My father pulled out his cell.
“And tell him to get a hold of Miles,” I managed to say even though my throat was almost fully constricted now.
“Declan, are you at the coffee shop?” he said. “Okay, we have a problem . . .”
Elle’s cries echoed in my head and I found myself driving blindly through the haze.
“Logan, turn here!” my father yelled.
Fuck. Pay attention, asshole, I told myself. I took a right and then an immediate left and got my head back in the game.
“He’s out looking for her now and Miles is on his way. They’ll both probably beat us there.”
I laid on the horn at the slow traffic in front of me. “Move, move, move.”
“Go up on the sidewalk, get around the cars, and take the next right. That will get us to 93 faster in this traffic.”
My tires climbed the curb and I moved around the cars on the pavement until I got to the turn he’d told me to take. “What are you doing here?” I finally asked as I swerved around the bend in the road and went over the railroad tracks somewhere in Boston I’d never ventured.
He spoke calmly and rationally. Nothing like me. “Logan, I don’t know what you’ve been up to but I know whatever it is, it’s dangerous. I heard the terror in your voice from my office and followed you. Now tell me what’s going on.”
I chanced a single glance toward him. “That’s just it, Pop, I don’t have a fucking clue what just happened. She told me she’d found black rose petals on her back step this morning and a sinking sensation hit me like a ton of bricks. A story Gramps told me.”
“Yeah, they were the calling card of the Savin Hill Gang back in Mickey’s short heyday. Left as a warning.”
Ring. Ring.
It was my cell, and the name Miles flashed across my dash. I pressed the accept button on my steering wheel. “Tell me you’re there. That you’ve found her.”
“No, I’m in Beacon Hill though. Her vehicle isn’t anywhere outside the boutique. Declan’s on foot combing the side streets, I’m almost to the end of Charles, and then I’ll start looking in the parking lots. Listen, Peyton saw Declan and wanted to get him out of the rain. He had to tell her Elle was missing and now she’s near hysteria. What do you want me to tell her?”
“Fuck!” I slammed the steering wheel.
My father’s voice filled the car. “Miles, let’s not say anything right now until we figure everything out, but she shouldn’t be anywhere alone.”
“Yeah, I agree. I’ll tell her to lock up the boutique and go to Mulligan’s Cup. The streets are a ghost town, but Declan said the café was packed. She should be safe there.”
It was odd listening to the conversation, because the one thing about the Irish Mob that had really changed over the years was that they never made a move in public. The days of shootouts in public places were over. Not enough police protection. Not enough men in their pockets. Therefore, Miles’s plan for Peyton was a good one.
“Keep in touch,” my father told him, “And we’ll call when we’re closer.”
“Roger that,” Miles said and hung up.
The familiar blue and red sign for Interstate 93 was just ahead. That meant less than eight miles to get to her, but it could have been the entire two-hundred-mile distance of 93, which ended in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, that I had to travel because the traffic on the highway was at a complete and total standstill.
“Fuck!” I cried out.
The sigh from my father told me he felt the same. “Turn around and go back to Dorchester Avenue.”
“It was worse there.”
“We’ll double back to Washington Street and then over to Blue Hill Avenue.”
“That’s at least ten miles out of the way.”
“Logan, trust me, son, it will get us there faster.”
I threw the car in reverse and looked backwards as I zoomed the wrong way off the on-ramp. I felt raw and nervous inside in a way I never had. Back on the road, I hit the gas, spraying water, speeding to the corner, and turning left so fast that I almost fishtailed up Washington Avenue.
My father gripped the handle above the door but said nothing else.
I kept control of the Rover and when the light ahead turned red, I hit the gas and powered through the intersection.
Nothing was going to stop me from finding Elle.
Not now, not ever.
ELLE
T he sun was shining.
Clementine was chasing me through a field of dandelions as fast as she could.
“Mommy,” she called. “Please slow down, I can’t keep up.”
I was in front of her, trying to get away. I couldn’t slow down. I wanted to be with her but I knew I shouldn’t.
“Please, please, Mommy, don’t leave me.”
My heart stung and I turned around. I couldn’t stand it and I had to comfort her. To explain to her it was safer for her not to be with me. I bent down and picked a dandelion and handed it to her. “Blow, just blow,” I said. “And everything will be okay.”
She took it and blew on it, but still she wouldn’t stop crying. Although I knew better, I reached my hand out for her to take, but instead of feeling her smooth, baby-soft skin, I touched something damp, gritty. Dirt. The ground. Sand. I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that I wasn’t in a field and a hammer was pounding against my brain.
I tried to move but couldn’t. It was as if my arms and legs weren’t attached to my body. Chemical fumes stung my nose. I was aware I was somewhere, I just didn’t know where. I couldn’t see anything but that retched blackness.
With all my might, I concentrated harder. Slowly, my consciousness was coming back.
Something was around my eyes, but it wasn’t thick enough to prevent me from making out shapes. Trees. Flowers, maybe.
The smell of chemicals was everywhere in the air.
I could hear noises. Water running, maybe.
A figure stepped toward me.
I didn’t dare even try to move now.
“I think she’s waking up, Father. What do you want me to do with her?” an unfamiliar voice said.
“I’m not ready for her to begin her repentance yet. Keep her quiet so I can concentrate.”
That was the voice I’d heard in the car. I‘d heard it before. I still couldn’t place it.
“Why don’t you use the same sermons you prepared for her sister?”
“She’s not a drug addict. We don’t have to take her through withdrawal to repent for the unholy sins she committed on her body.”
“What about her adultery? Perhaps you could use the lessons you already designed to atone for the sin of adultery.”
“Enough! She’s not an adulteress—yet. My goal is to prevent her from becoming one. I need some time to think. Her repentance must be unique to her.”
Was I in church? What was going on? I started to squirm. Tried to scream.
“Give her another injection so she doesn’t get away from you like her sister.”
My sister. He had taken my sister?
Frantic and scared, I scraped at the ground beneath me. My hands were tied together, but still I tried to heave myself up. I wasn’t weak. I did know how to defend myself. I could take him . . . if I could just figure out which way was up and which was down.
Before I could distinguish direction, that horrible Band-Aid smell was back in the air and I heard a flick, flick.
“No, please no,” I pleaded.
With a yank of my hair, whoever was beside me sat me up. “Shut the fuck up or you won’t like what I do to you.”
“Leave her alone. I told you I don’t want you to touch her. You’d be mindful yourself to recite your own lessons and repent for your own weaknesses.”