Lying has become so easy for me, it’s uncanny.

Unlike her, however, I’m not confused. I know for sure I didn’t kill Nikki, nor did I dare her to stand close to the edge of the cliff.

She tried to control everything, came to school much too often.”

She had to approve everything her son did, his playmates, his curriculum.

Three girls died in freak accidents, while there were other people present. Only it can’t be.

why does Chloe want to frame me for murder? I believe I might know the answer to that.

He’s withdrawn and quiet, monosyllabic with me.

little girl starts whimpering.

“You’re already getting paid. That’s the deal.”

That money doesn’t cover the arson, keeping this girl for days while the entire FBI is looking for me. It doesn’t cover any of this! My life is over, don’t you get it?”

So, nope, half a mil ain’t cutting it no more, when I’m supposed to live the rest of my life holed up in places like this.”

Daniel seemed so gentle and accommodating, she didn’t expect his brother to have such grit.

Most of all, the fear that she ruined her life for nothing.

There’s a flicker of rage in his eyes, of insanity, that puts a chill down Chloe’s spine. The man is mere seconds away from killing her.

“Ms. Blake!” Taylor rushes to me and I kneel on the floor with my arms wide open. She crashes against my chest, crying tears of joy. “You came to take me home.”

I glare at her. She destroyed my brother-in-law’s future, just because it served her purpose.

That day on the café patio, when I said goodbye, I saved myself, even if I thought it was going to kill me. Stella’s fingerprints are all over Ray’s murderous psychology. She probably fueled his obsession with concepts of love earned and defended and protected, to secure his loyalty during the prolonged custody battle. Unforgivable.