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  “I think you know where he is,” Cel declared, and then stormed toward the parking lot. She didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself, and she didn’t want anyone to see her scale the fence, either. Talk about suspicious.

  The gray F-150 had backed out and driven off by the time she passed the old couple and reached the lot. A few seconds later, when she glanced back over her shoulder, the couple, Big-Wheel-boy, and Lauren were all gone. She cut across the lot, looped around building 12 and 11, made her way to a section of the fence behind the pool house that was shielded by bushes, hopped over, and sprinted to her car.

  Chapter 16 - Cel

  Cel sped home, choking the life out of the wheel. She could hear the tick of her pulse in her ears. Her stomach felt as if it had flipped upside down. She’d recited multiple calming and soothing spells with little results. She couldn’t believe Parker had confided in Lauren about her miscarriage, her loss, their private pain. She accepted and welcomed him sharing personal details about their struggles with his mom and sister, or even Omar and Natalie. Everyone needed an emotional outlet, an ear separate from their spouse’s, especially during dark stints. But she couldn’t accept him sharing those struggles with the same woman who had spent the last two months seducing him, luring him away from his marriage. The same woman who had a child of her own—magnificent Sammy—to dangle in front of him as proof she had eager eggs and a working womb.

  Cel parked askew in the driveway and hurried inside. On a normal day, she would’ve spent the afternoon taking care of household chores, meditating, and preparing dinner. But today wasn’t a normal day. She spent the afternoon circling the house, moving from room to room, closet to closet, drawer to drawer, digging through notebooks and folders, searching under cushions and in between mattresses, looking for any letters or notes from Lauren Parker might have kept.

  Like Yesenia, Parker had a penchant for writing longhand. He’d written Cel countless notes and letters when they were teens, usually taping them to the outside of her bedroom window at night while she slept, or hiding them in one of the pouches on her backpack or in her locker. Sometimes he somehow even snuck them into her pant pocket without her noticing. And after they moved in together in their early twenties, he continued surprising her, occasionally hiding one under her pillow, or putting one in a plant pot on the porch, or wrapping one around Cel’s toothbrush or shampoo bottle, before he left for work. He said he liked to imagine the look on her face when she came across them; the way her eyes would hopefully inflate with fascination as the right side of her mouth crept happily up, revealing her awkward incisor, what he called the exclamation point of her smile. She had all the notes he’d ever written her in a shoebox in the back of her closet, the last one penned shortly after her second miscarriage, and she knew he had the few she’d written him in a worn cardboard box with his childhood baseball card collection in the attic. So, if Lauren had ever written him any personal letters or little cute notes, Cel figured he’d kept them. Probably in a drawer at the school because he was smart like that, but she wanted to check the house just in case.

  She had pulled her hair up off her sweaty neck, stripped down to her bra and underwear, and was kneeling in the center of the computer room, sifting through a box stuffed with old tax forms and bills and manuals when the doorbell rang, startling her out of her obsession. She looked up and waited. A knock, three solid raps.

  She rushed to the living room, slid the curtain back and peeked out the blinds. Two unmarked police cruisers and one official Oak Mott Police car were parked in front of her house, one blocking the driveway behind her Envoy. Her stomach torqued as she slid her eyes toward the front porch and saw four people. Chief Robert S. Sterling and Detective Paul Hart stood shoulder to shoulder, both eyeing the door like kids eagerly awaiting Jack to spring from his box. Hart was wearing the same dark suit he’d had on five hours earlier at Yesenia’s and held a piece of paper in his hand. Sterling’s ape-like arms hung down at his sides, his gut over his belt, mustache over his upper lip. His eyes were shielded by the tan-tinted bifocals most Oak Mott locals had never seen him without, day or night, church or work. He wore boots and jeans and a blue long sleeve button-up, a shiny golden star chief badge pinned to the left breast pocket. A short man with a scrawny neck, weak chin, and a wispy halo of hair flanked Hart, and a husky female with a freckled face and spiky hair flanked Sterling. The man donned dress pants and a Polo shirt, the husky woman, whose name tag read WILSON, a standard OMPD uniform.

  “Coming,” Cel hollered as she hustled to her closet. She threw on a T-shirt and jean shorts. “Be right there.” When her hand touched the door knob, she paused and instinctively whispered a calming spell before opening the door. “Did you find him? Is he okay?”

  Hart shook his head, his expression the definition of solemn.

  Cel could feel the weight of all eight of their eyes pressing down on her.

  “We didn’t find him,” Hart said. “But we did find his car.”

  Anxiety shifted Cel’s heart into overdrive as she tried to digest Hart’s response. “What? His… Are you sure it’s his?”

  Hart nodded.

  She pressed her hand over her heart as if to stop it from bursting through her ribcage. “Where?”

  “In Hunter’s Haven, a couple of miles behind your grandma’s house.”

  Beginning to feel light headed, she closed her eyes and placed her hand on the door jamb.

  “Are you all right?” Sterling asked. “Do you need to sit down?” He sounded grandfatherly and soothing, the same as when he’d questioned Cel and the other hunters about Abby’s disappearance shortly after becoming the chief fifteen years earlier.

  She nodded and slowly opened her eyes. “But…then…he’s got to be out there somewhere, right?”

  “We’ve been searching all afternoon,” Hart said. “But we haven’t found any trace of him yet.” He stroked his salt and pepper goatee, his deep-set, dull eyes glued to Cel.

  “How can there not be a trace of him if his car is there?” Her eyes bounced from Hart to Sterling, Hart to Sterling. “No fingerprints or footprints or blood or anything?” Eyes bouncing back and forth again. “He couldn’t have just vanished.”

  “It’s not that simple, Cel,” Sterling said. “These things take time. Our forensics team is still out there, working and searching. We even have our hound out there. If there is anything to find, we’ll find it.”

  “Then why aren’t you guys out there looking? Shouldn’t everyone be out there? Isn’t that your job?”

  Hart glanced at the paper in his hand as though it had spoken to him, then met eyes with Cel. “We’re here to search your house.” He held up the paper for Cel to see. An official gold and black McLennan County seal marked the top, a fancy, undiscernible signature the bottom. “This is a notarized document signed by Beverly Lundy and Judge Exline, giving us permission to search this house. As you probably know, Beverly’s name is the one on the deed to the property.”

  Cel knew, all right. All too well. Beverly had both discreetly and overtly reminded her that she’d bought the house as a gift for Parker many times. The anxiety brewing in Cel’s chest bubbled as she eyed the paper. Although Beverly’s longtime close friendship with Sterling, rumored to have been an affair that grew stale after Beverly’s accident, had probably influenced the decision to conduct a search on the home, Cel suspected that wasn’t the sole reason the police had agreed to do this so quickly. She feared the cops were lying about something, holding something back, information or evidence. She thumbed behind her. “Did you find something that makes you think something bad happened to him here?”

  “No,” Hart said. “But like I told you this morning, the sooner we explore all our options, especially now that we know he’s not with his vehicle, the better.”

  Despite the gentle delivery, Cel had the impression his words carried an air of subtle accusation. “You mean the option that I did something to him and then dumped his car out there
?”

  Sterling touched her shoulder before Hart could respond. His hand felt as heavy as lead, and his sausage fingers seemed to trail half a foot down her back. “Relax. That’s not what we’re saying, Cel. There are a number of things we could find here that might help locate Parker.” He removed his hand, adjusted his glasses. “Like a clue as to why he went out to Hunter’s Haven in the first place, or where he could’ve gone from there. We just had to get Beverly’s permission because she technically owns the house. It’s a formality.”

  Cel bit her bottom lip and shot a quick glance back over her shoulder, thinking about how disheveled the house would appear when they entered, like a mini tornado had whipped through there. Every light on, closet open. Papers strewn everywhere in every room. Drawers and boxes open, contents stirred. She’d look moon-bat crazy. “Whatever,” she whispered to herself as much as them. “Search all you want, but you’re wasting your time. You won’t find anything. I’ve already torn the place apart looking for something, anything, to help make sense of this, and there’s nothing in there.”

  “Thank you,” Hart said, and then glanced at Cel’s bare feet. “You can’t stay in the house while we search, and it could take a long while, so do you want to slip on some shoes?”

  Cel nodded. “Do I have to stay here, or can I go to my abuela’s?”

  “We’d like you leave the Envoy here so we can clear it, too, but Officer Wilson can certainly give you a ride to your grandma’s if you want,” Sterling replied. “You need to leave any laptops, tablets, and other electronic devices in the house though, okay?”

  Cel nodded.

  “And if you could give us any of Parker’s bank account or email passwords, things like that, it would speed up the process for us,” the man sporting a wispy halo of light brown hair and weak chin said.

  “Okay,” Cel said. “Do I need to give you my cell phone, too?”

  The man eyed Sterling, waiting for a decision from the man in charge. Sterling hung on the thought for a moment. “No. You can take it, so we can keep in touch.”

  You mean so you can monitor me, Cel thought but kept inside. “What about Mila, my cat?”

  “That’s up to you,” Hart said. “We’re going to be in and out of the house, so if you think she’ll get scared or run away, you can lock her up in a carrier, or you can take her with you.”

  “I’ll take her.”

  Cel felt numb, somewhat detached from her body, as Officer Wilson followed her into the house. In the kitchen, she collected her cell phone and jotted down all of Parker’s passwords she knew on a notepad attached to the fridge, and in her bedroom, slid on her sneakers and scooped up Mila who was curled up on her bed.

  When she exited the house cradling Mila in her arms, Hart, Sterling, and Wispy Halo Hair were huddled in front of one of the unmarked cruisers like a trio of warlocks hovering around a caldron. Hart had his cell phone to his ear, and the other two were talking in hushed tones. Melissa Herbert and her three young kids, the family who lived directly across the street, and a few other neighbors were standing on the sidewalk, watching the house, gossiping. An Audi the same color as Jennifer’s was parked at the end of the block, facing the house. Two occupants were inside.

  Wilson led Cel to the official Oak Mott cruiser and opened the front passenger door for her. As they pulled away from the curb and Cel watched Hart and Sterling enter the house, time slowed to a muted crawl. As though some deranged god with a vicious sense of humor had tapped the slow-motion button on a cosmic remote in order to relish one of the most harrowing moments in her life.

  SEPTEMBER 1998

  Chapter 17 - Cel

  Cel was greeted by faint Tejano music when she unlocked the front door and stepped inside the house. At Yesenia’s insistence, the radio in Tia Dillo’s bedroom had stayed on ever since she was admitted to the hospital two weeks earlier. Yesenia had also bought a small portable radio for the hospital room. They were both tuned to the same station, Tia Dillo’s favorite, and stayed on all night and day. Cel felt a sense of comfort knowing the hospital radio would be tuned to 95.7, Today’s Tejano Tunes, every time she visited, and that the same station would greet her when she arrived home afterwards. It somehow connected the two places, provided a sense of hope. Made the situation in the hospital room seem less dire, the empty house more alive. But nonetheless, Cel didn’t really enjoy listening to Tejano music. Not for personal pleasure, anyway. She preferred alternative rock, metal, industrial techno. Sounds with more bite. After kicking off her shoes and opening the blinds to awaken the house, she put a Massive Attack cassette in the boombox on her dresser and hit play. She didn’t turn off Dillo’s radio, she just cranked hers up louder.

  She showered, dressed in cut-off jean shorts and her favorite Nine Inch Nails T-shirt, and then made her way to the kitchen for a quick bite to eat. When she opened the fridge, she found a plate of tamales and rice covered in Saran Wrap on the top rack. A sticky note was stuck to the clear plastic.

  HAVE FUN TONIGHT, MIJA! IT’S WHAT TIA DILLO WOULD WANT. I’LL BE HOME AROUND 11:00 AND WANT TO HEAR ALL ABOUT IT.

  Two days earlier, when Cel had expressed guilt about going to the Central Texas State Fair with the other hunters on opening night because of Tia Dillo’s condition, Yesenia had told her she had it backwards. “You need to go for Dillo. She loved the fairs and would want you to go. Besides, when she wakes up, if she finds out you didn’t go, she’ll smack you silly.” This had elicited a chuckle from Cel (smack you silly), and lifted the burden of guilt off her heart (when she wakes up, not if).

  Cel heated the tamales and rice in the microwave, ate, and then made her way out to Hunter’s Haven to check on Frito’s grave. She’d visited the site to make sure he hadn’t clawed his way out of the ground every morning and evening since she and Parker had buried him. Tonight, like always, the large stone was still in place, the dirt untouched. When Cel returned home, she locked up the house, tied her flannel shirt around her waist, hopped on her bike, and headed to Parker’s house.

  The other hunters were already there. Plus Jeff. Abby’s mom had told her earlier in the week that she had to take Jeff, or she couldn’t go. Their bikes were positioned in a circle at the end of Parker’s driveway. Parker stood in the center of the group, making goofy hand gestures at Jeff, whose giant-toothed smile took up half his face.

  All eyes landed on Cel as she pierced the group, rolling to a stop between Omar and Natalie. Like her, all of the hunters except Parker, who still had on the black shirt and cargo shorts he’d worn to school, had cleaned up and changed. Natalie sported a trace of lipstick and the new short-sleeved Astros button-up her dad had bought her to match her cap. Omar’s damp hair preserved the tracks of a wide-forked comb, and he’d replaced one over-sized hand-me-down for a nicer, less worn one. Abby had switched into the low-cut, light blue and yellow summer dress she’d been talking up all week. She’d purchased it at Goodwill with some of her hunting cash and was saving it for fair night. It fit her chest a little better than her T-shirts, but not by much.

  After Cel answered everyone’s greetings with a smile, Parker hopped onto her bike’s back wheel pegs. “All right. Let’s go.” He pointed over her head toward the setting sun and spoke in his cartoonish deep voice. “To the fair!”

  Energetic hoots stabbed the air as they pedaled out of the driveway with Cel and Parker in the lead. The Klepper Fields—a group of eight interconnected soccer fields where the fair had been held for the past eighteen years—were located one block north of Oak Mott High, roughly three miles away. A trip that took closer to twenty minutes on a leisure ride, took just under fifteen due to their enthusiasm. When they rounded First Baptist Church and turned north onto Jasper Street, which passed directly in front of the high school, they breached the edge of the fair’s aura.

  The school parking lot was full, and the shoulders of Jasper Street and the roads intersecting it were lined bumper to bumper with parked vehicles. Traffic on Jasper had slowed to a stand
still as parents holding their kids’ hands, laughing friends, and smiling lovers darted across the road, eager to reach the entrance.

  Parker hopped off of Cel’s bike as they approached the high school gymnasium, and as she wedged it into the bike rack, a realization gave her pause. They would probably never do this again. For five years straight now, they’d ridden their bikes to the fair together and parked them in this same rack, but by this time next year everyone except Natalie, who’d skipped first grade because of her advanced reading level, would have a driver’s license. Parker would get his in two months. They’d probably drive to the fair. Probably in the beat up, mustard-colored ‘88 Dodge Ram that Parker’s dad had inherited and promised to give to Parker next summer on his sixteenth birthday.

  The thought of arriving at the fair next year in that truck, riding in the cab with Parker while the other hunters rode in the bed, brought a ghost of a smile to Cel’s face. She cut her eyes at Parker and held his gaze as she untied her flannel shirt and slipped it on like a jacket. She’d stitched the slits Frito had carved into the shirt with matching color threads, rendering the damage near invisible.

  Parker nudged her arm as the other hunters lined their bikes up in the rack alongside Cel’s. “What are you smiling at?”

  She nudged him back. “Nothing.”

  He pointed at her infinity necklace. “You need to do that thing you do. You know…” He pinched his fingers together on his chest as though grabbing a necklace of his own and brought them to his lips.