Chapter Twenty-Six

In Which Things Fall Apart

About an hour into the two-hour trip, Elisa got a phone call. It wasn’t Julieta again, or, as she hoped, Lucia. It was Willow.

Willow began talking as soon as she picked up.

“Darcy told me the situation,” she said. “I’m driving over to Daytona Beach from Miami. I doubt Wick is still there, but it’s something.”

“You don’t have to,” she said.

“Yes, I do. You’re my friend.”

“Thank you, Willow.” She sighed, rubbing her eyes. “Sh-she’s probably not hurt, is she? I mean—I mean, physically hurt. Wick wouldn’t…?”

“I don’t think he’d kill her, if that’s what you mean.”

Elisa was torn between appreciating how direct she was and breaking down sobbing at the very idea. “She’s only been gone for five hours now. That’s…”

“That means we still have plenty of chances to find her,” Willow said. “Okay, I’m about to get on the highway, so I should probably hang up. I’m headed for Daytona Beach until I hear something that tells me I should go someplace else. If there’s any place down south you think she might be, give me a call.”

“I will. Thank you. Thank you.”

Willow hung up, leaving Elisa once again alone with her thoughts. The driver had correctly guessed she wouldn’t be in the mood for small talk. She leaned her head against the window, trying to find something to do besides panic. She could barely see anything—the rain hadn’t let up a bit.

Knowing nothing would’ve changed since the last time she did it, Elisa pulled up Lucia’s profile on her phone.

Nothing.

…

Thanks to a combination of unusually good luck with traffic lights, a relatively non-busy road, and a total disregard of speed limits when the driver thought he could get away with it, Elisa was back home at Longbourn faster than Google Maps said was technically possible. She half wondered if Darcy had bribed him to get her there as quickly as he could, laws of physics be damned. Or maybe he just somehow understood how important this was.

“Would you like me to walk you up?” the driver asked, pulling up in front of the apartment complex.

“No, thank you,” Elisa said, fumbling to get the door open. “Thank you for driving me out here—and tell Darcy I said thank you, too.”

“I will.”

She got out of the car and hurried into the building without looking back.

Her hands shook by the time she reached her apartment.

Inside, things were more crowded than they’d been in years. Both her parents were there, which was unusual in itself. Her mother was on the phone, screaming at someone (probably the police), while her father was sitting at the kitchen table with Maria, both in the process of contacting all of Lucia’s friends. Julieta was where Lucia had put her room, tidying things up, as if that could somehow convince their little sister to come back. The divider, Elisa noticed, had been folded up and pushed aside, placing Lucia’s bed right in the middle of the room.

Colin and Charlene had both shown up, which was the only thing that made her feel even slightly better. Charlene flitted her way through the kitchen, fixing everyone drinks and snacks, since none of the Benitezes were in the right frame of mind to remember to eat and drink. Colin, meanwhile, was on the couch, rubbing Camila’s back. She was crying, trying to speak, but unable to get the words out.

“Anything?” was the first thing Elisa said when she shut the door behind her. She tossed her hoodie on the small mountain of jackets that had formed on the kitchen table.

“No,” Charlene said, squeezing past Maria to bring Alejandra a drink. “But it’s—it’s still early. Most missing persons cases get solved within the first week, and most of those are within the first twenty-four hours. Most of the time, you have to give it a full twenty-four hours, but we knew right away, so we’ve got a head start. She’ll be okay.”

Elisa got the impression she’d Googled these statistics in the hopes of calming the family, and herself.

“I’ve searched all her social media and her planner a thousand times to see if she mentions a George anyplace,” Julieta said, fingers quickly flipping through Lucia’s magazine collection. “She would’ve told us if she had a boyfriend, right?”

Elisa’s stomach churned. “It’s George Sedgwick.”

Charlene stared at her, hazel eyes going wide. “Are you sure?” she asked, color draining from her face.

She nodded. “It fits his pattern, and I checked his social media. He is—or was—in Daytona Beach at the same time Lulu was.”

“His pattern? What are you talking about?” Julieta asked, getting to her feet.

Everyone was staring at her, now. Elisa took a shaking breath, knowing that the cat was out of the bag.

Gianna and Darcy will understand. I hope.

“Darcy told me he…he abused her younger sister, who’s about Lucia’s age,” she said, having to force the words out.

“Abused how?” her dad asked, but the look on his face told her he already had an idea.

“Abused as in dated her when he was twenty and she was thirteen. And—and hit her, at least once, and…and they were sleeping together. Darcy isn’t sure if her sister had a choice, but even if she technically did…she was still thirteen.”

“Son of a…” He trailed off, one of his hands coming up to massage his forehead.

Her mother looked like she was going to throw up, and Camila began crying even harder. Julieta just stood there, watery eyes staring straight ahead as she whispered, “Oh no, no, no…”

“B-but if we know who she’s with, that’s a good thing, right?” Charlene said, trying to keep her voice level.

Mom nodded, but she still looked like she was about to break down completely. “Elisa, you’ll have to—have to tell the police all that, so they know who to look for.”

Elisa nodded. “I can do that.” At least it made her feel less useless.

“Did Darcy’s sister charge him with anything?” Maria asked. “If he has priors, it’d be easier to find him, right?”

Elisa sighed, sitting at the table next to her father. “She tried to, but the police scared her—between that and her anxiety, she never would’ve been able to handle the trial. She and her aunt and uncle decided it’d be better to cut their losses and just work on helping her after the shitshow Wick put her through.”

“The police scared her into letting him walk away?” Maria said, shocked. “But they’re police. Locking him up is their job.”

“It happens all the time,” her father said grimly.

“I’ll call the police so you can make a statement,” Mom told Elisa, getting on the phone once again.

“She’s been frantic ever since Lulu’s friend called her,” her father said, as he watched their mother. “Julieta is the one that told me what was going on. I came over right away.”

“How are you not frantic?” she asked.

“I think I’ve gone on autopilot,” he admitted. “I’ll probably panic later. So, you know, that’ll be a fun surprise.” He ran a hand over his hair, before making eye contact with his second-eldest daughter. “She’s okay, Elisa. I know she is. If she wasn’t—we’d feel it. I’d feel it.”

She nodded, trying to believe him. “I hope you’re right.”

…

The policeman assigned to Lucia’s case was named Officer Nathanson. He smelled like bad cigars and cheap coffee, and his desk was cluttered and covered in papers from a thousand other cases. Elisa’s father had driven her down to the police station so she could tell them about Wick. They’d offered to come to the apartment, but it was crowded enough as it was.

“So, this…Wick—does he have any prior charges, to your knowledge?” he asked. He’d taken out a pen and notepad and was scribbling as Elisa spoke.

“No, but—but only because Gianna was scared into dropping them.”

She’d relayed the entire Gianna/Wick story to him and told him about Wick being in Daytona Beach. He didn’t seem like he thought she was lying, but he didn’t seem to be as scared as Elisa was.

“You said Wick is your ex-boyfriend?”

“Not exactly. We went on one date,” Elisa said. “It didn’t work out. What does this have to do with my sister?”

“If she is with him, it may explain why he targeted her—if he targeted her. Was he angry with you when the relationship didn’t work out?”

“I—I mean, I don’t think so,” she said. She cleared her throat, trying to force herself to sound more levelheaded and less panicky. “There wasn’t a fight or anything, we just stopped texting, and that was it. He didn’t seem any more interested in me than I was in him.”

She realized, now, bile rising in her throat, that she was probably too old for him.

“Well, we’ll definitely look into him,” he said. “Do you know where he works?”

Elisa nodded. “He said he works as a bouncer at all the local clubs—Eclipse, Cat’s Eye, and the Parlour, I think.”

“I’ll ask if any of his coworkers know where he is. Does he have any friends nearby?”

“He must, but I don’t know who they are.”

He took a deep breath, setting his notepad down. “Okay. Thank you for coming down here, Elisa.” They got to their feet, and the officer gave her what she assumed was supposed to be a comforting look. “We’re going to do everything we can to find Lucia. Kids her age, they… They want a taste of adventure, of being grown-up, and they do stupid things. Things they think they want, before they realize it’s not what they pictured. Most of the time, we can get ’em home before anyone gets hurt.”

“Most of the time,” she repeated.

He hesitated, before saying, “My point is, I’ve seen a lot of cases like this, and it nearly always comes out right in the end. I know you’re scared for your sister, but try to remember, she’s probably just fine.”

“Yeah.” The word came out brittle and unconvinced.

Dad was waiting outside the room for her, and they headed back to the car.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well, I told them everything I know. He said they’d look into it, but he didn’t seem convinced.”

“I’m not surprised. If he has no record, they’re inclined to believe he’s innocent.”

“I hate him,” she whispered, hands balling into fists. “I hate him so much.”

“You hate him?” Miguel said, trying to joke, trying to cheer her up, even a little. “Hell, he better hope they lock him up. If your mom and I get ahold of him first, the last thing he’ll ever see is Alex with a machete.”

Elisa laughed, mainly to keep herself from crying. They headed back to Longbourn, and she tried to tell herself, over and over and over, that Lucia would be fine. It had been a little over seven hours since she ran off. And Daytona Beach was crowded—if people knew to look for her, someone would see her eventually.

Sooner or later, someone would find her. And then she’d have to come home.

Right?