Chapter 4
1119 Words
After a long day, Stacy finally got home and slept off.
Something was wrong before Stacy even opened her eyes.
She lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. The apartment was too quiet. Not the normal morning quiet where her father moved softly in the kitchen trying not to wake her. This was a different kind of quiet. The kind that sat on your chest.
"Dad?"
Nothing.
She sat up. Listened.
Still nothing.
She pushed the blanket off and walked to his room. The door was slightly open. She pushed it wider.
The bed was empty.
Made. Neatly. Too neatly. Her father never made his bed like that. He smoothed the blanket from habit but never folded the corners the way they were folded now. His slippers were still beside the bed exactly where he always left them. His phone sat on the bedside table face up.
He never left without his phone.
Stacy checked the bathroom.
Empty.
Kitchen.
Empty.
She opened the front door and looked both ways down the corridor.
Nobody.
She stood very still in the doorway.
Phase two begins at midnight. Be ready.
The words moved through her like cold water.
This was it.
This was phase two.
Her hands started shaking before the thought had fully formed. She grabbed the door frame. Breathed. Once. Twice. Panic was already pressing up through her chest and she forced it back down because panic would not find her father. Panic would not fix anything.
Her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.
Unknown number.
She crossed the room in three steps and grabbed it.
One message. Five lines.
Your father is safe for now.
Do not call the police.
Do not tell Gerard Blackwood.
Do not make any sudden moves.
Wait for instructions.
Stacy read it once.
Then her knees gave slightly and she sat down hard on the kitchen floor with her back against the cabinet.
Her father was gone. Taken. While she was sleeping in the next room and heard nothing and did nothing because she didn't know. Because she hadn't been fast enough. Because she had spent yesterday arguing in a lobby instead of keeping him safe.
Her eyes burned.
She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and stayed there for a moment.
Then she looked at the message again.
Do not tell Gerard Blackwood.
She looked at the door.
She grabbed her bag.
Gerard was already at his desk when the footage came through.
He had been there since six. He told himself it was work. There was always work. But the file open on his left monitor had nothing to do with Blackwood Enterprises quarterly reports.
It was Stacy Mills.
He had watched the lobby footage four times already. Not because anything had changed. Because something about her bothered him in a way he could not categorize and he did not like things he could not categorize.
His assistant knocked once and entered.
"Sir. Street camera footage from the Mills residence. Flagged by the overnight security sweep."
Gerard looked up.
"Show me."
The screen switched. Grainy footage. Timestamp: 5:12am. A black van parked on the street outside the Mills building. No plates. It sat there for eleven minutes. Then it was gone.
Gerard leaned forward slowly.
"Run it again."
He watched it a second time. Then a third. His jaw tightened on the third viewing.
"Find out where it went," he said quietly.
His assistant left without another word.
Gerard sat back. His eyes stayed on the frozen image of the van.
He did not like this.
She didn't knock.
The door to his office opened and Stacy walked in and Gerard looked up from his desk with the particular expression of a man who had specifically told his assistant no interruptions.
Then he looked at her properly.
She was pale. Her eyes were red at the edges. She was holding her bag strap with both hands like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
"My father is gone," she said.
Gerard set his pen down slowly.
"Gone."
"He wasn't there when I woke up. His phone is still on the table. His slippers are still by the bed. Someone took him."
He studied her face. Looked for the performance. The calculation. The angle.
"You came here," he said. "After being told not to."
She blinked. "How do you know I was told not to?"
"Because whoever took him would have said exactly that." He leaned back. "This feels like a very convenient reason to be in my office again."
Something crossed her face. Not hurt exactly. Something past hurt.
"My father is missing," she said. Each word separate. Controlled. "And you're sitting there deciding if I'm lying."
"I'm always deciding if someone is lying."
"Then decide faster." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. She pressed her lips together hard.
She was not performing. He had watched enough performances to know the difference.
He turned his monitor toward her without a word.
"5:12 this morning," he said. "Outside your building."
She looked at the screen. The black van. No plates. Her face changed immediately. The colour drained further and her grip on her bag tightened.
That was not acting.
"They were watching," she said quietly. Almost to herself.
"Yes."
She looked at him. "So what do we do?"
Her phone vibrated in her hand before he could answer. She looked down at it. Her expression shifted into something he couldn't name.
She turned the screen toward him without speaking.
She disobeyed.
She went to Gerard.
Now he is involved.
You were warned.
The office went very quiet.
Gerard looked at the message for a long moment. Then at the window. Then back at the screen.
"They are watching this building," he said.
"Right now?"
"Possibly."
He stood up. Crossed to the door and said something brief to his assistant outside. Then he came back and looked at her with an expression that was not warm and was not cold but was something focused and deliberate.
"You've pulled me into something," he said.
"I didn't pull you into anything. Your father did."
His jaw tightened.
"You're not leaving this building," he said. "Not yet."
"You don't get to tell me…"
"Someone is watching your every move and your father is missing and whoever has him knows you came here." He held her gaze. "So no. You are not leaving."
Stacy looked at him.
She hated that he was right.
The silence between them was not comfortable. It was not a truce. It was two people standing on the same side of a problem neither of them had chosen.
And somewhere outside, someone was watching her secretly.
- Writer
