Until I Find You - Rea Frey Page 0,93

share how you’re feeling, even if it’s not with me.” She hesitates, unsure of how to frame her next question. “What about if we got you into some sort of group with other kids who’ve lost parents too?” She strokes her short brown hair.

Savi shakes her head, hardens again. “I don’t want to talk to other kids. I just want…” Her voice fades and Crystal waits for her to say more.

“You just want what?”

Suddenly, the words explode out of Savi in a rush. “I just want you to pay attention to me!” Savi’s voice trembles and she balls her fingers into tight fists. “I always try to make you happy, but nothing I do matters. Ever since Dad died, you aren’t happy. You don’t pay attention. It’s like you’re the ghost.”

Crystal gasps. “What does that mean?”

Savi waves her hands in front of her face. “It’s like you’re here but you’re not here. You don’t care about me!” she howls. “You don’t care about anything.”

The admission blows her back. “That’s not true.” She fumbles for something more profound to say. Out the cracked car window, the sun has disappeared and the streets are pitch black and eerie. When is the last time she’s even been out at night? Why doesn’t she take Savi out into the world instead of staying in their house, night after night, like prisoners?

“Maybe I should just disappear too.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say anything like that. I am your mother. Of course I see you.” She reaches across the seat.

“Doesn’t feel like it.” Savi crosses her arms again and pulls away. Crystal closes her eyes and leans back. She struggles to rearrange the words in her head. A small click of an open door snaps her to attention.

“Savi?”

In one swift motion, Savi has opened the car door and taken off. Crystal catches only a glimpse of her blue dress fluttering in the inky night as she sprints away. “Shit.” She wavers—probably a second too long—but she doesn’t know if she would be faster on foot or by car. Savi could hide in the bushes or somewhere she can’t drive. She rushes back into the driver’s seat, starts the car, and takes a sharp right onto the nearest street. She rolls the windows down and begins screaming Savi’s name. Real panic spreads through her chest. What if she can’t find her? What if someone snatches her?

This is a safe town, she tells herself. People are here to help.

She circles the block and realizes they aren’t far from Wilder. Maybe she went there? Or just ran home? She parks on the curb, hesitates, then locks the car and runs toward the playground. The stage is gone, wiped clean as if it never existed. She looks under slides and on every swing. She checks the trees, knowing how much Savi used to climb. Irritation gives way to real worry. No, Savi isn’t a helpless child, but she is still ten. She knows her way home, and she can’t get too far in the neighborhood without someone noticing or asking her where her parents are.

She walks briskly back toward the car, phone in hand. She dials Pam’s number, but it goes straight to voice mail.

“Savi ran away,” she says. “I need your help.”

42

BEC

“Dead?” That word—a word I’ve become so familiar with—still sticks on my lips. “Then how did Oliver end up here?”

Maya starts to speak, but Jake stops her. “I’ll explain everything to Rebecca. Why don’t we just take care of logistics?”

I cling to Oliver. “What do you mean, logistics? If he doesn’t have parents, then where does he go?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we have to take him.”

Oliver starts crying again, and I gently shush and bounce his tiny body while trying to think of ways out of this. They can’t take him. I’m not ready. Without Oliver, I have no one. “So you just take him and then what? What am I supposed to do about Jackson?”

“We’ll find Jackson,” Toby interrupts.

I stop moving and grow still. “How can you possibly know that?”

“My boys are on it.”

“Why isn’t anyone telling me what’s going on?” I demand. Pieces click in my head, all of the events of the last few days building and releasing. I laugh, a dry, sarcastic bark. “Because you think I’m unstable. You think I’m somehow responsible for all of this, don’t you? That a blind mother who’s lost everything can’t possibly be in her right mind or tell the truth, right? That she can’t take care