Chapter 3
The agents stayed with me for three more days before they gave up. Emily hugged me as she left, “We’ll find them.”
Rick Travers, the male FBI agent, added, “We’ll find out what happened.” I could see in both their eyes though, that they feared they were now investigating a double murder.
I thanked them and watched as they drove away. I sank to the living room floor. What would I do now? My mother had returned home for a few days. The house was eerily silent.
I picked up a vase of flowers and hurled it forcefully against the wall. The pottery splintered into pieces and left a deep gash in the drywall. I screamed at the top of my lungs until I was breathless. Why? Why had this happened? It was senseless. No one had ever called to demand a ransom. Nothing had been taken from the house or garage.
The few calls to police claiming they’d seen Chris or Daniel had turned up nothing. Each time, when they’d been investigated further, it turned out it wasn’t either one of them.
There had to be a motive. I wouldn’t allow myself to think it had been a random crime of opportunity and that the two people I loved most in the world were already lying dead somewhere.
I looked at the laptop lying on the coffee table. The FBI had already been through it but was it possible there was something on it only I would notice was odd? I flipped it open and started reading.
My stomach grumbled and I looked up bleary eyed. It was dark outside. I rubbed my eyes. How long had I been looking through the computer? I glanced down at the time on the screen. 2 a.m. I felt jittery. I hadn’t found a thing so far. I saw a loaf of bread lying on the kitchen counter from where I sat on the sofa.
I got up from the couch, grabbed a couple of slices and a glass of water. I crammed them in my mouth as I continued to flip through the cookies and history on the machine. My eyes started to glaze but I didn’t care. I continued to read.
I started and awoke with a small jump. The sun was blazing through the living room windows. I glanced at the clock on the wall, fifteen minutes after noon. I didn’t remember falling asleep. I’d been at my search all night and I hadn’t seen anything that I thought might remotely be connected to Chris’ disappearance.
There was still an office and a safe to go through. I might as well get started I thought, still in a state of jerky frenzy. I walked into the kitchen and threw a heap of instant coffee into lukewarm water from the tap. The coffee was very old. I usually would have never touched the stuff. I wasn’t even sure where the jar had come from. I didn’t care that it tasted like old shoe polish. I downed it in two gulps and headed to the office.
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The banging finally penetrated through to my brain. I blinked. Someone was beating down my front door. I was startled out of my trance. Was someone trying to break in?
My heart slammed into my throat as I softly crept down the hallway into the kitchen. A bead of nervous sweat trickled down my back. I pulled a large knife from the wooden block and held it tightly in my hand. Then I heard the door squeak as it opened. I grasped the knife and held my breath. Had they finally come back for me?
Sydney Lawrence 