Behind Our Walls (16 page)

Still, sympathy or no, it didn't make it any easier to communicate with the woman. Sophie turned and walked off.

"Okay! Thanks for stopping by!" Fiona called out in the most sarcastically friendly voice she had ever heard. It was a fitting end to the conversation, letting Sophie know with cruel clarity that Fiona had no intention of ever changing. She wondered if it wasn't just a matter of time before the committee simply took the next logical choice, and showed her the door.

-37-

The sound Sophie heard upon entering the food court was a hushed combination of crying and arguing. It ceased abruptly as she rounded the corner and watched as everyone in unison turned to stare at her. Rowen looked at her with a mixture of relief to see her but also with some fear.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"We've got some people missing. They were supposed to be back last night and haven't shown up yet."

"Well, isn't that what they're supposed to do if they can't get back before daybreak?" Sophie asked. "Hide and wait until the next night?"

Rowen nodded. "Yes, and that's what I've been trying to tell them. Daniel has always—"

"Daniel is the one missing?"

Rowen actually looked more worried than at the start of the conversation. "Yes. And Nairi."

Her blood went cold at the mention of Nairi's name, seeing nothing but the potential rage in Fiona if anything had happened.

"Like I was saying," Rowen continued. "Daniel is always more careful than he needs to be so I have to think that's what happened."

"They weren't getting very much," Meredith said. "I think he was just looking for some wiring."

"But then he should have been back already," Becca snapped. She was Daniel's cousin, and Sophie could see the stress and anger oozing out of her. She had always sensed some hostility coming from Becca over Daniel's involvement, not wanting to risk her last remaining connection to her past. Part of her wanted to be angry and point out that many people here didn't even have even that anymore, but she resisted the urge.

"Lot is going to bring Fiona down here," Rowen said, and immediately Sophie sensed her presence walking up on them and turned to face her.

"What do you want?" Fiona's voice rang out from behind them and even though she was clearly bogged down from lingering sleep, she still managed to sound rude.

"When did you last see Daniel?" Rowen asked.

Sophie looked at him, not understanding the question at first. Then her gut wrenched in immediate anger when she realized that Rowen was going to pump her for information before telling her about Nairi. Fiona looked both confused and defiant.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"He went out on a run last night and according to the log, he entered your name as going with him. I'm assuming that you said no, and he picked someone else but he didn't mark it down."

Daniel wasn't the sort to leave details like that unattended to. Sophie felt her frustration ratchet up even higher at the fact that Rowen hadn't mentioned anything about Fiona's name being on the log.

Fiona glanced down at her feet before answering. "I haven't seen him."

"Fiona, you aren't in trouble. We're just trying to establish a time frame and see if he said anything about who he might have taken with him."

Sophie didn't understand why he was dragging this out. They knew that Nairi was missing. Were they just trying to trick her into telling a lie?

Fiona hadn't changed her posture at all. "Okay. Still don't know anything. Can I go now? Nairi is out for a walk or something, I need to find her."

"Fine. Okay." Rowen stood there watching Fiona leave when he caught Sophie's gaze and wilted somewhat under it, calling out as he did so. "Wait!"

Fiona threw her head back in frustration and turned back to them.

"We think Nairi might have gone with him. Nobody can find her either."

Sophie felt a chill at the depth of betrayal and rage she saw in Fiona's eyes.

"She...you
knew
that she was missing, and you put me through your idiotic, fucking questions?"

Rowen looked uncomfortable but for once, Sophie had no interest in stepping in to protect him. He had dug himself into this one.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Fiona railed against him, actually taking a few steps towards them before Lot reached out and placed a restraining hand on her elbow.

"Fiona, if you're worried about Nairi, why can't you just tell us what happened last night?" he asked. Fiona shrugged out of his grip and stomped off down the corridor. Rowen and Lot both made eye contact with Sophie but before they could say anything, she ran off after Fiona.

"Wait!" She couldn't explain why she was pursuing this, or why she continued to try and mend bridges with this person who clearly wanted nothing to do with her. "Fiona, please wait."

Finally, she turned back. "What? For fuck's sake, what do you want?"

"I just want to talk. Why were you being so defensive back there?"

"I don't know, why was he being such an asshole back there?"

"Fiona, Daniel is missing. Nairi is missing so I know you have to be worried. If there's anything you can tell us, can you at least tell me here, when it's just the two of us?"

"Why does everyone always assume that I'm lying? I could tell you that ice was cold and you'd want to check for yourself."

"That isn't true. You're obviously upset and—"

"My friend is missing, of course I'm fucking upset!"

"I think it's more than just that, you're acting like you're guilty about something."

"You can read my mind now?"

"Fiona, would you lay off the fucking act for one minute?" Her biting tone did actually give Fiona some pause, as she opened and closed her mouth, not sure what to say. "I'm not here to give you a hard time, all right? If there's something you want to tell me in confidence, you can do that. I won't tell anyone, not even the committee. All I care about is finding our people, and I'd like to think that if you were trapped out there somewhere, you'd want us to be doing everything we could to find you."

"I don't—"

"Come on Fiona, I'm asking seriously. If you were the one out there, and Nairi was back here, what do you think she would do?"

The point finally seemed to get through as she shifted her gaze down to the floor. "He came to our suite last night. Daniel came to our suite."

"All right. That's fine. Just tell me what he said to you."

Fiona waved back at the crowd. "He was looking for wiring and according to your precious rules, he can't go out by himself."

"And you said no."

Fiona's face flushed. "I was sick all day yesterday. I told him I wasn't up for it."

"Sick?"

She paused long enough to sneer before answering. "I still have some of the puke in the bucket, if you want to inspect it."

Sophie shook her head, trying to stave off the image. "Forget it. Just tell me what happened then."

"Nothing. He said that he understood, and he left. I didn't see him after that."

"It's just that he didn't change the log and he's usually pretty good about stuff like that. Was Nairi with you when he stopped by?"

"No, and I have no idea why he didn't change the log. I don't know why he wrote my name down in the first place, considering that he hadn't asked me yet. Maybe he ran into Nairi, asked her and they just left. Maybe they didn't have a lot of time and he didn't want to waste it on paperwork."

Sophie nodded. He might have felt pressured to get the errand done. Besides, things had been fairly normal for so long, it was inevitable that some attention to detail would drop off. "All right," she said, "Thank you. Please let me know if you hear anything from Nairi."

"Did she tell you anything?" Lot asked as she returned to the food court.

"No."

"Her name is on the sheet," Rowen insisted. "Daniel would have changed it if she wasn't going along."

"So maybe he just didn't change it." Sophie said. "We all know how hard Daniel has been working on this project, maybe he thought it was a short enough trip that he could bend the rules a little."

"Look, I don't care about any of this!" Becca yelled at them suddenly. "What are we going to do?"

Lot threw up his hands, clearly aggravated at being expected to just have the answer. "I don't know what we realistically can do. We don't even know where he went. And if something did happen to him, we'd just be putting more people at risk sending them out there after him."

"Daniel has worked his ass off for this place," Becca said. "I wish I felt like the rest of you were prepared to do the same."

It was hard to not react defensively, to punch back with her own verbal jab, but Sophie kept quiet. This wasn't a world where you could take your loved ones for granted anymore. "I know you're scared, Becca," she said. "I'd feel the same way, but we can't go scrambling around out there, guessing where he might be. We'll keep asking around, and hopefully we can get a better idea where they went and maybe then we can send someone out after him."

Becca looked reluctant but nodded anyway. She sat down, biting at her thumbnail as she shifted her gaze to the floor. Sophie caught Rowen's eye and nodded for him to follow her to one of the back storerooms.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Look, don't flip your shit when I say this."

"What?"

"Fiona did see Daniel last night."

Rowen took a step back, his eyes narrowing slightly before he responded. "Why would you lie about that? What was the point?"

"Because she didn't tell me anything that we don't already know and I didn't want everyone storming up there like villagers with torches, going after the monster."

He shook his head but didn't argue further. "Fine. I don't agree, but we can't change that now. What did she say?"

"She said that Daniel came to her place and asked her to help."

"I don't understand, they never got along."

"Maybe he was trying to give her a chance to help. I don't know. She didn't go with him because she was sick."

"Right, that's convenient."

"You know..." She stopped as she realized that her voice was starting to rise and she took a breath to calm down. "Has it ever occurred to you that a big reason why she acts the way she does is because of how we treat her? I know she doesn't make it easy to get along with her but I think that might change if we tried a little harder."

He shrugged. "Okay."

Sophie let out a breath of frustration and laughed. "Right. You know, the two of you aren't as different as you might like to think. You're both about as stubborn, that's for sure."

"Did she say anything else?"

"Well she's obviously worried about Nairi and she was pretty pissed that you didn't tell her right away."

He nodded. "That's on me, I shouldn't have done it, all right? I just don't get why she would be so tight-lipped about what happened if she's worried about Nairi."

"She doesn't trust us and frankly, based on how you're acting right now, I can't say that I blame her all that much."

He stood there, stewing in silence for a few moments before shaking his head. "You might be right. I just don't know what we're supposed to do."

"I don't know either. Let's just hope that they show up and we've been worrying for nothing. Short of that, I don't like the direction this is going for anybody."

-38-

By the next day, there was still no sign or word from Daniel or Nairi. When Sophie walked into the conference room, she could see the stress etched onto all of their faces. Lot, Rowen and Meredith looked like they had barely slept, if at all.

"So what's the plan?" Sophie asked. "It's been almost a day. What are we going to do? They're all going to be expecting something."

"You aren't going to like this," Lot said, "but Fiona was one of the last people to see him before he left, we need to hear everything she knows."

Sophie shifted her gaze to Rowen, who immediately looked away. "Well, since I'm assuming that he's already given you the summery of what I told him,
in confidence
, you've pretty much heard it already."

"There has to be something she isn't telling us. She doesn't even look sick to me,"

"All right, this is getting out of hand," Meredith said. "I'm, sorry, but I agree with Sophie. We need to take it easy on Fiona. We can't just keep blaming her for every shitty thing that happens around here."

Lot settled back into his chair with a sigh and began picking at a hangnail.

"So...what do we do then?" Rowen asked.

"I don't see what's changed since yesterday," Meredith said. "We still don't know anything, other than the fact that he clearly expected it to be a quick run, so wherever he went, it has to be close. But there are any number of places he could have gone to look for wiring. Hell, for all we know, he was breaking into nearby houses and ripping wires out of the walls. Who knows who he could have stumbled across. And we still don't know if this isn't just some attempt to draw us out into the open."