Equilibrium (3 page)

“Foolish?”

“Yes, like run away.”

“I guess it’s a possibility. Neither of them were happy with the situation. I doubt they’d run away, though. Kellan is so sensible. And even if they did, where would they go?”

“I don’t know, Rup. Let’s wake Harry and see if he knows.”

“Are we going to tell him what happened earlier this evening?”

“Rup, I don’t want to get into it with him right now, let’s just tell him that Arizona is upset with us and we can’t reach her.”

 “Okay. I’ll go wake Harry and bring him down.”

She nodded. “Be careful not to waken Ella.”

Rupert reappeared in seconds looking uneasy. “Harry’s not in his room. His bed has been slept in, but he’s gone.”

Olivia called his cell. No reply.

“Let’s not panic, Ollie. I’m sure there’s a perfectly simple explanation. Maybe they’re all out somewhere together, somewhere without cell reception,” Rupert said, trying to calm his wife.

Olivia nodded hopefully. “I’m sure you’re right. Still, it is
late
.”

There was a sharp knock at the door and Olivia hurried over to let Larry in. He looked worn out as he made his way to the couch and slumped down. He ran his fingers through his unbrushed hair and looked at Olivia wearily.

“Ollie, what’s up? You sounded worried.” He noticed that she looked unusually stressed. Her normally perfect hair was messy where she’d been running her fingers through it. That wasn’t like her at all. She was usually calm and composed.

“You’re not worried that Kellan’s not home or answering his cell?” she asked puzzled.

“I guess, a little. But, after what we put the kids through today, I’m not the least bit surprised. I’m sure they are out de-stressing somewhere. They’ll be back when they feel they can face us–with more questions, no doubt. I do wish I knew where they were, but I’m not too worried. Arizona is in good hands with Kellan. He’s unlikely to do anything stupid.”

Olivia wasn’t entirely convinced. It was nice that Larry had such confidence in Kellan, but they had really thrown the kids for a loop, so goodness knows how they’d react.

“Larry, Harry is missing as well.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? It means that they called him, probably to talk things through.”

“It’s not ideal,” Olivia responded. “I’d rather have explained this to him myself. Neither Kellan nor Arizona understands this enough to even begin to explain it to Harry. It’s going to be a mess.”

Larry nodded. “I suggest we wait for a while and see if they turn up in time for school, although, I suppose they may head straight there.”

“That sounds like a sensible plan. Ollie, don’t you think?” Rupert asked.

“I guess. It’s already past five, so we haven’t got that long to wait. I’ll take Ella to school this morning and if Arizona hasn’t shown up by then, we’ll head to the high school. Larry, stay over. Use one of the guest bedrooms and get some sleep. You look worn out. I’ll wake you for breakfast.”

“Thanks, Ollie. I will go and lie down for a while, though I doubt I’ll sleep.” With that, Larry left, leaving Olivia and Rupert alone again. 

“Ollie, come sit by me and try to relax. We’ll wait for them together.”

Olivia was exhausted. She went over to the couch and sat down next to him wearily. She could feel the stress working through her body, something felt wrong–very wrong. She leaned into Rupert for support. He felt unusually tense; his normally comforting heartbeat mimicked her anxious palpitations. He put his arms around her for comfort, but it did nothing to distract her thoughts. There was nothing to do but wait. The kids were bound to come back in the morning. But, what if they didn’t? The kids could have been in an accident. They could have run away to find Dillard. Or, they could have just run away to never be found again.

Olivia chided herself. She should have been gentler explaining the whole situation to Arizona at Ames. Throwing all that information at her daughter, all at once, that had been foolish. There was no way Arizona could understand or process the information. After all, who could? Just the possibility that a portal could be constructed that could facilitate transport between different dimensions was a concept even most physicists would have a hard time swallowing. In fact, the idea that there even were different dimensions was way beyond the scope of most people’s acceptance. Yet, she had expected her teenage daughter to accept this and then additionally absorb the fact that
she
had been transported through such a portal. And to top it all, she’d told her daughter that if she wanted to go back to her father, she’d have to go back through the portal
right away
. Olivia knew that she’d handled the situation very badly. She had gone way too far. If she could only go back….

“Ollie, wake up,” Rupert whispered, gently shaking her awake. “It’s time to wake Ella. I don’t think Arizona or Harry came home, unless they snuck past us quietly. I must have dozed off.”

Olivia sleepily turned to look at the hall clock. “Ella must have slept in, it’s seven already. I better go and wake her. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

“I’ll make some coffee and get Larry up,” Rupert said, as he got up and stretched.

The house seemed unsettlingly quiet as Olivia walked up the stairs to Ella’s room. She quietly entered the room making sure not to waken Ella. She savored watching her eight-year-old daughter sleep those last moments before she
had to
wake her. She tiptoed along to Ella’s bed and gazed down. Ella must have slid under the duvet as she often did in her sleep. Olivia gently pulled up a corner by the base of the bed, peering under. There were no signs of Ella amongst the tossed pillows and crumpled duvet.

“Ella, are you in the bathroom?” Olivia shouted, heading over to the bathroom door. There was no reply so she opened the door. There were no signs of Ella in the bathroom. “Ella, where are you?” she yelled, as her heart started pounding erratically. She was barely able to breathe. She ran out of the room and stumbled down the stairs, almost crashing into Rupert. “Rup, Ella’s not in her room. We should have checked on her last night!” Olivia cried hysterically, as Larry came rushing down toward them.

“Let’s look outside, maybe she took Gertrude out?” Larry suggested.

Rupert nodded, although he knew this was highly unlikely. He
should
have checked on her last night. He felt sick. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she wouldn’t be fast asleep in her bed as usual. “Larry, I’m going to look for her inside the house, can you take the outside?”

Larry rushed off without another word, slamming the door behind him while Rupert and Olivia scrambled their way through the house looking for Ella.

When Larry came back looking despondent, with Gertrude by his side, Olivia picked up her cell and called the police.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said, as she started opening the kitchen cabinets to check and see if Ella, for whatever reason, had decided to play hide-and -seek. “Where did you find Gertrude, Larry?”

“I heard her whimpering in the garage, so I opened it and she jumped out. Looks like she’s been stuck in there all night.”

“You know,” said Rupert, “we probably shouldn’t touch anything until the cops get here.”

Olivia frowned at her husband. “Why?”

“Ella is missing. I doubt Harry took her with him. He would never do that without letting us know. I can’t imagine that she just took off. I’m so hoping that she’s not been taken….”

“Taken?” Olivia asked in disbelief. “You mean as in abducted, kidnapped? Why would someone do that? Who?”

“I have no idea, Ollie. It’s just that this is so bizarre. All the kids are missing. Let’s just wait for the cops.”

“No, let’s not. We need to find them. Let’s check the house again, more thoroughly this time, both inside and outside. Larry can you drive up and down the road and see if you see any signs of them?”

Larry nodded and left, pointing to his cell, signaling for Rupert and Olivia to give him updates. Rupert and Olivia started a thorough search, looking under beds, in closets, behind curtains–everywhere. There were no signs of Ella or any of the others. Rupert let the police in when the doorbell rang. He recognized the two cops from when Arizona had been attacked

 “They’re all gone!” Olivia let out before she sat down on the hall chair, too distraught to speak anymore.

“Sir, can you tell us what’s going on?”

Rupert nodded. “We had a disagreement with our teenage daughter, Arizona, yesterday. After which she disappeared with Kellan, Larry Fox’s son. We assumed that they were cooling off somewhere and would be back once she’d calmed down. When they didn’t return, we went to wake our son, Harry, to ask him if he knew where they were. That’s when we discovered that Harry was gone as well. Again, we assumed that they were out together. We weren’t overly concerned. However, when we went to wake our younger daughter, Ella, for school this morning, we found that she is missing as well. So, we’re obviously seriously worried.”

“Can I have some pictures of them, preferably computer images so we can email them to the station and get a search going?” asked one of the officers.

Rupert nodded, and went to fetch his laptop. The officers emailed the photographs to the police station and then turned to Rupert with more questions.

“Do you think that the children went somewhere together or that they’re apart?”

Rupert shrugged. “I know for sure that Arizona and Kellan left together from Ames, on Kellan’s bike. Harry and Ella were both home last night. They disappeared from the house in the middle of the night sometime. We didn’t hear anything. We’ve no idea when or how or if they went missing together. I haven’t even checked to see if Harry’s bike’s here,” Rupert said knowing how stupid this sounded. He should have checked earlier.

“Let’s do that, sir. It’s important to know what mode of transport was used.”

Rupert followed the cop to the garage. Harry’s bike was still there, as were all the cars. “I assume that if they left on their own, it was by foot.”

“We’ll start a search of the immediate area.”

When they got back to the front door, another four squad cars had arrived and the house was swarming with uniforms. Rupert made his way to a dazed-looking Olivia who was sitting with a female officer.

 “Rup, what’s happening?”

“Ollie, they’re checking the house for clues, trying to get a feel for what could have happened, for what’s going on.”

“Mr. Darley, can I have a word, please?” an officer interrupted. He waited for Rupert to follow him into the kitchen. “There are signs of struggle in your son’s room.”

“What sort of signs?” Rupert asked, now petrified.

The officer grimaced and said, “Well, things have been knocked over and there are blood stains on the floor and by the window, just a few spatters.”

“Oh my God,” Rupert said, and started heading toward Harry’s room. How had he not noticed?

The police officer grabbed hold of his sleeve firmly and said, “Mr. Darley, I know this is difficult, but I can’t let you upstairs while the CSI are up there.”

Rupert nodded and sat down on the steps. “I was up there earlier, I didn’t even notice.”

“You wouldn’t have, unless you were looking for these kind of signs.”

“What about Ella?” Rupert whispered, hardly able to get the words out.

“There are no signs of struggle in her room.”

“Who? Why?”

“I was going to ask you that, sir. Any ideas who could be responsible? Do you have any enemies?”

“No…,” began Rupert, but then stopped.

“Sir?”

“Well, Arizona was attacked at school just over a week ago by Simla Sen, but I can’t imagine how that’s relevant to what’s going on here. Simla couldn’t have done this.”

“Was Simla acting on her own?”

“She did attack Arizona on her own, but it was after Arizona had an incident with Justin Weeks at the ice rink parking lot,” Rupert replied.

“Do you believe Justin could be involved?”

“I guess,” said Rupert. “However, I seriously doubt they would take Ella, even if this was some sort of revenge plan.”

“I’m just trying to cover all the bases, Mr. Darley. Has anything else out of the ordinary happened in the last month or so? At the kids’ schools? At your work, perhaps, or your wife’s work?”

Larry suddenly chimed in. He had been quietly standing behind the officer. “We’ve had an issue at Ames. Someone has been tampering with our equipment and has hacked into the computers. We’re still trying to figure out who it might be.”

The police officer turned around to Larry. “Do you think that has anything to do with what’s going on here?”

“I’ve no idea, but thought I should mention it, just in case.”

“Okay, we’ll set up watch here and monitor your phone calls.  If they’ve been abducted, we’ll expect a message or call within the next twelve hours.

“What’s happening?” Olivia asked, as she appeared from behind Larry.

“Ollie, it seems like both Harry and Ella were taken from their beds.”

“Taken? How? Why?”

“We’re trying to figure that out, Dr. Darley. Let us know if you can think of anything.”

Olivia looked to Rupert and Larry. She couldn’t for her life think of a reason why someone would have taken the children. “Someone wants money?” she suggested.

“It’s a possibility, but it seems unlikely that someone would take
all
the children for that purpose.
If
they were all taken, and we don’t know that for sure yet,” the detective replied.

Olivia shrugged, she was stumped.