Page 71 of After Midnight

I yawned involuntarily, which triggered Miss Rita to do the same. “Baby, it’s late. You really should go home.”

“Can I?” I asked, feeling exhausted but also not wanting to leave when they all needed support. “I thought we had to stay here.”

“No, you’re free to go. One of the detectives clarified it’s mostly the girls’ safety they’re concerned with, so we’re staying put. But if you hear anything suspicious, or get a weird call or text, let them know as soon as possible.”

“Okay, then I'll head out. I’m just going to say bye to everyone first.”

I gave Miss Rita a hug and left her in the kitchen before stopping in the living room to do the same to Jeffrey and Ashton. Then I rushed upstairs and said good night to the girls, who were already tucked into their beds.

“Dillon?” Olivia asked as I was about to leave.

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Dominic will be okay, right?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly to steady myself. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly, my voice catching. “But I trust the police are doing everything they can.”

She nodded and rolled over, putting her back to me, and I waved goodbye to Alli before turning off their bedroom light and gently closing the door.

When I got home, I found my dads had waited up for me. We sat around the table in the breakfast nook and I updated them about the evening’s events. “I don’t want you out there traveling alone,” Papa K said. “If they took Dominic, they might try to take you next. We won’t risk it.”

“Papa, we all know his stepmom is behind this. Obviously, she’s gone completely off the rails, apparently the woman has always hated Dominic even in the best of times. Trust me, she doesn’t want me.”

“Nonetheless, until we know for sure, please let Allen or me go with you if you need to run an errand.”

I smiled. “You’re so overprotective.”

“You’re our baby.” He leaned over and kissed my temple. “I can’t imagine what Dominic’s family is going through. If it was you who’d been taken…” Papa K’s voice cracked as he trailed off, and Dad reached over to hold his hand.

“I understand, Papa. I agree to let you both follow me around like a shadow, but only until Dominic is found. Then you’ll have to stop with the smothering.”

That made both my fathers smile, which had been the goal, and I hoped it helped put their minds at ease about my safety. My mind, meanwhile, was fighting the urge not to dive into worst-case scenarios thinking about what Dominic had endured.

That night, I stared at my bedroom ceiling for hours. We’d had such a rocky start, and just as things had gotten better because that witchy woman was out of his life, here I was lying in bed worried sick and Dominic lay hurt goodness knows where.

I wiped the tear that slipped from my eye and turned over, curled into a ball, and wept. “Dominic, wherever you are, please be safe,” I whispered, half prayer and half plea, into my pillow.

After a long cry, I decided the only way my heart would survive this was to be proactive. Do whatever I could, however I could, to bring my man home. There had to be a clue, there was always a clue. We just had to uncover it.

Chapter thirty-one

Dominic

Ididn’t see anyone the rest of that first day or probably the next one, either. Although I was just guessing as to the amount of time that’d passed since I’d woken up, given the room was perpetually dark.

Once my initial fear gave way to anger, I felt an inner strength slowly building deep in my core. Whether driven by that anger or a survival instinct kicking in, I clung to it like my life depended on it. Because I knew it did.

After a long time wriggling in the wrist constraints, which I had come to realize were plastic, I finally broke free. Although, even in the dark, I could tell my hands and wrists were scratched and bloody from my efforts. I thought about attacking Margarette as soon as she came back into the room, and had psyched myself up for that, but she never came.

There had to be a way out. My heart beat faster when I felt around and found the door, and began tracing it with my fingertips, searching for anything that might facilitate my escape. Unfortunately, that didn’t help and it wouldn’t budge.Curiously, it also didn’t have a doorknob, at least not a regular one.

I wondered if rather than being a room, I was locked in some sort of safe. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be getting out of here on my own. That’s when my hope that I would make it out of this ordeal alive began to waver.

I tried listening for voices or movement, but I couldn’t hear anything. Was this thing soundproof? Or sealed airtight? Could I suffocate in here?

“I’m not going to escape this,” I whispered, sliding to the floor with my back against the wall. “This is going to be my tomb.”

I’d seen plenty of movies where people were trapped in old safes, and the air had been an issue. As I sat against the wall, on the verge of a panic attack, I felt a draft coming from somewhere. Thank God, at least I had airflow.

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