Page 42 of Lover
I knew that better than anyone.
There was yelling from outside, almost too faint to hear, too far for us to be completely certain it was a human noise, yet we all looked in the direction of the sound with alarm.
I stood and made my way to the window, looking out and seeing nothing but the cold, darkening gray of a rain-choked night. The same sort of night that had taken Millie away from me the first time. I was overwhelmed by a heavy, sick dread.
“I’ll go check on Millie,” Hannigan said. “You stay here by the phone, be prepared to call for an ambulance.”
I could only watch him go.
“It’s all happening again,” I said.
“No,” Ms. Dillard whispered, horrified by the thought. “No, it couldn’t.”
“I should have listened to you. To Felicity. I should have taken her away when all these troubles started in the very beginning. This house is a curse.”
The next few minutes were cruel, ended only by a devastating revelation.
“Call the police!” Dr. Hannigan’s voice bellowed down the hall.
“Oh, God,” Ms. Dillard choked out.
I barreled to the door as the doctor entered, forcibly grabbing my arms in a state of panic.
“She’s gone!” he cried.
CHAPTER 24
“GONE?”
“She’s likely had a complete mental break. I’ll call an ambulance, you go find her!” the doctor ordered, running to the phone.
“I’m coming with you!” Ms. Dillard rushed to my side, and we took off together down the dark corridors toward the front hall, the nearest door.
My worst anxieties were coming to pass, the night I’d lost Millicent happening again as though I’d catapulted through time, doomed to live the worst moments of my life in perpetual repetition, to make all the same mistakes.
As I pulled the door open, a screech pierced through the hiss of falling rain as though it had been waiting for me to let it inside. Millie crying for help.
“She’s by the garage,” I yelled over the wind,and we sprinted together, soaked to the bone within only a few steps. The cold was biting, a special kind of bitterness that belongs to spring rain, and my skin began to tingle with numbness. This weather was dangerous for a disoriented woman who didn't know the landscape.
“Do you think she’s trying to take the car?” Ms. Dillard was breathless, unaccustomed to running, but she kept up with my pace and we rounded the corner of the house to find the garage door open, both the car and work truck still inside, the light on.
“Millie?” I called out as we neared, “Millicent!”
A gruesome sight met our eyes as we entered, and we stumbled to a halt just inside.
“Oh,” Ms. Dillard warbled.
Blood. Seeping through the cracks of the shattered window glass on the truck, smeared into the dirt and dust on the floor, mixed with a smattering of white powder that looked like flour.
“The devil’s saints,” I muttered, ill, trying to work out what foul things could have happened here. Millie surely didn't do this to herself. I knelt, looking beneath the truck, in case she’d crawled there to hide. There was no one. On my way up, my fingers slicked through the white powder.
“What is this?”
I brought it to my nose, the sweet smell of sugar cloying. I touched my tongue to it. Bitter.
I spat, wiping my tongue on my sleeve.
“Callum…” Ms. Dillard’s voice was thick, trembling, and I surged to my feet, prepared to face whatever had alarmed her, but there was nothing. Only her, holding a torn, dirty piece of stationery in her hand. She held it out to me, fingers shaking.
