Dreamland (9 page)

“Let me go,” she whispered. Connor's face was swallowed by shadows, and Dea half expected that at any second, his skin might collapse, falling away like the ground around a sinkhole.

“Not until you explain,” Connor said. His expression was guarded, now, tight with suspicion. “What . . . what
are
you?”

She didn't answer. Her chest was so heavy with terror and grief, she couldn't speak, could barely breathe. As soon as Connor released her, she shoved open the door and ran. She heard him call her name, but she didn't stop. Miniature lakes had formed in the pitted surface of the parking lot, and her shoes and jeans got soaked. Each time she put weight on her left ankle, a shiver of pain went up her spine, as if the dream were reaching across dimensions, making sure she couldn't escape.

Connor's headlights came on behind her, throwing a thick slab of light onto the oily sheen of the lot, little eddies swirling with trash. She made it to the restaurant doors as he was pulling his car up to the curb.

“Get back in the car, Dea,” he called.

She pushed into the McDonald's, pausing to see if Connor
would come after her. Even through the glass, she could hear him calling to her. She kept going, her feet squeaking on the linoleum, the bright electric lights blinding after the darkness of the dream. The normalcy was destabilizing. It felt like she'd jumped scenes in a movie. A trucker with sweat stains on his back was filling up a large cup with soda; two teenagers, dressed in identical red polo shirts and visor caps, were parked behind the McDonald's counter; a woman was wiping her toddler's face with a damp napkin while the kid writhed. The air smelled like grease and cleaning solution and wet clothing.

She didn't know whether Connor would come after her but she ducked into the women's bathroom, just in case, and locked herself into a stall. She flipped down the toilet lid and sat, breathing deep, fighting the urge to cry or puke.

What are you?
Connor had asked. She didn't know. She'd never known.

She should never have gotten close to him; she wasn't meant to have friends.

After a while, she ventured out of the bathroom. Connor's car was gone. He'd left. She was half-relieved, half-upset. She was stranded, now, at some rest stop an hour from home. She fished out her cell phone and powered it on. Connor had texted her four times and left two voice mails, but she deleted all of his messages without opening them.

The only other number she had stored in her phone was Gollum's. Gollum didn't drive, and Dea didn't feel like answering her questions, anyway. And calling her mom was out of the question, too.

She bought a soda, drank it slowly, and felt a little better.
She learned from one of the kids behind the counter at McDonald's that the number 37 bus stopped outside of Kirksville before heading northeast past Bloomington and toward Indianapolis. From Kirksville, she could walk home.

The bus smelled like old food and bubblegum. There were only a few other passengers, and the dim overhead lights cast their eyes in dark shadow. She kept her eyes down, not wanting to remember the men from Connor's dream and the black pools of their faces.

It was after one a.m. by the time she got home, going the long way across Daniel Robbins's fields instead of heading up Route 9, even though it was so dark she had to use her phone as a makeshift flashlight, and she could hear rats rustling in the corn. She didn't want to have to pass Connor's house. At least it had stopped raining, although the air still had a heavy, wet feel, like a damp palm pressing down on her from all sides. Every time she heard the whisper of movement behind her, she whipped around, swinging her phone, casting a jerky beam of light on the trampled-down corn and thick ruts of mud in the field, her throat seizing, thinking of the faceless men. But there was never anyone behind her, just the black, glittering eyes of animals that scampered away from the light.

Once she reached her porch, she realized she shouldn't have worried about Connor. His house was totally dark. She felt a brief pull of resentment. He must be sleeping. Even though she'd run away from him, she was momentarily annoyed that he hadn't tried to look for her. But he knew, now, what she was—and she couldn't forget his look of horror.
What are you?

Tomorrow, she would pack her suitcase and apologize to her
mom, and they would load the car and head off. Just like they'd always done. She would miss Gollum. But Gollum would be okay. Gollum would get over it.

Connor would, too.

The door was locked, and all the lights were off. Her mom hadn't waited up, which was unusual. Dea knew Miriam must have been worried. Maybe she was proving a point, after their fight this morning.

She moved carefully toward the stairs. Toby came trotting out from the kitchen and wound himself around her legs. Her shoes crunched and she realized he must have tracked some of the food she'd spilled out into the hallway. Weird that her mom hadn't cleaned it up. But this, too, was probably a point. Dea would sweep it up tomorrow.

Upstairs, Dea snuck as quietly as she could past her mom's bedroom; the door was open just a crack. A bit of moonlight was trying to wrestle its way out of the clouds and Dea's bedroom was painted in broad, dark brushstrokes, like a careless illustration. She saw that her mom hadn't cleaned up here, either. Dea knew she was in for a serious lecture when she woke up, but she didn't care.

She wanted to get away from Fielding—away from Connor and his dreams.

She stripped off her wet clothes and got into bed naked, too tired to root around for her sleep pants. A moment later, Toby jumped up into bed beside her and got comfortable on her feet. She slowly began to feel warm. Then she was asleep, and feeling nothing.

The first thing Dea noticed when she woke up was that it was raining again, a hard rain, the kind that washed away every color.

The second thing: something was wrong.

It was almost noon. Toby was gone from the bed. She'd slept through the clocks and their early morning chatter. Her mom hadn't come upstairs to wake her. The house was silent. No squeaking footsteps, no water running, no quiet burble of the coffeepot downstairs.

She regretted, now, the mess she'd made yesterday. She tripped over a pair of jeans on her way to the door and nearly cracked her head on the wall. She steadied herself and moved
into the hall. Empty houses always reminded Dea of holding shells to her ear, listening to the distant white roar of an ocean she would never see. She had that feeling now—of emptiness, of distance.

“Mom?” she called out. Her throat was tight. No answer. She fought down a wave of panic. Her mom could be out buying packing tape, or getting the oil changed, or loading up on beef jerky and Cheez-Its for the road. Anything.

Then she opened her mother's door and the world somersaulted and she thought she might puke. Everything was exactly as Dea had left it the day before. If anything, it looked messier than Dea had left it—the drawers of the bureau overturned, piles of clothing and tangled bits of cheap jewelry littered across the carpet, the faint smell of cosmetic powder and perfume hanging over everything like a haze. The sheets were still balled up on the floor, the mattress bare.

Dea had to hold onto the wall. Her mom hadn't been home last night. Had she left? Had she had enough of Dea, picked up and taken off somewhere?

There was a dull pain in her head, the throbbing of a single word repeated over and over:
no, no, no, no
. She ran downstairs and hurtled into the living room, pressing her face to the window.

The car was still in the driveway. That gave Dea some relief. So her mom couldn't have gone far. She didn't remember whether she'd seen the VW the night before, when she came home.

Then a new anxiety began to pluck at her: her mom was most definitely gone. So if she hadn't left on her own, in the car, what
did that mean? Something terrible could have happened. Dea tried to remember whether the front door had been locked the night before; she thought so, but she couldn't be sure. Miriam might have been abducted. She might have been killed. Some psycho might have snuck into the house. People did things like that, crazy people, just came inside and snatched you or battered your head in with an ax.

It had happened to Connor's family. It could have happened to hers. Dea had a sudden image of Connor's mother, moaning, while her brain leaked onto her pillow. Her stomach rolled into her throat. She had to stay calm.

She had to call the police.

Her phone was upstairs. She'd dumped her bag at the foot of her bed the night before. She fished her phone out of her bag and moved to the bed, to sit down. A piece of glass was wedged in the soft underside of her foot.

She noticed, for the first time, that shards of glass carpeted the area in front of her closet. She put the phone down and moved carefully into a crouch. Was this evidence of a struggle? But why would there have been a struggle in Dea's room? And where had the glass come from?

She swung open the closet door. Her secret mirrors. They'd
exploded
. Not shattered, not broken—exploded. The frames were empty, bare, as if something inside the mirror had reached up a fist and punched its way out, sending a spray of glass into her room.

She remembered what her mother had said the first time Dea saw her dismantle a bathroom mirror, fiddling with the screws, dismounting the swinging door, wrapping the whole
thing in layers of black cloth before bringing it out to the trash.

“That's how the monsters keep watch,” she'd said, dropping her voice. “That's how they see out.”

Dea closed her eyes and opened them again. She wasn't thinking straight. Monsters didn't come through mirrors. They didn't pass through water, either, as her mom had always said, and they weren't afraid of clocks and doorways. There was no such thing as monsters—not in real life.

Her foot was bleeding. She hobbled to the bathroom, where the contents of the medicine cabinet were still scattered across the floor. She sat on the toilet and fished the glass out from her foot with a pair of tweezers, struggling to control her shaking hands. Then she bandaged her foot, went back to her room for her cell phone, and punched in 9-1-1.

The phone rang for what seemed like forever. Wasn't the point of a first responder supposed to be the response? Dea almost hung up and tried again, but at last someone picked up.

“9-1-1.” The woman's voice was monotone. “What's your emergency?”

Dea tried to speak but only whimpered. She cleared her throat. “My mom . . .” Jesus. What should she say? Her mom was gone? She'd been abducted? Dea didn't know that yet.

The monsters took my mother.
The thought came to her, unbidden, and she pushed it away.

“What about your mom?” Dea could hear the woman tapping away at her computer.

“She disappeared,” Dea said. Her voice was steadier now.

Tap, tap, tap.
“How long has she been gone?”

“I'm not sure.” Dea had left the house a little before noon
the day before; her mom had come home some time afterward, and then vanished sometime before one a.m., when Dea had returned. She might have been missing for twelve hours or almost twenty-four. “I mean, I don't know exactly.” She was about to explain when she heard the doorbell ring. She was so startled, she nearly dropped the phone. Connor. It must be.

She went halfway down the stairs, where she had a view of the front porch through the thick windowpanes on either side of the door. Not Connor. Two police officers. In the driveway, she saw a local squad car, lights revolving, slices of red and white reflecting in the puddled surface of the road.

“When was the last time you saw your mother?” the woman was saying.

“That's all right,” she said. “They're here already.”

“Who?”

“Your guys,” Dea said. “The police.”

“No, ma'am, I haven't—”

But Dea was so distracted, so relieved, that she hung up without listening. The police would help. That was their job.

“Odea Donahue?” one of the cops said, when she opened the door, pronouncing her name the way that people from Fielding always did, as if it was a foreign food that they found distasteful. He looked vaguely familiar. In his midforties, probably, big in the chest and shoulders with a stomach paunch that rolled over his belt. His eyes were very pale blue. The second cop—at least, Dea assumed he was a cop, although he wasn't in uniform—was a few years younger, thin, and wearing a yellow poncho and shiny leather shoes.

“Thank God,” she said. It was cold, and the rain was coming
down so hard it sent a fine spray upward when it hit the porch. She crossed her arms and backed up so they could enter the hall. “I didn't think you'd come so quickly.”

The two cops exchanged a look. “Can we come in?” the first one said, and Dea nodded. There was a moment of awkward quiet after Dea closed the door. Since there was no mat for them to wipe their feet on, the cop just stood there, dripping on the floor, arms extended stiffly away from his body, like a human umbrella.

“I'm Officer Briggs.” This from the cop who looked familiar. Dea felt a jolt. Briggs. This was Will Briggs's dad, who'd supposedly cracked a guitar over his son's head. Connor's uncle. Briggs gestured next to his partner. “And this is Special Agent Connelly.”

Special agent. It sounded like something from a movie. Dea assumed Connelly must be a high-ranking detective, someone who tracked down missing persons for a living. She kept her hands wrapped around her waist, squeezing.

“We were hoping to speak to your mother,” Connelly said. His tone was casual. He might as well have been saying
W
e were hoping to borrow a vacuum cleaner
. “Is she home?”

Dea's heart sank. They were wasting time. Her mom was gone, and the police hadn't even been properly informed. “She didn't tell you?”

Connelly frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The dispatcher,” Dea said, fighting the growing desire to scream. “The woman I spoke to just now. I
told
her. Something must have happened—she would never just leave me.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Connelly moved as though he was
thinking about putting a hand on Dea's shoulder, but he didn't. “Your mom's gone?”

“She's missing,” Dea corrected him.
Gone
made it sound as if it was something Dea's mom had chosen. Connelly and Briggs exchanged a look. “Didn't they tell you
anything
?”

Connelly rubbed his eyes, as if Dea was being a big pain in the ass.

Briggs spoke up. “No one called us out here, Odea,” he said. “We came on our own.”

Dea stared. “What . . . what do you mean?” she said. “If nobody sent you, why are you here?”

Briggs and Connelly exchanged another look. Dea hated it when adults did that, as if she couldn't see that they were telegraphing some secret message. She was extremely aware of the clocks ticking in the quiet—seconds, minutes running by. Shouldn't they be looking for clues, or organizing search parties or something?

“I'll call it in,” Connelly said in a low voice—again, as if Dea wouldn't hear, even though she was standing less than four feet away. He unclipped a police radio and stepped outside again, closing the door behind him. Dea felt a little better. At least he was
doing
something.

“Okay, Odea,” Briggs said, forced-cheerful, over-loud. “Can we sit down and chat for a minute?”

“Shouldn't you be looking for my mom?” Dea blurted out.

“If we're going to find your mom, I'll need to ask you a few questions,” he said, in an I-know-best kind of voice. Dea could tell he was trying hard to be nice, probably so she wouldn't freak out. She tried to imagine him taking a guitar to Will's head and
couldn't. She tried to find a resemblance to Connor and couldn't do that, either.

“All right,” she said. She gestured to the living room. Toby jumped off the couch and darted under an armchair. No one had ever been inside the house except for Dea and her mom. Briggs eased himself down onto the sofa, trying to seem casual, smiling like this was a social visit. But Dea wasn't fooled. She watched his eyes tick over the whole room, taking in everything—the clocks, the bare mantelpiece where the photograph of Dea's fake dad had been, the mishmash of furniture from different eras.

Dea didn't feel like sitting down but Officer Briggs looked as though he expected her to, so she did, trying to control the buzzing anxiety crawling through her legs and arms, like a thousand insects.

“All right, let's start at the beginning,” Briggs said. “When's the last time you saw your mother?”

“Yesterday.” Dea looked down at her hands. “We had a fight.” She felt the urge to cry and took a deep breath, willing herself to stay calm. She wasn't going to have a breakdown in front of a stranger.

“Did your mom seem . . . different at all to you? Jumpy? Nervous about something?”

Dea shook her head. “No.” Then she corrected: “She . . . she wanted to move again. That's what the fight was about. I told her I wouldn't.” If Dea hadn't been so stubborn—if she'd agreed to pack up and go, like her mother wanted—her mom might still be home, and okay. It was all her fault.

Briggs was jotting down notes. For a long minute, they sat in silence. Dea felt every second that passed in her chest and
teeth and stomach. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. “We shouldn't be sitting here,” she said. “We should be out looking. She could be hurt. She could be in danger. Why are we just
sitting
here?”

Briggs put away his notebook. “Let's stay calm, okay?”

But Dea couldn't stay calm. Fear and frustration clawed up her chest. Her fault. “She could be dead. You're supposed to be helping. You're supposed to be
finding
her.”

The front door slammed again, and Dea jumped. Connelly reappeared, shaking more rain onto the carpet. He didn't look at Dea, just spoke directly to Briggs. “Okay,” he said. “The troopers will keep an eye out at toll points.” His eyes clicked to Dea. “Does your mom have a different vehicle, other than the one parked outside?”

“No,” Dea said. They were acting like her mom had just picked up and left. She dug her nails into the flesh of her hands and pressed, wishing that, like a dream, she could just find a way
out
.

“Okay, good, good.” Connelly was nodding. “What about some place she likes to go? Like a country house? A little hideaway?”

“
Hideaway
?” Dea looked from Connelly to Briggs and back. “Are you . . . is this a joke? My mom didn't
go
anywhere. She didn't
leave
me. Something
happened
. Don't you get that?”

“Odea”—Briggs leaned forward, putting his hands on his elbows—“I know this must be hard for you. But your mom is in a lot of trouble. That's why we came here today. Not to find her. To arrest her.”

Silence. Ticking silence. Dea counted her heartbeats. One,
two, three. Pause.
Fourfivesix
. “What . . . what are you talking about?”

“I'm sorry you have to learn about it this way,” Briggs said. He really did sound sorry. She wondered if he'd told Connor he was sorry, after Connor's mom's head was splattered halfway across the bedroom. “Your mother's a smart woman. I'm sure you know that. There've been a dozen fraud investigations against her in as many years. Arizona, Florida, Illinois. Identity theft, security fraud, some petty thieving. Agent Connelly's department reached out to me after she got up to her old tricks here in Fielding.”