Amber

Chapter 20

Mark

November 9, 2015

Daniel waits until I'm too exhausted to lift the bat anymore before taking me by the shirt collar and dragging me out through the window. I push him off of me, stumble forward into the wind, and then follow him running back to the car. It takes a while for all of the noise to completely fade and for most of me to stop shaking enough to take the wheel. We drive north—the opposite direction of the police station—and pull over to park near a silo several miles away.

"That was stupid," Daniel says, the anger worn on his face as he flicks his mask onto the dashboard. Then he turns to face me, his glasses crooked so that his left eye lens is halfway up his forehead. His dark hair looks like it's been electroshocked into standing at attention. "You were stupid."

My mask is already off too, but my entire face still feels hot and itchy. The baseball bat rests against my knee as my hands fall away from the wheel to grip the bottom of the handle. Somehow holding it calms me, like it's an anchor to some measure of control.

"Where's the bottle, Mark? I thought we had an agreement."

I roll my eyes. "I'm sober. Jesus Christ."

"Then what was that? What were you thinking?"

I rest my head against the chair, turning toward the window, still breathing heavy enough for it to fog around the center.

"The first time it happened was understandable. Dumb as hell, but understandable. Everything was fresh in your mind, and you were angry. That's why I didn't say anything then. But tonight you just go and lose your shit like that, and it's not okay. I want to help you find her. I do. But if your goal in all of this is to get yourself killed or locked up or whatever, then I'm done being the tag-along guy." I hear him slump into his chair. He says nothing more for a while. "Just take me home," he finally mutters.

"I can't. We have to stay out until five. Remember?"

I hear him swear under his breath. He remembers. Our alibi. We needed a place we could say we were at all night in case things went bad and the police questioned us. The old couple in the farmhouse will likely tell the cops that the masked men were asking questions about a kidnapping and their description of the girl from the picture on the phone will fit Lauren's. It won't take much more than that for them to suspect I was involved in the break-in. Of course there's also the fact that I've spent the better part of the last two months randomly popping into the police station to remind them all what a bunch of failures they are and telling them how I would do their jobs for them and find Lauren myself. Not my smartest decision.

Daniel has a friend whose uncle owns the twenty-four hour gym in town. We asked him if he could say we were there helping set up new equipment in the back over night for some extra cash. He agreed to go along with it because he would do anything for his nephew, but also because he—in his words—remembers "how it is to be young and unruly. Just don't kill anyone."

Advice taken. Advice followed through. Barely.

"I'm not staying in this car with you until five," Daniel says.

I turn to face him. "No choice, kid. The story is we leave Jim's at five, and I drive you to your house and then straight home from there."

Ya, the name of the gym is: Jim's. Jim's gym. Real clever.

Daniel mutters another swear.

I reach into the small compartment in the door and find the pack of cigarettes I stashed there when I tried like hell to take up smoking after Lauren disappeared. I tried everything. Different brands. Menthol. Non-menthol. Cigars. E-cigarettes. It wouldn't take. It's a shame too because as hazardous as everyone believes cigarettes are for stress-relief, they are a hell of a lot less so than breaking into people's houses and free-swinging with baseball bats.