I unlock the front door to the house, trying to shake off the tension of my workday. I step into the foyer, and right away, I notice the silence. When the kids are home, especially Nico, it is never silent like this.
“Hello?” I call out.
No answer.
I walk around the first floor of the house. It’s not nearly as large as the one next door, but it still takes me a minute to get through all that space. I step through the kitchen, which looks identical to the way it did when I made the kids bowls of cereal before I left this morning. (Janice recently expressed her horror and shock at the notion that I made the kids breakfast that did not include some sort of meat protein.)
Nobody is on the first floor. I’m sure of it.
I head out to the backyard next, assuming Nico is tossing around the baseball, trying to break a second window. But when I get out there, all I see is the perfectly trimmed, vividly green grass.
Okay, the kids aren’t in the backyard either.
I climb the stairs to get to the second floor. The kids have taken to leaving their doors closed when they go to school, although our master bedroom door is open and the room is empty. Next, I tap on Ada’s room door.
No answer. No sound coming from inside.
I turn the knob and push the door open. As always, the bed is perfectly made. I never have to tell her to do that. Frankly, I think it would bother her if she left for school with her bed unmade. Her bookcase is stuffed with paperbacks and hardcovers. And there’s one shelf that has a few trophies she won on it. For a science fair and also something called a math fair, whatever that is. But no Ada.
Maybe they are all playing in Nico’s room.
My son’s room is the last stop. I tap on his door, my stomach clenching as I wait to hear his childish voice calling for me to come in. (Or not to come in.) But yet again, there’s no answer.
I open the door so abruptly, I almost fall into the room. Unlike my daughter’s room, it’s a mess. The blankets are in a big messy lump in the center of his bed, and he’s got laundry strewn everywhere. And that awful praying mantis is still in the enclosure next to his bed. Little Kiwi is here, but Nico is not.
Where are they?
TWENTY-ONE
Okay, there’s no reason to panic.
Enzo’s truck is in front of the house, so he has been home. He must have taken them somewhere. Of course, it’s not like our town is walkable. Where could he have gone without his truck?
I reach for my phone in my pants pocket. I tap out a message to Enzo:
Where are you?
I stare at the screen, waiting for a response. Nothing. It says the message has been delivered but not read.
I don’t feel like waiting for him to answer my text at his leisure, so I click on his name from my favorites to call him. The phone rings once, twice… half a dozen times. Then it goes to voicemail.
Again, that in itself should not be concerning. When Enzo is on a job, he never picks up his phone. The equipment is painfully loud, and he’s often wearing thick gloves that won’t allow him to operate a phone. But then again, he can’t be on a job, because his truck is in the yard.
I have this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like something has happened.
I sprint back down the stairs, practically tripping on them. I check the living room and the kitchen one more time, looking for some sort of note from Enzo, saying he took the kids out for ice cream or something along those lines.
But there’s no note. There’snothing.
I grab my phone again, wondering if I need to call the police. That seems like an overreaction though. It would be one thing if just the kids were gone, but since my husband is gone too, the assumption is that they are all together. Enzo will think I have lost my mind if I call the police on him. Besides, I don’t trust the police—after spending a decade in prison for reasons I still think are a bit unfair, you can’t help but feel that way. There’s only one police officer that I trust, but I wouldn’t call him unless it was an absolute emergency. And this isn’t an emergency—yet.
Okay, I need to think logically. Enzo and the kids are not here, but his truck is here. That means wherever he went, he went on foot. The most likely thing is that he is still in the cul-de-sac.
I exit the front door, trying to calm my rapidly beating heart. This cannotbe good for my blood pressure. I took a pill this morning like I have every day for the last week, and Enzo bought me a blood pressure cuff to monitor it daily, but it’s still high. It’s not even a tiny bit lower.
My first stop is 12 Locust Street. As I get to the front door, I can hear noise coming from the backyard. It sounds like Enzo’s equipment, which is a good sign. He went over to work in Suzette’s yard, and he brought the kids with him.
I press the doorbell, and after what seems like an eternity, Suzette comes to the door. She smiles when she sees me, but there’s something in her smile that makes my skin crawl. I just want to collect my family and get the hell out of here.
