Page 20 of Beauty and the Nerd

Ben sat up in bed, grabbing his cell phone as the ringtone blared in the silence.

The message from Emma sent his heart racing and he threw the covers off as he sent her a message back checking to see if she’d called the cops.

Her reply that she was on the phone with the alarm company, and they were alerting them calmed him enough so he could grab a pair of sweats and his sneakers.

He wasn’t about to go back to sleep when she was home alone with the security alarm going off.

He slid a t-shirt on as his bedroom door opened and found his mom there tying her robe.

“Ben, it’s four o’clock in the morning,” she said as his dad came up behind her yawning. “Turn that off before you wake your brother and sister,” she added as a new message came through from Emma.

“Why are you dressed?” his dad asked as Adam’s door popped open, apparently already having heard the noise.

“It’s Emma,” he said making his mom let out a little huff of irritation telling him she still didn’t like that she was in his life, angering him fully.

“That’s too bad, go back to bed,” she said reaching for his phone.

“Don’t,” Ben said as another message came through. He saw the note about the house phone dying and he stuffed his feet into his shoes trying to remember where his keys were.

“Tell her it’s four a.m. and that you can’t talk to her and certainly aren’t going anywhere at this time of night,” Tara stated angrily. “There is no reason for her to be disturbing you at this time of night.”

“What’s going on Ben?” Simon asked as he spotted his keys making a dive for them.

“The security system at her house went off. It’s four a.m., she’s home alone, and she just said the house phone went dead.

She was on with the alarm company that was calling the police to come check, but I can’t wait, okay?

” he said, moving towards the door to get to her.

“I’m not going to be able to get any sleep until I know she’s alright.

Her parents won’t be able to get here for hours to check on her, and she has no other family in town.

What am I supposed to do, just sit here think good thoughts that someone didn’t actually break in while her bedroom door is rattling?

Hope for the best when I know Carter’s still pissed at her about things? ”

“Let me get dressed,” Simon said taking the keys from his hands. “You’re not driving there upset right now,” he stated, stopping his argument as well as Tara’s giving her a long look. “If it was Daphne home alone and we weren’t here, what would you want?”

“Fine, let me know everything’s okay,” she said ushering Adam and Daphne back to bed as Simon went to quickly dress.

Ben sent a text back to Emma and let out a breath of relief that she was on the phone with the police dispatcher but the news that someone was in the house worried him immensely as he slipped into the car.

He told her everything would be okay but part of him worried it wouldn’t be, and he didn’t argue as his dad drove faster than the speed limit trying to get them there as he waited for a reply from Emma to his last message.

He didn’t get one as they reached the halfway point of the drive and sent her another, needing to know if she was okay, even just a quick ‘yes’ or ‘still on the phone’ to know for sure.

He’d never forgive himself if she weren’t.

Ninety-nine percent of him hadn’t wanted to leave tonight.

Wanted to forget that he’d told his mother he’d be home at a decent time and claim they fell asleep watching a movie.

The only reason he hadn’t was because he didn’t want issues for when they went to New York.

Now, none of that would matter if something had happened to her.

He kept checking his phone for a reply, any reply from her, and he noticed the messages didn’t show delivered the way it normally did and tried to resend them.

They still didn’t show, and he tapped the phone against the armrest until they reached the end of her street seeing a group of police cars in front of the house along with a fire truck.

His dad stopped as close as possible and he jumped out of the car before his dad could even put it in park, moving towards the front to see what was going on with her.

“Stop right there,” a police officer said grabbing him.

“Where’s Emma?” he questioned, gaining the attention of another officer. He recognized him from the hospital when Emma told them what happened the night of the accident. “Where is she?”

“What are you doing here son?” Jeffery asked as Simon came up behind him. He waved off the other officers as Ben handed over his phone to show the man the messages.

“Where’s Emma?” Ben asked again, looking towards the house.

“She was on the phone with the dispatcher; the first squad went into the house finding the front door open, to clear it while the backup was still on its way here. The last thing Emma told him was she’d put a flashlight in the window, so our guys could tell where she was without alerting whoever was in the house to her location.

He was trying to get information from the first team, but they didn’t answer.

The second team went it, said there was a strange odor and started to back out of the house.

He asked Emma if she was okay but there was no response.

That’s when the line went dead,” he admitted needing to know anything that Ben might be aware of that was happening inside the house.

“Her phone automatically connects to the wi-fi so even if cell service was down and she didn’t have wi-fi calling on, she’d still be able to text me, get my messages but these aren’t showing delivered,” Ben said rechecking his phone.

“It’s still up,” he added seeing that his phone was connected to it and the new email that’d arrived in his account just a minute ago, “which means the only other explanation is that the battery died or it’s off.

I left at one-thirty this morning and her phone was on the charger.

It wouldn’t die with the little bit it’d take for texting me and calling someone on it. ”

“Which isn’t comforting,” Jeffery said seeing worry mount in the kid’s eyes. “Is there anyone who might be targeting Emma, use this break-in to their advantage?”

“Not that’d be smart enough to take out two cops,” he said shaking his head no. “The only person I could see trying to actually hurt her is Carter.”

“It’s actually four officers,” Jeffery said running a hand down his face. “Do you know her parents’ cell phone numbers? We only have their home number and Emma’s cell number from the report filed against Carter. The alarm company doesn’t show them on record either, just the home number.”

“I have them,” Ben said pulling the information up on his phone, passing it along to the man who gave it to another person to contact them. “What do you mean it’s four cops?”

“Our dispatcher couldn’t get an answer from anyone and when we arrived, the house was locked up, the cars in the drive, and no signs of anyone out here,” Jeffery answered. “We don’t know what’s going on in the house right now and we don’t know where Emma is.”

“You said she was in the bathroom, I’d say she meant hers?” Ben asked, and he nodded.

“There was no light shining in any of the windows for us to be able to figure out which it was in order to try to safely reach her,” he said as Ben looked up at the house.

“Her bedroom is those two there,” Ben said moving slightly to the side to show the group which he meant. “Her bathroom is the front one there.”

“The small one that doesn’t open?” the fire chief asked, and Ben nodded.

“There’s no way through that one, we’d have to go in through the bedroom window and if she’s locked herself in the bathroom, we won’t know the level of effort it will take to get to her without alerting whoever else is in the house to our presence there. ”

“She has a spare key to the bathroom in her desk drawer,” Ben said stopping them as they went to check on their options. “It’s taped to the bottom of the right-hand side top drawer. If you pull out the second drawer down, you’ll be able to find it.”

“How do you know that?” Simon asked, shaking his head at his son.

“Emma and I talk, a lot, about anything and everything,” he said as his dad patted his shoulder seeing the worry in his eyes growing.

“You won’t be able to get through the first window closest to the tree though,” he added as the men began to map out how to get someone into the house to find Emma safely.

“Her dad painted it shut and put a half-sized bookshelf in front of it after some guy tried to climb the tree to get her to go out with him. The other one is a double-hung type.”

“Then that will have to be our entry point,” the fire chief said, and Ben stood back watching as they moved to the side of the house as quietly as possible.

His heart raced watching one of the men climb the ladder, using a special tool to get the window open without breaking it and as smoke billowed out the window his heart stopped as panic wracked his body.

“We don’t detect any heat signature from a fire in the room. Whatever it is isn’t reading as toxic,” came over the radio Jeffery held.

“Copy that. Get the gas masks, it’s likely knock-out gas or something similar,” Jeffery told the officers waiting for the go for entry. “It’d explain why we couldn’t get in touch with any of the officers.”

“But not about Emma’s phone not working,” Ben said as the first person moved into the bedroom.

“No sign of additional smoke or heat from a fire around the door to the hallway,” he heard through the radio but all he cared about was Emma.

“Have the key and it looks like the bedroom door is still locked,” another said as his dad tightened his hold on his shoulder.

It seemed like an eternity before they said anything else, and his hands tightened into fists trying to stop himself from rushing over to the ladder.