CLAIMED IN CHAOS

Ashes

The text says Stop looking for Mia Monroe and the photo is her duffel bag on a bed I have never seen. I sit in my car in front of Kade's garage and I stare at it. The bag is dark blue with a patch on the front that says Pittsburgh with a small heart. Mia put that patch on last year. The zipper is half open and I can see a corner of her yellow sweater inside. The bed has a white sheet and a gray blanket. The wall behind it is bare and there is a small window with no curtain.

My hands are shaking so much I almost drop the phone. I zoom in on the photo. The floor looks like cheap wood. The light is yellow, like a bare bulb. There is no person in the photo. Just the bag. I try to call the number that sent it. It goes straight to a message that says the number is not in service. I try to text back. The message says not delivered.

My heart is beating so fast I can feel it in my ears. I look up at the garage. The roll-up door is still down. The bikes are still out front. Kade said he would call me tonight. I don't have until tonight. I get out of the car and go back to the door. I knock hard. The metal makes a loud sound. No one answers. I knock again.

"Kade!" I yell. My voice sounds thin in the parking lot. The side door opens. He comes out, not from the front. He has a jacket on now and his phone in his hand. He sees my face and his own face changes. "What happened?" he says.

I hold my phone out to him. He takes it. He looks at the text and the photo. His jaw tightens. He zooms in on the photo the same way I did. "When did you get this?" he asks. "Just now. In the parking lot. After you closed the door."

He looks around the parking lot, at the road, at the other buildings. Like whoever sent it might still be here. "Did you call it back?" he asks. "It says not in service." He hands my phone back. "Get in your car and lock the doors."

"I'm not getting in my car and locking the doors. That is my sister's bag." "I know it is your sister's bag. That is why I am telling you to get in your car and lock the doors. Someone watched you come here and they watched you leave. They want you to go out to Route 51 by yourself."

He is right and I hate that he is right again. I get in the passenger side of my car and he gets in the driver's side. My car is small and he barely fits. He smells like oil and leather and cold air. "Drive?" I say. "Not to Route 51," he says. "To my place. We need to look at this photo somewhere that is not a parking lot."

He starts my car and drives. I have never let anyone drive my car. He drives with one hand on the wheel and the other holding my phone with the photo open. At a red light he looks at it again. "White sheet, gray blanket, bare walls, cheap wood floor," he says. "Looks like the lodge rooms. The ones off Route 51 have that same floor." "So she is there?" "I didn't say she is there. I said it looks like that floor. Could be any cheap rental around here."

He drives past warehouses and then into a neighborhood with small houses and chain link fences. He pulls into a driveway with a single house and a detached garage. The house is dark. "We are going inside," he says. "You can keep freaking out inside where no one can see you from the road."

I am not freaking out. I am shaking and I can't stop. He opens my car door for me and I get out. My legs feel weak. Inside, the house is clean and simple. Couch, table, kitchen. No decorations. It smells like coffee. He turns a light on and locks the door. "Sit," he says.

I sit on the couch. He sits on the coffee table in front of me so we are at the same level. He puts my phone on the table. "Tell me again what they told you about Sean," I say. Because if Will Porter is connected to both, I need to know what really happened in 2013.

He looks at my pendant, which is still under my shirt. He doesn't ask to see it this time. "They told us he took a car," he says. "A car from a lot off Route 51. Same area as that lodge. He was seventeen and he liked cars. He wanted to fix them up and sell them. He took one without permission. He was driving it back and it caught fire. County fire said fuel line. They found the chain in the ash. They said it was his because of the scratches on the back."

"Who told you that? Who exactly?" "The county sheriff at the time. And Will Porter." My head comes up. "Will Porter?" "Yeah. Will was working for the tow company that pulled the car out. He was the one who found the chain. He brought it to us. Said he saw Sean at the diner that day. Said Sean was talking about taking a car."

He says it flat but his hands are tight. The scar on his left hand is white in the light. "What did you see?" I ask. "I saw the car," he says. "It was burned down to the frame. There was nothing inside that looked like a person. No bones, no teeth. Just ash and metal. The sheriff said the fire was too hot. Said it was a total burn."

"And you believed that? A fire that burns a body to nothing but leaves a silver chain?" He looks at me and for the first time he looks like he is not sure what to say. "No," he says. "I didn't believe it. I was nineteen. I told my dad we should ask for a second check. My dad said Will was a good kid and the sheriff was a good man and we should let Sean rest. So we buried an empty box with the chain in it."

The room is quiet. The refrigerator hums in the kitchen. "If there were no remains, and the chain survived, then there was no body," I say. Because that is what a fire investigator would say. A fire hot enough to destroy a body would melt silver. Silver melts at a much lower heat than it takes to burn bone away.

"I know that now," he says. "I didn't know that when I was nineteen." "So Sean could be alive." "I don't know," he says. "I thought he was dead for twelve years. Then you walk in here wearing his chain, and Will Porter who found his chain is now hiring girls with a fake job that uses my old number. I don't think that is a coincidence."

I pick up my phone. The photo of Mia's bag is still on the screen. The yellow sweater corner is still there. "If Sean is alive, why would he not come home?" I say. "Same reason your sister didn't call you," he says. "Maybe he couldn't. Maybe someone didn't let him."

He stands up and goes to the kitchen. He brings back two glasses of water. He puts one in front of me. His hand is steady now. "We need to find Will Porter," he says. "And we need to do it without going to that lodge tonight. Because whoever sent you that photo wants you to go there tonight alone. And if you go alone, you will be the second bag on that bed."

I take a sip of water. It is cold. My hands are still shaking but less. "My mom," I say. "How would my mom get his chain if he didn't die?" He sits back down on the coffee table. He is close enough that I can see the small lines around his eyes.

"Your mom worked at the diner," he says. "Sean ate there almost every day. He liked her. He told me she gave him extra fries and didn't charge him. If he needed help, if he was in trouble and couldn't go home, he might have gone to her." "And she would have helped him," I say, because my mom helped everyone. "Yeah," he says. "She would have."

My phone buzzes again. Same unknown number that says not in service. New text. It says: You have his chain. You want to know where your sister is? Come to the lodge. Come alone. No bikers. Under it, another photo. This time it is not a bag. It is a hand. A girl's hand with a small silver ring on the pinky finger. Mia wears a silver ring on her pinky finger. It is her mom's ring. The hand is lying on the same white sheet.

Kade sees it at the same time I do. He takes the phone from me before I can drop it. "That's not alone," he says, and his voice is different now, low and hard. "That is not someone who wants to talk." He stands up and pulls his own phone out. He calls someone. He says, "I need you to check a ledger from 2013. The rental ledger with the names that didn't make sense. And I need Will Porter's last known address. Now."

He looks at me while he waits. The pendant is out again. I didn't realize I pulled it out. I am holding it in my fist. He says, "We are not going alone. And we are not waiting until morning."