Traffic

Ch 24: Morning

                                                     *Four and a Half Years Ago*

"I wonder why she's still sleeping, this is late, even for her."

"Plus, you called up, telling her breakfast was ready, right?"

"I did...Maybe she stayed up extra late, reading or something..."

"Want me to go get her, mum?"

"Would you? I don't want her to miss breakfast."

Francine nodded, standing from her seat at the table to go upstairs to wake Kelly. She entered her bedroom and walked over to the bed, resting her hand on the lump under the covers.

"Kel?" she asked, noticing the lump didn't feel like a human body. She pushed down, the lump indenting with her hand. She stood up and ripped the covers away, seeing a pillow. She quickly ran to the bathroom, checking to see if she was there, then returned to the bedroom after not having found her. She looked under the bed, in the closet, and finally, out the window. After officially not finding her, or any traces of her, she yelled.

"Mom!" she screamed, "She's not here!"

Her mother arrived quickly, Trace directly behind her. They looked at the sight of the empty, unslept in bed, and her mother melted to the floor, staring.

"Where could she be?" Trace asked, "Have you checked the bathrooms? The attic? Maybe she's playing a joke on us..."

"She wouldn't do that," Fred yelled out, tears pouring down her cheeks, "What do you think happened to her?!"

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Trace said, trying to remain calm, "I'll call the police and see if they've seen or heard anything--" he ran off to make the call, leaving Fred and her mother on Kelly's bedroom floor, tears on their cheeks and in their eyes.

The minutes dragged by as Trace was on the phone with the police. Fred barely managed to speak as she sat beside her mother, "Do you think--Do you think it was dad? Could he have found her and come in? Did he take her?!"

"I don't know, darling, but let's just wait to see what Trace finds out."

The two sat for what seemed like years on Kelly's bedroom floor, wishing with every moment that she would come jumping out of the closet or walking down the hallway from having been in the bathroom. Trace returned after what had, in reality, been only fifteen minutes. He had tears in his eyes now and had trouble speaking.

"I told the police about out situation with dad, and how we were watching over Kelly more carefully than anyone normally would...I told them everything."

"What did they say?!" Fred yelled out anxiously.

"They said they got a call from a woman yesterday, reporting seeing two men dressed in black go to a window on the side of her neighbor's house and pull a young girl out of a window. She said she had brown, extremely curly hair, and looked about thirteen or fourteen."

Fred squeezed her eyes shut, dropping her head against her mother, feeling the pain cut deeply into her heart. She took a breath and said, "How do they know it's Kelly?"

"The neighbor said she distinctly saw what looked like a birth mark in the shape of a star on the girl's back."

Fred and her mother broke into sobs now. They were fearful of what might have happened to Kelly, where she might be, and most of all, what their father would do if he was the one who had taken her.

"There's one more thing," Trace said after a few minutes of trying to regain his wits about him.

"What?" his mother asked quietly.

"The neighbor said the girl was completely naked and bleeding. The police want us to come in and talk to the neighbor and find out for sure if it was Kelly...Mom, what if it was? What are we going to do? Where is she?"

"I don't know, sweetheart, I really don't know."