Page 11

Chapter Eleven

“S o that’s a picture of a real alien? Is that where we’re going with this?”

“We don’t know if it’s a real alien, but look at fucking Hank. Either way, Wings took this picture and the whiteboard she attached it to has nothing else but a land survey of the site in Roswell, where alien debris was allegedly found. But if she was into the Roswell shit, why does she have a picture of an alleged alien from the school, and how the fuck was she connecting all this?”

I stared at the picture of the alien, its shiny globe-like eyes and distorted skull blurry, but still very much resembling an alien as we’ve come to know them in media and movies.

Marty raised both her hands. “Okay, let’s take inventory of what we have so far. It might not be much, but we need some clarity. The timeline for Neerie on the day she disappeared is this: She took Tamlin to school. According to the camera footage Tottington watched, she arrived back at home just before eight-thirty in the morning. She never left until it was time for her to pick up Tamlin at school at three in the afternoon. She came back home, sans Tamlin, about six, a little after the time Naida said she dropped her off at her house, left again and never came back home after that.”

Scratching my head, I nodded. “So she must have gone off to meet the FB group in the woods then. A dead end so far. Next, we have her text to Earl about the basement, but we have no idea what she meant or if she even meant to send it to Earl at all. Melba thinks the text was meant for someone else entirely.”

Nina rolled her tongue along the inside of her cheek. “Yep. And BTdubs, Melba was at a pottery class until eleven o’clock with her husband. They went home after the class and went to bed. But she claims Neerie is alive, wherever she is. I guess we have to lean toward that being fucking true, because she did see the text to Earl in said vision. There’s no other way she could have seen it.”

“Though, wait. We still have Neerie’s ex-husband Will to talk to. He did threaten her if she wouldn’t let him see Tamlin,” I added.

Tottington came down the stairs and cleared his throat. “However, Mr. Tempe has been in fairy prison for the last four days, madam, and remains there as we speak. Darnell did some poking about and sent me the information. He can thusly be ruled out.”

“So what else do we have?” I almost shouted, my panic beginning to take hold of my good sense. “Nothing. We have nothing . None of the mothers from the PTA had anything helpful to say, other than Neerie was, well, Neerie . Overbearing, rude and pushy. That doesn’t help us find her!”

I gripped the shoulder of the suit of armor that sat in the corner of the basement, almost digging my fingernails into it.

“Hold the phone! I mean, literally,” Marty squawked, holding up the cellphone. “Look what I found in the search history on Neerie’s phone!”

I closed my eyes and prayed it was something that would help us find her. “What is it?”

Marty licked her lips, her eyes bright with excitement. “Were you guys aware that not one, but three children have gone missing from schools for the gifted in the last four months?”

I froze in place.

“Paranormal kids?” Nina asked.

Marty chewed on the tip of her nail. “Uh-huh.”

Nina frowned, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I remember seeing something about it on the paranormal web. All kids attending paranormal schools, right?”

Sometimes, I wondered if it was such a good idea to keep our children isolated from the outside human world. I understood protecting them until they could protect themselves, especially my Sam. He is, after all, a pale green.

It’s not something we could hide or something humans wouldn’t question, or even something he wouldn’t be tortured endlessly about. We’d purposely put him in this school for that reason—with others like him.

While lots of paranormal parents chose to let their children attend human schools, and I respected that, it was a big burden to keep your true nature hidden. One we ultimately decided was an extra helping on their plates they didn’t need.

It was hard to keep the schools hidden—it took a lot of work on our part to make it happen. If outsiders asked where the children attended school, we simply told them they were home-schooled. To further keep prying eyes at bay, we had all registered as home-schooling parents.

Marty shook her head as she squinted at the phone. “Yep. All paranormal kids, attending schools for the gifted. Tina Madry in California, a werewolf. Chester Godfrey in Virginia, a vampire, and Lori Caulfield in South Carolina, a witch. All around nine or ten, the first one taken four months ago. No suspects, no leads.”

A witch, a vampire and a werewolf… “The locations are so random. So what do they all have in common?” I wondered.

“They’re all paranormal and gifted?” Marty replied. Then she frowned. “But wait! They’re all in the top one percent of children in their schools with way above-average IQs. They’re super-geniuses, according to what this one person said on the California school’s page.”

“So someone’s snatchin’ kids who are smart—to what fucking end?”

Fear trickled down my spine. “My immediate thought is the government. They took children with high IQs, and they’re all a different species…”

Was one of the missing the child who’d called out to me for help? The voice had said help us . I clenched my fingers into fists. “What if…what if one of those children was calling me for help? The voice I heard said help us!” I squeaked, my cheeks flushing hot.

Marty gripped my shoulder. “Okay, let’s slow down, Wanda. First, we need to figure out if this has anything to do with Neerie’s disappearance. It’s a bit of a leap to suggest she was looking into this simply because of her search history. Maybe she was just reading articles on the paranormal web. She could have been looking for a million things that have nothing to do with her. We don’t even know if what happened to you has anything to do with this yet. We don’t know if there’s a connection. There are no children missing at Sammy and Olivia’s school—only one adult.”

“And we don’t know where the fuck you went, or if you went anywhere at all. If you’ll damn well recall, the last time someone fucked with our heads, they made me think I was in some dark hole when I was really in an apartment. So what if that was all some illusion?”

“Okay, if that was an illusion, why does someone want me to think a child needs help? To distract me from finding Neerie?”

Both Marty and Nina remained silent for a moment until Marty said, “Good point. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Okay, so let’s go with the theory some shit’s going on at the school and Neerie was looking into it. I don’t know how the fuck it has anything to do with an alien or some cleaning supplies, but if that’s the case, does that mean the kids who disappeared are somewhere in the school, and that’s how you heard them?”

My pulse began to pound in my head. “I think she found something out that she shouldn’t have and got caught. I think someone kidnapped her. I think, while Neerie is a little left of center when it comes to conspiracies, and some of them are completely bananapants, she’s not entirely full of bunk.”

Nina scoffed with a grin. “It’s shit , Wanda. C’mon, you can say it. Neerie isn’t entirely full of shit .”

I laughed out loud, some of the tension leaving my body. “Shit. How’s that? Neerie isn’t entirely full of shit .”

Nina wiped a pretend tear from her eye. “I’m so proud of my girl. But don’t do that again. It sounds awful coming from your high-falutin’ ass. Leave the potty language to me.”

I laughed again, giving her a hug. “I love you. Thanks for always being there for me.”

Hugging me back, she winked at Marty. “See? Told ya I was her favorite, Ass -Sniffer.”

“Oh, knock it off, vampire. Get in here, Marty,” I said with more laughter, holding out an arm.

“Group hug!” Marty chirped, pushing her way between us.

For the first time, I felt a bit of hope spring up in my chest. Maybe, just maybe, we could figure this out.

* * *

Two hours later, I wasn’t so sure. We’d made calls to the parents of the missing children, hoping they’d return them if they recognized us from our OOPS escapades.

Until then, we went back over what we had. “So now we know Melba the Mystic has an alibi. I checked the pottery teacher. She said Melba is a really nice lady, but her pottery blows chunks.”

Marty lobbed a stress ball at Nina’s head. “She did not.”

Nina caught the flying object without even looking up. “She didn’t have to. Look at this damn bowl she made.” Nina turned her desktop computer to show us a lopsided bowl. “But it’s proof she was there. Solid alibi.”

I winced at the bowl and fought a comment. I’ve never tried pottery. Maybe it’s really difficult. What do I know?

“Next up, Solange. Between the hours of five and eight, she was at karate class with her son. Confirmed by the dojo. They had dinner at Susie’s Bistro, also confirmed by Susie herself—who’s lovely, by the way, and offered us a free egg sandwich. Anyway, then from eight until about midnight, she was binge-watching a Korean drama with her mother, who lives with her, and the neighbor who lives across the street, who watches with them. Solange gave me her number to call. Her name is Lucy Barrows.”

I felt a small sense of relief that neither of the women appeared to be involved. “I didn’t really think either of them had anything to do with it, but thanks for checking. I texted Principal Mathers and she directed me to the secretary, Janine Sampson, who handles all the ordering of supplies. She just sent me a text, so hang on. Let me read it.”

As I read, I paced. It helped me think.

Nina came and paced beside me. “What’d she say?”

I stopped short. “Janine confirmed she orders all of the supplies, office and cleaning, and Neerie asked her about them last week.” Holy kittens.

I texted back to ask what Neerie wanted to know about the supplies.

Marty came to look at the return text.

“Neerie wanted to know if Janine had to order extra supplies for Mr. Yannis, the janitor, and for the classrooms. She suspected someone was stealing from the supply closet. She accused him of as much, and said she was going to Principal Mathers with her suspicions.”

I scratched my head. “Why the heckle would Agnew steal paper towels in bulk?”

“Maybe it was the kid, Cooper. He’s in college, right? Maybe he needed ’em to clean up bulk puke.”

I rolled my eyes at Nina. “He’s a vampire, Nina. He doesn’t drink.”

“Forget the why, Wanda, look at the timeline. The timestamp on the alien photo is from two weeks ago. Neerie noses around, finds something out about the missing supplies, and talks to Janine Sampson a week later. Right after that, she goes missing. Are they connected? And if they are, how the fuck do cleaning supplies, an alien, and whatever the fuck happened to you , connect to missing kids and a missing Neerie? Did an alien kidnap her? And why? For that matter, are aliens even real? And still, I maintain there are no missing kids at Sam and Olivia’s school.”

“Yet,” I said. “There are no missing children yet . And Bigfoot’s real. Why wouldn’t aliens be, too?”

“Do you think Agnew or Cooper have something to do with the missing kids?” Marty asked. “I mean, who else would be stealing cleaning supplies? And if they are, why are they stealing supplies?”

I bit the inside of my lip. “I don’t know. Neerie didn’t make that connection. We’re making that connection because we have nothing else. They could be two completely unrelated things. I think we need to talk to Agnew and Cooper and see what they have to say. Maybe Neerie asked them about the missing supplies?”

“Hang on, incoming call from one of the parents on FaceTime,” Nina said.

We rushed to Nina’s computer, smoothing our hair as we pulled our office chairs to her desk. The call was from Chester Godfrey’s parents, Dinah and Gilbert Godfrey, in Virginia.

“Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey, thank you so much for taking our call. I’m Wanda Jefferson, this is Nina Statleon and Marty Flaherty. We’re investigating a missing parent at our school. We know this is an incredibly difficult call for you, but we’re hoping you can answer some questions for us?”

As I looked at Dinah’s weary face, her pale skin and the tremble of her lip, my heart clenched in my chest so tight, I wanted to keel over.

Dinah pressed her closed fist to her mouth. “We know about you from your group—OOPS, is it? Have you found something about our…our Chester?”

When her voice cracked, mine almost did, too, but I decided keeping it together was the only way I could find out if these children had anything to do with Neerie’s disappearance, and if one of them had been the child who’d called out for help.

I swallowed hard. “As of right now, we’re still investigating, so I have nothing definitive for you. We’re simply asking questions about Chester’s disappearance and hoping you can fill in some of the details.”

Gilbert, at least a head taller than his wife, bookish-looking with similar pale skin, horn-rimmed glasses and a button-up vest, cleared his throat. If he were near, I know I’d smell his anguish.

Vampires can’t cry, which I know from Nina can be incredibly frustrating, and Gilbert looked on the verge of an emotional breakdown he couldn’t set free.

Gripping Dinah’s hand, he nodded. “Please, ask us whatever you need to, if it will help your investigation. We don’t want any more parents to suffer what we have.”

Marty looked at the pad with the questions we’d written. “What are the circumstances surrounding Chester’s disappearance? Where was he when he went missing?”

Dinah’s eyes grew sad and dark. “He was at school. According to his teacher, he’d asked to go to the boys’ room. Chester is very bright, and because he’s so bright, he can become overwhelmed by too much stimulation. As you know, he doesn’t need to use the facilities, but he often asked to be excused from class to find some space—some alone time. Almost a half an hour went by, but he never returned to class.”

I inhaled as quietly as I could. It was a parent’s worst fear. “Are there no cameras in the school? I know Chester wouldn’t show up on them due to his vampiric nature, but was there anyone suspicious nearby when he went missing?”

“No one,” Gilbert said, his tone almost angry. “It’s what has us most puzzled. There was no one in the halls during the time he left the classroom. No one any…anywhere. It was as though he disappeared into thin air.”

“So maybe another vampire?” Nina wondered. “They could easily avoid detection because you can’t see us on camera.”

Dinah shook her dark head. “We thought the same, but there was no scent at all. I thought my nose might fall off from sniffing that school from top to bottom. Nothing. Just…” Her voice hitched. “ Nothing .”

“Do you know if he ever talked about anyone approaching him? Anyone who made him feel uncomfortable? Did any of his classmates ever have an encounter with someone they didn’t know, who made them feel uncomfortable?”

Gilbert’s nose flared. “Never. Not once. We talked to all of his friends, his classmates, everyone who knew him. None of his teachers had anything unusual to report. It’s almost as if…as if he never existed.” His voice broke then, almost breaking all of us, too.

“And no suspects? No one at all?” Nina asked in disbelief.

Dinah’s face became a mask of pain. “The council investigated, talked to everyone—and I do mean everyone, from teachers to crossing guards. We talked to everyone, too, and there wasn’t a trace of foul play. There was just nothing .”

I can’t say why this particular piece of whatever we were calling it had stuck to me like glue, but the school supply thing wouldn’t release me from its grip.

I fought the urge to scream, instead clenching my fists in my lap. “I know this might sound strange, Mr. Godfrey, but please indulge me. Was there ever any talk of missing school supplies at Chester’s school? Cleaning supplies? Pencils, iPads…anything at all?”

Dinah blinked, pressing her fingers to her mouth. “Coloring books!” she shouted, making me jump. “I know it sounds crazy to remember something so unimportant at a time like that, but in the midst of the search for Chester, I heard the school librarian mention the coloring books Chester favored of some anime animals had gone missing—a bunch of them, in fact.”

You see? There’s a connection. I know there is.

Hot-diggity.