Puzzle Pieces

Chapter 18

I jumped awake with a gasp. No! No, no, no! I stood up and ran out of the room with tears pooling in my eyes. "Noah!" I yelled, running towards his room. He met me in the kitchen with a worried look on his face.

"What is it?" he asked, putting his hands on my arms, trying to calm me down.

"Mikayla. He's going to go after Mikayla. She's next on his...his list" I said, breaking down into tears. I pushed myself out of his grip and turned to head to the door. "We can't let him get her, Noah.”

"Wait, do you even know when he's going to get her? Are you sure he doesn't have her already?"

"The day after I dreamed of Katrina in that room alone, is the day that he took her. I don't want to chance it with Mikayla. If I can save her, that's what I'm going to do, whether you help me or not, but I would really like your help," I said, walking out of the room. I didn't hear his footsteps follow behind me, leaving me to think that maybe he didn't care. Maybe he doesn't want to help me. I walked to the living room and picked up the phone before punching in the number.

"Sheriff's office," I heard a female voice say into the phone.

"I need to speak with Sheriff Silverman."

"Is this an emergency?" she asked robotically. I thought about it a moment.

"Would I call for any other reason?"

"What's the emergency?"

"Look, my name is Annabel James and I really need to talk to Sheriff Silverman," I said, wanting to growl. My heart is beating wildly in my chest, thinking every second that goes by is every second closer to Mikayla getting kidn*pped.

"One moment please," she said with a little more attitude than I like, but I mean I could be giving her an attitude she isn’t used to. After a couple of minutes, the phone beeped.

"Sheriff Silverman," he said in greeting.

"Sheriff Silverman, this is Annabel James and I have some more information for you," I said, making him sigh.

"Ms. James, this is not about Katrina, is it?"

"No Sheriff, it's about the man who kidn*pped her."

"Annabel, I told you to stay out of it," he said, and I know he probably has his hands on his hips like mom when she gets upset.

"I know, but I had another dream and he's-"

"Annabel, you cannot interfere with police work because you have a dream. This is people's lives you are messing with. Stay off the case and please do not call here again," he said before hanging up. I continued to hold the phone to my ear as tears began to fall from my eyes. He doesn't believe me. He doesn't want to help me. Fine. I can do it on my own. I hung the phone up and ran out of the door, slamming it shut behind me.

As I started running down the street, the sound of a car pulled up to the side of me. "Need a ride?" a familiar voice said to me. Noah had one hand on the steering wheel. He gave me a sideways smile with his sunglasses on. I tilted my head, raising an eyebrow.

"You believe me now?"

"I don't know, but if your friend is in danger, why not be a hero? Get in," he said, stopping the car. I got inside and buckled my seatbelt as he began to drive down the road. He turned to look at me." So, where am I going?"

"The high school."

"Why would she be at school on a Saturday?"

"Saturday morning cheer practice" I answered matter of factly. He made an "oh" with his mouth and continued to drive to the High School.

After Noah parked, we got out and started walking to the school yard. Something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. It was the man, but he wasn't staring into the school yard holding the fence like in my dream. Instead, he was walking to a car that was parked at the end of the street. The same black car with dark tinted windows I saw driving away yesterday. Was it him? Was he watching Mikayla since then?

"What's wrong?" Noah asked. I hadn't realized I had stopped, frozen in place.

"That's him," I said, but it came out in a whisper.

"Well...let's go get him," Noah said, walking in that direction.

"Noah don't. Remember what you said about not knowing what he's capable of," I said, catching his arm.

"We have to do something, Anna. If that’s him, we have to catch him," he said, pulling his arm free.

"Noah, stop, I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'll be fine," Noah said before sprinting after the man. I started running to catch up to him. The man didn't bother to turn and look around. Instead, he got into the car and drove off.

"Damn it!" Noah shouted.

"We weren't going to catch him anyway."

"I might have, if you didn't stop me from catching him," he said angrily.

"Noah, I just want to be smart about this. I don't want anything to happen to us before we can help Katrina and Mikayla," I said, catching my breath. Noah shook his head. I looked at the car driving away and nudged Noah. "Come on, we have to go talk to Mikayla."

"What are you going to say? You're in danger of being kidn*pped because I saw it in my dream? Don't think she'll believe you, Anna."

"I didn't see her get kidn*pped. I just saw him watching her,” I explained. “But I know he will. With the thoughts he had in his mind, there's no way he won't go through with it and I don't know what I'll tell her. I just have to warn her somehow.”

That was good enough for him. We turned and started walking back towards the school. We entered the school without a problem, but right as we came up to the Quad door, Mrs. Lawrence stepped into the hall. Today she is wearing some ugly brown and black striped stockings, a black skirt that went to her calves and a long sleeved blouse with an ugly brown and black striped sweater vest. She walked up to us, her face leaning down so the glasses hung on the edge of her nose.

"Mr. and Ms. James? Is there a reason you're in school today?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Well, Noah is my ride and I need to tell the rest of the cheerleaders that I'm off the squad."

"Ms. James, you're suspended from school, meaning, you're not allowed on campus. You have to leave. As for you, Mr. James, a notice has already been sent out stating your sister has been removed from the squad. Sorry that she dragged you down here for nothing. You can leave," she said, planting her heel in the hallway, guarding the door like a watch dog.

I turned to look at Noah, who nodded at me. I turned on my heel and walked towards the exit to go back to the car. It's a good thing that Mrs. Lawrence can't read thoughts because I would've gotten a few more demerits and probably even expelled from school. Restraining myself so that I didn’t hit her was reason enough for her to expel me.

After what felt like an eternity, Noah finally came out of the building and started walking towards me. I had my back leaned against the car since the door was locked and he had the keys.

"So?" I asked when he approached me.

"Just trust me. You know, maybe we should enlist the help of Mrs. Lawrence," he said with a laugh as he began unlocking the door.

"You can't be serious," I said, opening the door.

"No. I think she'd be a great watchdog. She never let me out of her sight," he laughed again. I rolled my eyes in annoyance at Mrs. Lawrence for not letting me on campus.

“I think she hates me.”

“I think she hates everybody. Don’t let it get to you,” Noah said with a shrug. After a minute, a slow smile spread across his face. "Well, look who it is," Noah sang as Mikayla started making her way towards us.

Mikayla had a big smile on her face showing her dimples more than ever. When she saw me, she blushed, looking down, but continued to walk to the car. I got out, leaving the door open. It’s now my mission to make sure she comes with us.

"Hey Mikayla," I said with a smile.

"Hey Annabel. Noah said you wanted to speak with me?" she said, twisting her fingers together. I looked at Noah, who smiled at me.

"Right. Okay, well...I don't really know how to say this, other than it's going to sound crazy," I laughed. It was a strained, awkward laugh. She narrowed her eyes and nodded, focusing all her attention on me. It actually made me feel more insecure by the way she looked at me. "So I...I had this dream, nightmare actually, and you were in it," I rushed. Her eyes grew wide at my statement.

"O-kay?" she asked slowly, shaking her head, emphasizing that she didn't understand.

"Well, I’ve been having nightmares about the kidn*pped little girl, and I dreamt that you were next."

"And you came to check on me? Oh Anna, that's so sweet," she said with a smile. She spread her arms and walked towards me, wrapping me in a tight hug.

"Right, but there's more...what are you doing today?" I asked, backing out of her hug.

"After cheer? Nothing, just go home. My parents aren't even in town so I'll be alone until tomorrow night," she answered, making my mouth go dry and my eyes grew wide.

"No, I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head. “I refuse to let you spend the weekend alone. Why don't you spend the night at my house? It'll be fun. We haven't had a sleep over in so long.”

Her lips spread into a big smile, making her eyes squint.

"Sure! It sounds like fun, but I have to stop by my house to get some things first," she replied.

"Well, we'll give you a ride. That way you don't have to walk home," I said, looking at Noah, who just nodded.

"Okay, great. Just give me a couple of minutes to go tell Cara that I'm leaving," she said with a smile. She turned and ran all the way back to the school. I turned to look at Noah.

"What exactly did you tell her? What was with the blushing?"

"Well, I told her you needed to talk to her. She said 'I'll just call her later', so I told her I needed to talk to her, and lead her out here."

"Interesting."

"I thought so. Why would she think I needed to talk to her?" he laughed. I shook my head at him. Not sure if he is oblivious to the fact that my friends like him, or if he just doesn't care.

After a while, Mikayla returned with her things. We all got in the car and Noah drove to her house. I don't know exactly how he knew which house was hers, but he pulled up right in front of it.

"I'll just be a minute," she said, climbing out of the car.

When she went into the two-story white with red brick house, I looked around. I saw that a ways down, on the opposite side of Mikayla's house, a black car with dark-looking windows was parked. I couldn't see if someone was in the car or not, but I didn't care. I got out of the car and began to walk in that direction.

“Hey, where are you going?” Noah asked, getting out of the car.

I ignored him and focused on the car. When I reached the end of Mikayla's house, the car turned on and peeled out before driving down the road. I turned and ran back to the car.

"What was that all about?" Noah asked, looking at me and then down the road.

"I think the man was just watching. There was a car parked down the road that looked like the one he got into, but when I got closer, it drove off."

"Don't let your mind wonder, Anna. It could've been anybody,” Noah said, getting back into the car.

"Anybody? That left in a hurry?"

"What if they were running late?" he asked as I got into the car.

“How can you say that when I told you he was watching her, stalking her just like he did with Katrina,” I said, my bottom lip starting to tremble as my eyes got blurry from fresh tears.

“Hey, it’ll be okay. He can’t get Mikayla if she’s with us. Let’s just get her somewhere safe, and then we’ll figure out what we can do for Katrina, okay?” he soothed me and I nodded. As I got myself together, Mikayla came out of the house, walking back to the car with a pillow, blanket, and bag of clothes under her arms.

"Ready?" I asked, turning in my seat to face her.

"Yes," she said, giving another big smile.

As we pulled up to the house, I got an even bigger surprise than seeing the man at the school. One that made me shiver down to my bones. My mom was standing in the middle of the driveway with her hands on her hips. Words cannot explain how angry and intimidating she looked at that very moment.