Maybe I can enjoy this one…
A few hours later, the footage is ready. I grab the disks from the manager, nodding my thanks, and head out of Cobalt. I have just enough time to stop by the small café nearby and order a Chocolate Mint Tea before Karissa's school day ends. The café is in chaos. Seems one of their workers hasn't shown up for a few days, leaving them short staffed.
Go figure.
I'm in my car, parked in front of the math classroom, when two o'clock rolls around. I sit there, watching the building as the students stream out, looking for her, scanning the crowd for a hint of the pink sweater she wore today, but it's nowhere to be seen. The crowd thins, minutes ticking away.
She's not here.
My insides coil as I pull out my phone to call her. It goes straight to voicemail. I scan the neighborhood once more, double-checking I have the right place, and start up the car. I speed away, trying her phone again on the drive home with no luck.
She's not answering.
It's not even ringing.
I pull the car in the driveway when I get to the house and head straight for the front door. The knob turns as soon as I grasp it. Unlocked. I shove the door open, a shuddering breath hitting me right away, the sound of crying in the distance. My feet root into the ground, coldness running through me. "Karissa?"
The crying continues, a hiccupping sob, but above it I hear Karissa's calm voice call out. "In here."
The den.
I walk that way, pausing in the doorway. Karissa is sitting on the couch, her arm around Melody as the girl cries on her shoulder. My apprehension lessens just a bit with the swell of relief, but it doesn't completely fade away.
"What happened?" I ask, glancing between them uneasily. I hate crying, no matter who's doing it.
"It's Paul," Karissa says carefully, shooting her friend a sympathetic look when the name makes her cry harder.
"Ah." Paul. "Something happen to him?"
"Yes," she says, hesitating before sighing. "Well, we don't know. He sort of just… disappeared."
That he did.
Poof.
Gone.
Carried away by the wind.
"Disappeared," I repeat.
"Yeah," she says. "Nobody's seen or heard from him in days. The police say there's no sign of foul play, but his car was left at his work and his phone was all smashed up in the alley, so I don't know how they can say that. Clearly he didn't run away."
"He wouldn't," Melody chimes in, sniffling as she tries to control her sobs. "He wouldn't just run away. He had work… and school… he had me. Something happened to him, somebody did something to him. God! Why would somebody want to hurt him?"
Why? The million-dollar question.
I could answer it, but it wouldn't be what she wanted to hear.
Melody starts crying again. I take it as my cue to excuse myself. I pull the discs from my coat pocket and walk over to my desk, sitting down across the room, giving the two of them their space.
I pop the first disc in the drive and wait for it to load. Six cameras are positioned around the outside of Cobalt, two in the front and two in the back, with two more along the alley, giving a complete view of the building and the streets around it. The screen is split into squares, the feed from all angles playing simultaneously. I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for, or if it'll even help, but I know Carmela. She wouldn't have just attacked me that night on a whim. She would've scoped the building out, put a plan in place and gone over it again and again.
Desperation doesn't completely erase a built-in knack for survival, which she clearly has.
I watch the feeds for a while, fast forwarding through hours of nothingness, watching the comings and goings around Cobalt, and waiting for something to spark my interest. I breeze through two days of footage as Karissa and Melody talk amongst themselves across the room. The crying grates on my nerves as I drum my fingers on the arm of my chair, growing more and more on edge.
I want silence, and peace.
I want this over and done with.
I need to put an end to it.
Move on with my life.
I'm on day three of the footage already when Melody finally pulls herself together and climbs to her feet. "I should go. It's getting late."
It is.
It's nearing dusk.
She's been here for hours.
"Are you sure?" Karissa asks. "You don't have to go. You can stay as long as you want. We have guest rooms."
My eyes dart over top of the laptop screen, meeting Karissa's right away. She shoots me a 'no nonsense' kind of look that silences me before I even say anything. She'll fight me on it. She will. And it'll get ugly if I interfere.
"I'm sure," Melody says, hugging Karissa. "Thanks for being there for me today. Sorry you missed your classes because of this."