Page 87 of Long Live the King

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Ihad been asleep. I didn’t know why I picked up the phone or answered it, not knowing the number, but it had been Ash, screaming. And now there was nothing, no sound at all. I clicked my phone to speaker in case... anything.

Had she gotten in a car accident?I threw off my covers, clutching my phone in my hand and rushed out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Whisper-yelling, “Fraoch! Fraoch!”

Zach was sitting on a chair in the living room, a PlayStation controller in his hand. He looked up, “What…?”

“Where’s Fraoch? I just got the craziest—” I put the phone to my ear and listened, nothing. I said, “Ash, you there?” I shook my head.

Zach said, “Fraoch’s out on the deck.”

I raced out on the deck, Fraoch was at the end of the walkway, facing out over the dunes. He turned around, as my footsteps thumped down the decking. “Thought ye went tae bed!”

“Lochie’s girlfriend, Ash, just called me — she sounded scared, she…” I was out of breath by the time I reached him. “She said someone was following her… she might have been grabbed. I… don’t know.” I held the phone up to his ear.

He listened, then shook his head.

“She screamed, there was a struggle, I think...” I said into the phone, “Ash…?” Then said, “Nothing, she said, ‘Someone is following…’ We need to go check on her. You remember where she lives?”

“Aye, let me tell security tae step up their patrols.”

He and I rushed up the deck to get ready to go.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled the truck up beside Ash’s house. We could see a car in the driveway, the back bumper was askew. The driver’s side door was open, the headlights on.

Everything was wet and dripping. “Damn, this looks ominous.”

I pulled the truck to the curb and we both climbed out. We could see inside the car now: the airbag had been deployed, the engine was still running.

I looked at Fraoch, “Oh no, what happened to her?”

“I daena ken. Ye go knock on the door. I’ll look around in the car.”

I strode around the house and up to the front door and knocked, a few minutes later the curtain pulled back from the window beside the door. An elderly woman’s voice screeched, “What do you want? It’s the middle of the night!”

I called through the window, “Um... is Ash here?”

“No! She’s not home! She keeps me up all night with her coming and going!”

“You didn’t hear anything odd?”

“No, there was a terrible storm. It battered the house.”

“She didn’t come home tonight?”

“No! Get off my porch!”

“Of course, sorry to bother you.”

I left the porch and returned to the car, saying to Fraoch, who was digging around in the floorboards, “The lady there said she’s not home.” I looked around at the lawn. “There are tire ruts on the grass, with puddles in them — it means missing cars, a missing person, and a sudden storm.”

“Great, tis clearly time travel.” He passed me out a purse, full of stuff, hastily shoved in.

“What happened to it?”

“Twas all over the floor.”

“Is that all of it?” There was a handgun in it, her wallet, a makeup bag.

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