Finding Ned

"He's gone, Frank."

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

I swallowed hard as hot tears slid down my cheeks. My hands were shaking and it took every ounce of energy to hold the phone up to my ear, let alone speak. I was tired, so tired, and it was only eleven in the morning. But Frank was waiting, and I needed to tell him, I needed to tell someone, anyone, that Ned was gone.

"They took him."

"They? Nan, I can barely hear you," Frank was getting worried; I could hear his voice drop an octave like it always did when things got too serious. But what was I supposed to say? That I got a threatening note and a video tape of Ned, chained to a chair in some abandoned home, bleeding from the chest down, convulsing wildly, like some kind of detained animal? I shut my eyes, but tears streamed down my face faster now, and my head pounded behind my left eye. I thought about yesterday, and my whole body tightened with pain, and I let my head smack against the floor.

I shouldn't have let him leave last night.

And now he was gone, and it was all my fault.