Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mr. Heithcliffe attempt to chase us as we headed for the car, but he gave up before we got out of the gate. “He really should lay off all that fried food,” I muttered.
“We are going to be in so much trouble.” I laughed as we hopped into the car. “Come Monday, he’ll probably get his wish,” I added, referring to Mr. Heithcliffe’s hope for our expulsion.
Aiden started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I’m sure I can charm our way out of that happening,” he said, a gleam in his eye. I think he secretly loved being able to get whatever he wanted.
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” he agreed, picking up my hand in his. “But most of all, I love the fact that I can finally share it all with you.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it softly, sending the butterflies in my stomach into full flight. I couldn’t believe that he still had that effect on me, even though we’d been together for so long.
Aiden’s lips parted into a smile, revealing his perfect teeth. I wanted to lean over and press my lips against his, but I turned away. I had to keep focused. I needed to be thinking about what to do next. If only I could somehow have another vision that would let me see who the hell the kidnapper was.
Then an idea came to me. The other times that I’d had the visions, I was physically touching the person. And seeing as though Chelsea wasn’t around for me to touch, the next best thing was her possessions. Maybe if I held something of hers, I would be able to have another vision.
I felt sick in the gut at the thought of what I was about to do.
Chapter 12
Even though it was my idea, I begrudgingly got out of the car and walked up the path to Chelsea’s front door. She lived in a small townhouse complex about ten minutes’ walk from my house; it was a small three bedroom, two bathroom home, but it was big enough for Chelsea and her mum.
They used to live in a much bigger house next door to mine. But after her father passed away, her mother couldn’t cope with living in such a big place and all the constant reminders it gave her of her husband. He had died almost two years ago in a horrific car accident with another woman in the passenger seat. It turned out that he had been having an affair with the woman for just over six months, so I completely understood why she needed to move.
It was hard enough for her when all she knew was that she’d lost her husband forever. But when the police investigation revealed that the woman sitting in the passenger seat was not just a work colleague that he was giving a lift home, but his mistress, it almost destroyed her.
She quickly put her house on the market and sold on the first offer, accepting a bid for less than what the house was really worth. She didn’t care. She just wanted out of the house and all the memories it held. I hoped I would never have to go through what she had been through.
Aiden squeezed my hand.
“I have a feeling you’ll never have to worry about that.”
I took a deep breath, bracing myself for what I was about to do, then pressed the doorbell and waited for Marie to answer.
The door opened to reveal a fragile woman, one that I had not seen since Chelsea’s father’s death. She wore a pink, fluffy bathrobe that was looking a little worse for wear. Her normally blonde, wavy hair was an oil slicked, matted mess that she had pulled back off her face in a loose bun.
Her eyes were swollen red and had dark circles surrounding them. It looked like she had not stopped crying since Chelsea disappeared.
When she realised who was at the door, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around me and sobbing into my shoulder.
I tried pulling back, but she wasn’t letting go. She held on so tightly that I thought I was going to be stuck like that for the next hour. I immediately felt bad for thinking that. The poor woman. I could only imagine what it would feel like to be in her position. The thought brought tears to my eyes.
Marie eventually let go of me and invited us inside.
The house was a mess. There were empty tissue boxes and dirty tissues littering the floor. Empty coffee cups and empty bottles of water filled the coffee table. And piles of clothing, which I wasn’t sure if they were clean or not, were thrown all over the sofa. It didn’t look like she had cleaned anything since Chelsea went missing.
Aiden and I sat down on the three-seater sofa, carefully trying to avoid the rubbish that had started to accumulate there, and Marie sat in the adjacent armchair.
She dabbed at her tearing eyes with a tissue she had grabbed from the box sitting on top of the lamp table beside her armchair. The table was covered in the evidence of her swollen eyes. There were tear-soaked tissues everywhere. It took all my willpower to ignore the mess surrounding me. All I wanted to do was grab a trash bag and clean up. But I didn’t want her feeling like I was judging her.
We sat in uncomfortable silence. I didn’t know what to say. I needed to find a way to get up into Chelsea’s room and away from her mum, who looked like she was about to crack up again.
As soon as I thought it, it started. “They have to find her,” she wailed. “I don’t know what I will do if… if….”
I interrupted her when I saw that she was struggling to speak. “They will find her before anything happens to her,” I tried to assure her, but I wasn’t really sure if I believed it myself.
What if they finally tracked down this psycho after he had already mutilated Chelsea’s body? If that happened, it would probably kill Marie, too.
She dabbed at her eyes again, nodding.
“We just have to keep positive, for Chelsea’s sake,” I said, knowing nothing I could say would make her pain go away, except the four words she was aching to hear—they found her alive. They were the only words that would end her misery. They were the only words that kept her holding on. They were the only words I wanted to hear, too.
After that she had calmed down a bit, I made my move to get out of there. “Um, Marie?”
She stopped dabbing her eyes. “Yeah?”
“Do you mind if I go upstairs? I left something of mine in Chels’s room.”
“Of course.” She wiped her nose with a snotted-up tissue.
Before she could say anything else, I jumped up off the sofa and headed straight for the stairs.
“Aren’t you coming?”
I asked Aiden silently, when I realised he was still sitting with Marie.
Without looking at me, he replied,
“No, you go ahead. I’m gonna stay down here.”
I hurried up the stairs alone, wondering why Aiden would rather stay downstairs with an emotional basket case. I couldn’t get away from there quick enough. I didn’t know what it was, but I really couldn’t handle being around people who were so emotional.
Holding my breath, I opened the door to Chelsea’s room. I didn’t know what I was expecting to happen when I entered, but I certainly hoped I would feel something. Instead, I felt nothing. I looked around her room; nothing was out of place. Clean and dirty clothes covered the floor, bed, and every other piece of furniture in the room.
Hoping that something might come to me if I touched her things, I ran my fingers along her dusty white dressing table, which still had two dirty glasses on top from the last time I was here. Nothing.
I ran my fingers over the jewellery that was hanging off the top corner of her mirror. Nothing. I made my way around her room, touching everything I could, but I felt nothing.
I flopped down on her fluffy pink comforter and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell we were going to do next. How were we supposed to find her if I hadn’t a clue where to start looking?
My previous visions didn’t hold any clues. Yeah, I had seen the guy who took her, but his face was covered by a balaclava. His van looked like a million other vans that flooded the streets around here. Without a license plate, there was no hope of tracing it.
The sound of my phone ringing jolted me from my thoughts. I took my phone out of my pocket. It was a blocked number. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Jade Sommers? This is Detective Brendan O’Neil.” His voice sounded rough.
My heart started racing at the sound of the detective’s voice. “Yes it is,” I confirmed. I’d had a feeling this phone call was coming, but I was still not ready. The call seemed to make Chelsea’s disappearance that much more real.
“Jade, we would like you to come down to the station to discuss the disappearance of Chelsea Carmichael. You will need to bring your guardian along with you, as you are still a minor. When should we be expecting you?” He spoke in a professional manner.
“Umm… I will have to check with my mum to see when she will be able to get away from work. Do I have to come down there now?” I wanted to delay the interview for as long as possible. After all, what could I possibly tell them?
“No, anytime up until ten p.m. will be fine.” He said goodbye before hanging up.
I got up off Chelsea’s bed and put my phone back in my pocket before leaving her room.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, Aiden stood up. “Can I get you anything before we head off?” he asked Marie.
She shook her head. “No, I’ll be fine.”
Marie got up and walked us back to the front door.
I turned around to Marie to try to give her some sort of comforting words before we left her alone, but I was too taken aback by the amazing change in her composure. What I was seeing was not the same woman I had seen only minutes earlier. She was no longer immersed in sorrow; she was standing tall and confident.
“Don’t worry, Jade, they will find her. You’ll see. She will be fine.” She placed a hand on my arm, trying to assure me.
“O-kay,” I said, unsure of what had changed her whole attitude in the few minutes that I had been upstairs. It wasn’t like how she would be if Aiden had done his calming thing on her. This was different.
She was smiling. “Now you two go home and get some rest. You look exhausted, Jade.” She rubbed my arm soothingly, which only made me that much more disturbed by her sudden change. “And don’t worry about me. I know the police will find her before anything serious happens to her.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “See ya,” I mumbled as I turned around, completely stunned, and headed back to Aiden’s car.
Marie waved us off. It was like she really believed that Chelsea would be found safe and sound, and that some sadistic psychopathic killer was not holding her captive.
I hopped into the car, not taking my eyes off Marie, while Aiden made his way around to the driver’s seat.
Aiden started the car and pulled out onto the road while Chelsea’s mum gave another wave from her front door.
As soon as I could no longer see her, I turned to Aiden, wanting to know what the hell happened back there. “You did that, didn’t you?”
“Did what?” He was pretending to be hurt by my accusation.
I slapped him playfully on his arm. “You know what I mean.”
He smiled at my pathetic attempt to get something out of him.
How I loved that smile. No matter how bad I was feeling, my face would light up at the sight of it.
“Okay, okay. I did help her out back there. I couldn’t leave her like that when it was so easy for me to make her feel a little bit better. So I gave her the hope that she needed to get her through until we find Chels.”
Aiden went on to explain. “I have the ability of suggestion, which means I can suggest something to a person without them knowing I’m doing anything. It’s like they think that they came up with the idea on their own.” He pointed to his head. “It’s like how I can hear thoughts, and I can also suggest.”
“It sounds more like mind control,” I said, fascinated by his choice of words.
He cringed at my words. “I don’t like that phrase. It sounds so evil, but it’s not.”
“So have you ever used suggestion on me?” I was slightly panicking that I had done things I hadn’t made the decision to do on my own. I mean, how did I know that I’d even made the decision to date Aiden? For all I knew, he could have made that decision for me.
“I told you before that I have never used any of my abilities against you. Besides, it’s not as if I force people to do things that are bad or that they will regret later. I don’t use it like that.” He sounded truly hurt by my last statement. “I want you to be with me because you want to be with me, not just because I want to be with you.”
“This will be a harder one to accept,” I said, mainly to myself. I knew he was right. How could I ever
not
want to be with him? Aiden was someone who would always draw attention from other girls and guys wherever we went. The females wished they were me so that they could have him. And the guys wished they could be him so that they could have the same reaction on girls that Aiden had.
“Okay, I believe you.”
“Good.” He sounded relieved. “And please, try not to think that I have used any other abilities on you as you learn what I can do.”
“I will try.” It would take some effort, but I would try to keep my promise.
“Oh, and you’re wrong about guys wishing they were me so that they could get all the girls. The guys wish they were me so they could have you. Do you really not notice how they look at you? You’re gorgeous!”