Chapter 5: Forty-Three Days
I radioed dispatch from the kitchen table while Carla sat across from me with her hands wrapped around a mug of cold coffee she never drank.
"I need a welfare check cross-referenced with a missing persons inquiry.
Adult male, Dale Mercer." I gave the address, the date Carla had last seen him, and the driver's license number from the wallet.
"No report on file?"
The answer came back in under a minute.
No report.
No file.
Nothing.
I set the radio down.
"You never reported him missing," I said.
Carla shook her head.
"He told me not to.
He said if I called anyone, it would make things worse.
He said the people he owed money to — they'd know.
And then it wouldn't just be him."
"He was afraid for you and the children."
"He was afraid of them," she said.
"And he was right to be."
"Who are they, Carla?"
She looked toward the hallway.
Radley and Brenna were out of sight, but she lowered her voice anyway.
"There's a man named Garrett Foss.
Dale borrowed money from him two years ago, when the business failed.
Not from a bank.
From Foss." She paused.
"Foss isn't patient."
"Has Foss contacted you since Dale disappeared?"
"Once.
Three weeks ago.
He came to the door.
I didn't open it.
He stood on the porch for about ten minutes and then left." Her knuckles whitened around the mug.
"He left a note under the mat.
It said the debt doesn't disappear with the person."
"Do you still have the note?"
She got up without a word, went to the bedroom, and came back with a folded piece of paper.
She set it on the table between us.
I read it without touching it.
*The debt doesn't disappear with the person.
It passes.
You have two weeks to make contact.
— G*
I looked up.
"When was this left?"
"Three weeks ago."
Which meant the two-week deadline had already passed.
"Has he come back since?"
"No.
But—" She stopped.
"But what?"
"Two nights ago, someone tried the back door.
Around two in the morning.
I heard the handle.
It stopped after a minute." She looked at me steadily.
"I sat in the hallway with a kitchen knife until morning."
I thought about Radley's barricade behind his bedroom door.
The chair scraped against the floor.
The thing being moved away from the inside.
He hadn't been keeping himself in.
He had been keeping something out.
"Carla," I said.
"I need you to listen to me carefully.
I am going to make some calls.
This is going to involve more people than just me.
I need you to let that happen."
She looked at the hallway again.
"Will they take my kids?"
"I don't know yet what the next steps look like.
But I know that what's happening right now is not safe for any of you.
And I know that Radley has been sitting in that room for forty-three days trying to protect his sister by himself." I let that land.
"He's ten years old, Carla."
Her face broke open then.
Not dramatically.
Just a tremor through the jaw, the eyes going bright and wet.
"I know," she whispered.
"I know he has."
From the hallway, very quietly, Radley said, "It's okay, Mom."
He was standing at the edge of the kitchen.
Brenna beside him, her hand in his.
Carla pushed back from the table and crossed the room in three steps.
She pulled them both against her and held on.
I turned away and picked up my radio.
There was a man named Garrett Foss.
And Dale Mercer had been missing for forty-three days.
May you like
And someone had tried the back door two nights ago.
I had a lot of calls to make.
