Page 62 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“Do you know that Shelby is essentially missing and Florence called me? Said someone has her, and she—”

He cuts me off. “Mack. Look. I have some guys investigating the call, okay. Shelby, missing? Come on. She left very pissed off after being called out today. She’s probably embarrassed, or is somewhere blowing off steam…”

“No,” I stop him. “She told Clay she was going to her mother’s, and her mother says she never mentioned coming up there. I’ve been looking for her all day!”

“Exactly my point. If she’s actively lying to get some time to herself, what does that tell you? Clay hasn’t called it in,” he says, and I realize now that that is because he still thinks she’s at her mother’s and I forgot all about him once I got frantic looking for her. I never told him.

A call beeps in, and when I see that it’s Billy I simply hang up on Riley and his useless answers and pick up the call.

“Billy,” I say flatly, annoyed that he hasn’t answered my call all day, and at myself for letting it affect me so much, like he’s obligated to do so.

“I’m so sorry. I went ice fishing with dad up at Pine Lake, and lost service. I saw you were trying to call.”

“Yeah, sorry, I…” I stop for a moment. I’m relieved that in all the chaos, at least he’s okay, but I just don’t have the time to explain everything to him right now. I’ll probably break down sobbing if I start to explain the call from Florence and how terrified she sounded, and how I know something is very wrong since Shelby stopped answering her phone, but I can’t lose control and spiral into an emotional wreck right now. I feel the panic creeping in. It’s all just too goddamn much, and I don’t know how much longer I can go without screaming until my throat is raw and crying until I’m numb and just hiding from it all. I can’t afford to do that.

“I’m sorry. I’ll call you back,” I say, hanging up as I pull up into the Oleander’s parking lot and screech my car to a stop. I see inside the front doors that the lights are off. It looks like there is nobody working, which is very unusual. I know Heather is out, but what about Evan? I decide to call him. It rings through. What is going on? I decide to leave a message asking if he knows where Shelby is since I already made the call and I’m trying to deal with two things at once.

I call Herb next, and when he sleepily answers I ask if he can let me in the front door. A couple of minutes later I see him coming down the hall in his big robe and Yeti slippers as I stand freezing in the icy wind that’s starting to pick up.

He has a perplexed look on his face as he lets me in, and I follow him into the rec room where he picks up his glasses off a side table and puts them on and looks at me. “What’s happened?”

“Florence. When is the last time you saw her?”

“Just earlier tonight. A few hours ago we were all sitting here talking about Bernie’s funeral arrangements. Why? What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know yet,” I say, seeing his face fall.

“What does that mean? She’s not here? She’s in trouble or something?”

I tell him about the phone call and he shakes his head and starts heading down the hall. “She was just here,” he says as I follow quickly behind. “She was just goddamn here!” He stops at her door and swings it open so hard it hits the drywall with a thwack and creates a little hole,but he doesn’t notice. He flips the lights on and we have a shared moment of relief when we see she’s right here. She’s right here, sleeping.

He rushes over to wake her up and see what the hell is going on, but when he puts his hand on the mass underneath the covers, he discovers pillows made up to look like a sleeping body, and not Florence at all.

“What the hell? She snuck out like a teenager. What in the world? Where? She didn’t say anything—she tells me everything, I thought. I don’t understand.”

“Herb,” I say, interrupting his moment of grief and confusion. I pick up a piece of paper I see sitting on her desk. “Does this mean anything to you?” He takes it and squints at it through his glasses.

“Blacklock,” he says. “She came into my room earlier tonight asking what this meant. But what the hell? I mean, it’s a video game avatar name. I told her since Evan started gaming with me now and then, we sometimes play remotely and that was him logged in as his avatar, Blacklock. What on God’s green earth does that have to do with anything? Why would she write that down? She hates video games.”

“I don’t know, but there’s an address. I think it’s Evan’s. I mean I haven’t been to his dad’s house since I was a kid, but if I remember right, it’s on St. Charles. This must be Evan’s address. Why would she go there?”

“How would she even get there?” Herb adds and we look at one another, at a complete loss.

“Something must have happened on the way. Maybe she was followed. Maybe…wait, did you call Evan?” he asks.

“Just now to get let in the building. No answer.”

“We have to go,” Herb says, grabbing his boots and coat. A few minutes later we’re driving through dark, snowy roads to Evan’s house, having no idea what we’ll find.

28

SHELBY

When I wake up, I’m on a bed. I’m not restrained, I’m just locked in a room. I instinctively leap up and rush to the window, and my heart drops when I see it’s boarded up. The whole house is in the middle of fixing up, and it’s a construction zone. I turn and start to scan the room for another way out, and that’s when I see it. Photos of myself, candles, small items that I didn’t know were missing. Oh my God. What is this? I still don’t know where I am until I hear the door click open.

A figure slips into the room and I don’t know what I was expecting but it takes me a moment to register that it really is Evan. I’m not delusional. This is happening and it’s Evan. Evan fucking Carmichael is standing in front of me. How is that possible?

At first I think, my God, Florence is somewhere here, and now Evan has been taken hostage too, and I think we must all be in some nightmare—some serial killer kidnapped all of us,and I see he has a wound on his thigh. Blood seeps through the bandages wrapped around it, and I think they’ve hurt him. And then I know. Irememberwhen he smiles the most unsettling smile I have ever seen.

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