Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

“I’m calling the police!” Stacy shouted into the phone. “I don’t give a shit what Gary and Brian think!”

She hung up and called 911.

Reyn arrived before the police, as did Gary. Brian elected not to join them. His phone had not rung, and he was setting up his computer to record any calls. He planned to wait by the phone in case one came in.

A single uniformed officer showed up to take the report. Gary and Reyn seemed offended that the case had been given such a low priority. They’d expected to see one of the detectives they’d dealt with before—even though it was after one o’clock in the morning—and they kept emphasizing that Joan was the student who’d been kidnapped by the cult in Texas. The policeman, Officer Garcez, assured them that the detectives would be given his report in the morning, but he seemed tired and put-out that he had to be here at all, and Joan wondered how seriously he was taking this.

Stacy was still upset, and she explained the sequence of events several times to make sure the officer understood what had happened. Joan filled in her part of the story, providing a translation of the message up to the point where she’d hung up the phone.

Reyn was the one who’d answered the call that came to his room, but he’d put it on speakerphone and Gary had confirmed that the language being spoken sounded like the same one his kidnappers had used.

Officer Garcez was taking things a little more seriously now, and he called in to a supervisor, giving a report over his two-way radio before he’d even finished writing everything down. Joan was still holding on to her bat, though she was leaning on it at the moment, treating it more like a cane.

They all heard the supervisor’s reply, although Garcez acted as though they hadn’t. “We’re going to look into the cult connection,” he told them. “We have your phone numbers and we know where to reach you. If we need additional information, we’ll be in touch, and if you see, hear or experience anything else unusual, call and let us know.” He finished writing on his pad, then closed it, obviously preparing to leave.

“That’s it?” Stacy said incredulously. “You’re not going to station someone outside our door or have someone watch the building?”

The officer allowed himself a small smile. “It was a phone call,” he said. “Do you know how many times a night people report obscene phone calls?”

“They weren’t obscene phone calls,” she reminded him. “They were threats. From people the police are looking for. Fugitives. And they’re part of a pattern.”

“We’ll check into it,” he said in a voice that was probably meant to be reassuring but that just sounded patronizing. “Lock your doors, don’t let anyone in you don’t recognize, and if you receive any other calls, let us know.”

“Can’t you put some kind of device on the phone?” Reyn asked. “To trace incoming calls?”

“No,” the officer said simply. He was already making his way toward the door, and it was clear that he didn’t want to be here.

Joan put a comforting arm around Stacy’s shoulder, still holding on to the bat with her other hand. She was glad Gary had given her the weapon because she felt much more secure with it in her possession, and in her mind she saw Father coming over, forcing his way into the room, and herself using the bat to bash in his head, swinging it like a baseball player until his head was nothing more than a bloody pulp and he was dead.

She could do it, Joan thought, and the realization scared her.

“So what do we do now?” Stacy wondered aloud as soon as the cop had left and the door closed behind him.

“I’ll stay here with you,” Reyn offered. “You and Joan take my room,” he told Gary.

Stacy was already shaking her head. “No way. I’m not staying here.”

“Then we’ll switch—”

“I’m not staying here, either,” Joan said.

“Then we’ll all sleep in my room,” Reyn told them, “although God knows where everyone will fit.” He looked toward Stacy and Joan. “And don’t forget: They know where I live, too. I got a phone call also.”

“There’s safety in numbers,” Stacy said, and Joan had to agree.

Reyn nodded. “All right, then. Get what you need and let’s go. It’s late, I’m tired and I have an early class in the morning.”

Joan gathered her toothbrush and hairbrush from the bathroom, putting them back into her suitcase along with her clothes. She picked up her suitcase in one hand, her baseball bat in the other.

Father was just trying to scare them, she told herself again. Soften them up before making an actual assault. They still had some time.

But she didn’t relax until they’d walked to Reyn’s dorm and were in his room, with the door closed and locked behind them.

This time, Gary was awakened by sirens.

Reyn was already up and peering out the window, his face illuminated by pulsing flashes of red light. “What’s going on?” Gary asked, sitting up. Beneath the oscillation of the sirens, he heard the faint, constant cry of a far-off alarm.

“I think it’s your dorm,” Reyn said, and his voice was so calm and matter-of-fact that for a moment the meaning of his words didn’t register.

Joan and Stacy, on the bed, were still sleeping, and Gary looked over at Reyn’s alarm clock. Three fifteen. They’d been asleep for less than an hour. He’d thought the commotion of the phone calls and the cops would be enough turmoil for one night.

He suddenly realized what Reyn had said. “My dorm?” Gary crawled out of his sleeping bag and looked with his friend out the window. Sure enough, a fire truck with extended ladder was parked two buildings over, where smoke could be seen billowing upward through several open windows, illuminated from within by yellow-orange flames.

Gary stumbled, reaching for his shirt. He bumped into the bed, and Stacy, instantly awake, said in a panicked voice, “What is it?”

Reyn answered. “It looks like there’s a fire in Gary’s dorm.”

Stacy immediately flipped on the light. Gary found his socks and shoes and started putting them on. Within seconds, everyone was getting dressed and ready to go out. Moments later, the four of them were hurrying through the empty hall and down the stairs. Ignoring the walkway, they made a beeline across the lawn toward the fire engines with their flashing red lights. There were several trucks in front of the building now, but the sirens were off, Gary noticed. And the alarm was silent. The scene before them seemed anomalous without those sounds, deprived of the noise that gave it context, and the sound track of quiet murmuring that accompanied the garish visual made it all feel very surreal.

All of the residents of the dorm were outside, on the sidewalk, on the grass, in the parking lot, many in their bare feet or only partially dressed. Thick black-gray smoke was pouring from the front-facing windows, streaming upward into the sky, and heat from the fire had blown out the glass. Shards glittered on the ground in front of the building, crunching under the boots of the firemen walking in and out. Occasional flames were still visible from one of the upper windows, though the fire seemed for the most part to have been extinguished.

Looking up at the dormitory, Gary didn’t have to be told.

The fire had started in his room.

He glanced around and saw his neighbors, Matt and Greg, standing next to a light pole, both of them wearing nothing but pajama bottoms and holding on to laptops as though someone might try to snatch the devices from their hands. “Hey,” he said, walking up to them. “What happened?”

“Dude!” Greg said. “Where’ve you been? We were pounding the shit out of your door trying to get you out of there! We thought you burned up!”