Anna J. - Gone In The Night

All three girls nodded.

“It would help if you could tell me everything you did. What time you all arrived,” Allie said, nudging the conversation where she needed it to go.

“Around five,” Mercy said. “Hope was late, but that’s because she’d gone to the movies with her uncle before he dropped her off. He stayed for a little while, talked to Mr. and Mrs. V. and then we had pizza for dinner.”

“We don’t order pizza very often. Mom doesn’t think it’s good for us,” Willa interrupted. “But it was for my birthday, so she made an exception.”

“Did it have mushrooms on it?” Allie asked in almost a whisper. “My friend Eden hates, and I mean hates, mushrooms. And you know what? Whenever we order it, we make sure to order with mushrooms. Just so we can watch her pick them off.”

Willa and Mercy both laughed a little. “I don’t like peppers,” Mercy said with a watery smile.

“Vegetables on your pizza means it’s healthy.” Portia’s eyes filled. “That’s what Hope always says.”

Simone said the same thing. “I bet you watched a movie.”

“That one where the girls go chasing ghosts with lasers and stuff,” Mercy said as Willa sniffled. “Mr. V. fixed up the tent over by the trees so we could feel like it was a real campout. Her mom made us s’mores in foil for dessert.”

“Campout?” Allie’s heart stuttered to a stop. “You slept outside last night?”

“Uh-huh.” Mercy nodded. “We thought it would be fun and different. Mr. V. even went out and got us a tent—”

“This was a last-minute decision?” Allie’s thoughts threatened to race, but she pulled back, tried to distance herself. “What made you think of that?”

The three girls glanced uneasily at each other. Finally, Willa shrugged. “We all agreed, but it was Hope’s idea. She said she’d seen something about it online and that it sounded fun.”

“It was fun,” Portia whispered. “Until it wasn’t.” Willa and Mercy nodded, but Portia’s big brown eyes shifted to the floor.

“What is it, Portia?” Allie leaned forward, letting the other two girls take a bit of a lead. “I promise, anything you say here, none of us will be mad. We all just want to make sure Hope is found safe. Okay?”

Portia didn’t look convinced.

“Por.” Willa reached across Mercy’s lap and held out her hand. That Portia immediately grabbed hold conveyed the strength of friendship among these girls. “What’s wrong?”

Portia’s chin wobbled. “I heard Hope get up. I should have gone with her, but I didn’t want to. It was cold.” The last few words came out in a sob. “I’m so sorry! I should have been her friend and now she’s missing and it’s all my fault.” Tears spilled down her cheeks as Willa tugged on Portia’s hand. Mercy moved to the side as they settled Portia between them, hugging their arms around her.

“I didn’t hear her.” The alarm in Mercy’s wide eyes told Allie she wished she had.

“That’s because you were snoring,” Willa said.

“I do not snore!” Mercy countered and brought a trembling smile to Portia’s face; the goal, Allie realized when she caught a silent exchange between Willa and Mercy.

Allie barely heard them over the roaring in her head. For the first time in as long as Allie could remember, the security she found in her clinical world crumbled. She clenched her fists to cling to the trained detachment that allowed her to do her job. Words that should help them seemed to have gotten trapped somewhere between now and twenty years ago when another nine-year-old had disappeared. During another birthday campout.

Chloe.

Allie squeezed her eyes shut, snapping them open again when she heard Willa speak.

“None of this is your fault, Portia.” Willa hugged her friend close. “We should have all gone, just as we promised.” Willa turned pleading eyes on Allie with a pained expression that might haunt Allie for the rest of her days. “We made a pact when we first met. We’re sisters. Where one goes, we all go. Except we didn’t. And now one of us is gone.”

Allie stared at the three of them, huddled so closely together she couldn’t determine where one ended and another began. Her own arms ached from her tightened fists. Her throat burned from trying to swallow. Her skin had gone icy, as if she wasn’t ever going to be warm again, and yet part of her, the tiniest part, clung to the thin thread of hope that this situation wasn’t what it seemed to be.

“Are you all right, Dr. Hollister? Allie?” Mercy asked as Allie rose to her feet and walked to the French doors.

Allie heard her as if from a vast distance. “I’m going to go see where you all were sleeping last night. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She pulled open the door, stepped out onto the patio and walked quickly around the pool. She could hear the girls calling her from inside the house, but she didn’t stop. Not as she hopped over the low-lying bushes. Not as she slipped and slid her way down the slight hill to the clearing ahead. She could see the outline of the red-and-blue tent situated beneath an outcropping of healthy pine and willow trees.

Her breathing came in short bursts, as if she had to remember to inhale. The brisk morning air felt tainted with gloom, the heaviness pressing down on her as she kept her eyes pinned on the tent, resisted the pull into the past. She started to run, as if she could leave the memories, the sensation of panic behind. But she knew the emotions had settled inside her chest another early morning twenty years ago.

She skidded to a stop at the edge of their campsite, her toes damp from the early-morning moisture. Four cloth folding chairs, water bottles stored in holders, the gooey remnants of the foil-wrapped s’mores lay amid wadded-up sleeping bags peeking out from the zippered tent flap.

An odd keening erupted into the air and only as Allie turned in a slow circle, did she realize the sound came from her. She covered her mouth. Haunting little-girl whispers and giggles echoed through time and sent chills racing down her spine. “Not again. Oh, God, please, not again.” She bent double, her stomach rolling as she dropped down to the ground. “This can’t be happening.” The date. What was the date?

“Dr. Hollister!” Deputy Sutherland, along with a handful of deputies, followed the same path she’d taken moments before. “Dr. Hollister, are you all right?” He hurried over and grabbed her by the arms to haul her to her feet.

“No.” His demanding question pierced the fog in her brain. Now wasn’t the time to break down. Now wasn’t the time to lose control. She needed to get a hold of herself. Disconnect. Separate herself from the nightmare unfolding around her. Hope, she told herself. Hope was all that mattered. And yet... “Is there any sign of Hope?”

“No, ma’am.” An officer who introduced himself as Deputy Fletcher shook his head. “We’re about to expand the search. My officers already went through this area—”

“She won’t be here.” Allie shook her head and only then did she see the concern on the older deputy’s face. “She’s gone.”

“Gone? You mean you think she went down to the river?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” She took a step back, focused on the tent.

And the solitary plant situated on the ground.

Violets.

Allie walked forward, knees wobbling. Every impulse coursing through her urged her to discount the pot and spilling flowers. A coincidence, she told herself, but as she, Eden and Simone had learned in the last few months, there were no coincidences.

She took a shaky step forward and then another.

Every cell in Allie’s body screamed out as she remembered that night, the following days before their friend’s strangled body had been found.