Page 77 of Out of the Dark

"I’ll go," I say through gritted teeth. "But only for her."

A triumphant smile flickers across my mother’s face before she masks it with faux sympathy again. "You’re doing the right thing, dear."

I don’t respond. Anger and defeat churn inside me, but one thing is clear: this isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Because even as we leave the station and settle in for the long drive home, the car having been towed to the police station from my—well, Mark’s—apartment, I’m formulating a plan.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

MARK

When I realize Claire is gone, my heart sinks.I knew this would happen. But it only takes a few minutes for me to stop feeling sorry for myself when I realize how off this feels. Sure, I may have broken her heart last night, but she wouldn’t have left without sayingsomething.

Even though it feels like an invasion of privacy, I go into her room and take note of what items are still here. And as far as I can tell, it’s… everything.

Her cell phone is here, her clothes are all still hung or folded in the dresser, and her journal sits open on the bed with a pen placed on top.

I go back to check the hook by the front door, and sure enough, her keys are gone. But still, there are alarm bells ringing in my head even though I can’t quite figure out why. She probably just went to the store or something.

I force myself to sit down and wait for her, knowing she’llprobably walk through the door any minute.She just needed some space, I tell myself. After all, I took a few hours to go to lunch and take a walk by myself this afternoon. Maybe she’s doing something similar.

But one hour passes, then two, and I can’t take it anymore. My instincts are screaming at me to do something, though I’m not sure what I can do.

I hate myself for what I’m about to do, but I go back into Claire’s room, sit on the edge of her bed, and pick up the open notebook she’s been writing in over the last few months. I don’t want to invade her privacy even further, but my gut is telling me there’s something very wrong here, and I can’t quite figure out what it could be.

So, I look for clues.

I start with today’s entry—which ends in the middle of the sentence. Another red flag—and work my way backward. My heart aches as I read about how much I hurt her last night, and it only hurts more when I see the previous entries where she spills her heart on the page about how she’s been falling in love with me.

My heart constricts with each confession, each detail about her life that I hadn’t been aware of. I keep flipping the pages, skimming the words, until I come across something that stops me in my tracks. She’s written about an email from an unknown sender begging and threatening her to come back home. And apparently there was another email before that.

I don’t know how, because I have nothing else to go off of, but somehow I know that this was her family’s doing. They got her to leave somehow, but there’s no way she’d have gone willingly. I know that much.

But how the hell did they do it? And how can I find her if all her communication devices have been left here?

I pickup the phone and call Shane. He answers on the second ring.

"Hey."

"Hey, I’ll apologize later for being a dickhead to you, but I think Claire’s in trouble."

His tone instantly shifts from apathetic to concerned. "What? Why? What happened?"

I briefly recount the events that led to this moment. "So basically, I have no way of contacting her, and I have no clue where she is."

"Did you look through her phone?" he asks.

"Yeah. No suspicious calls, texts, or even emails aside from the two I just mentioned."

"And there’s no friends she might have left with?"

"I don’t think so. I really do think she’s in trouble."

Shane is silent for a moment as he thinks. "What about her car? Is it still in the parking garage?"

"Her keys are gone, so I’m assuming not."

"Hmmm. Let me make some calls, okay? I’ll see if I can find anything out."

"Sounds good. Thank you." I heave a sigh as I pace the apartment. I’m going to feel like an idiot if she walks through the door in a few minutes with nothing wrong, but I’ll feel even worse if that’snotthe case.

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