We both pile into my car, and I drive us back to my house. As soon as we pull down the road to my house, both of our bodies stiffen. “What the hell?” Brecken asks as he leans forward to look out the windshield. Four cop cars sit in my circle drive.
I bring the car to a stop as I slam on the brakes. We both jump out of the car and run to my front door. I shove it open as I call out for my mom and dad. I find them sitting in the living room.
My heart stops and my stomach drops when I see my father holding my mother in his arms. Her face is buried in his chest as she sobs. “Mom? Dad?” I swallow nervously. “What’s going on?” I ask looking at the cops that stand in front of them. There must be six, maybe seven. I can’t seem to focus on any one of them in particular.
My mother pulls away from my father, and she stands from the couch. With shaky legs and her arms held out, she walks to me. She falls into me, and I wrap my arms around her as my throat tightens. “What is it, Mom?” I ask wrapping my arms around her shaking body. She still doesn’t answer.
My father stands from the couch, and I see the tears running down his face. His dark blue eyes are bloodshot and his face puffy. “It’s Nicole …”
“Where is she?” Brecken demands. I had almost forgotten he was here with me. “Where is she?” he yells. “Nicole?” he calls out as he runs through the living room and up the stairs toward her room.
“Dad?” My voice cracks and my mother’s body shakes in my arms as she lets out a sob. “Where is she?”
He looks at the police and then hangs his head. “They found her car, son … on the side of the road … she’s missing …”
“No!” I say as my throat tightens. I try to suck in a breath as I shake my head. “I just saw her.” I had just seen her earlier this evening before the game. In this very room. I had offered to drive her, but she said she was going to drive herself.
“It happened on her way to the game.” His voice shakes, and he won’t even lift his head up to look at me.
“Where is she?” Brecken comes running down the stairs.
One of the cops clears his throat as he steps forward. “We have every officer in the county looking for her. And we’ve made calls to surrounding counties as well.”
Brecken looks from the cop to me. “There’s no way she would just run away. She has to be here somewhere,” he says sounding confused.
My mother shudders under my arms, and her legs give out. I don’t have the strength to hold her up. We both fall to the floor as we both hold each other crying.
Do you know what it feels like to be helpless? Completely and utterly helpless? It’s hell! Brecken and I put together search teams that searched day and night. We had systems. Different teams searched different hours. We spent every waking moment looking for her. Or maybe to find just a clue of where she could have gone. But nothing came up. One day, we had just returned from another town when the cops were once again at our house.
We ran into the house just like before and prayed that Nicole was sitting on the couch with my parents, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“We have found that there have been seven other abductions with the same MO as this one.”
“Abduction?” I question. “I don’t … I don’t understand,” I stutter. “You never said you thought someone had taken her,” I say in horror.
“There were certain details we kept from the public …”
“Which are?” Brecken demands.
My parents haven’t spoken a single word. They sit on the couch holding each other as they cry. That’s all they do now.
The officer sighs heavily. “Her purse. Her car keys were left in her car on the side of the road. There was cash still in her wallet. So obviously not a robbery.”
“Then what was it?” I snap. I hate that the fuckers feel like they can keep information from us.
“We had made calls to surrounding counties and we got a call back this morning from Craig, about fifty miles from here. A girl matching your sister’s description had pulled over on the side of the road to help a woman out whose car appeared to be broken down. Moments after she stopped to offer her services, another car pulled up behind her. A man jumped out and pretended to help them, but when the girl turned her back on him, he jumped her.” My heart stops. “Another man jumped out and helped place her in the back of their car. The woman who was pulled off the side of the road jumped in her car and drove off.”
I hold up my hand to stop him. I take a deep breath and rub my forehead before I ask. “How do you know all of this?”
“The girl was able to escape. She opened the car door while the two guys were driving down the road. The men stopped to grab her, but another car was approaching so they fled. The girl was taken to the hospital. Due to her jumping from a moving car, she has broken bones but is expected to live.
“I don’t understand what this has to do with my sister,” I grind out. “Why are you here telling me about another girl when my sister is still out there?” I demand.
“The girl has been questioned by the police. I guess they had roughed her up pretty badly, and she pretended to be unconscious while in the backseat. She overheard them discussing the other girls …” He takes in a deep breath. “They were traffickers.”
“What does that mean?” I snap.
“That means they take young women who fit your sister’s description and they sell them … into sex slavery.”
“Oh God, Case!”
I look away from my wrist and over at Taylor. She has a hand over her mouth and tears run down her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles from behind her hand. “What did they do?”
I run a hand through my hair. “There was nothing they could do,” I say honestly. “People who are involved in trafficking send women overseas. You have a very short timeframe to find them. After that, the odds of finding them decrease dramatically.”
She shakes her head wide-eyed as if that concept is hard for her to believe. “I don’t understand.” She speaks softly as she removes her hand from her mouth. “How do you know she …?” She can’t even say it. “Did they find her?”
I shake my head. “I could still feel her.”
“Feel her?” She breathes the word in shock.
“You know how everyone says that twins have this intuition? They can feel one another?” She nods. “I felt her for days. A few weeks, and then one day, she was just gone.” She lets out a sob. “I just knew that she was gone,” I whisper. I had let Nicole down. She was taken from us, and I wasn’t man enough to find her. To bring her back where she belonged.
“I’m so sorry, Case. I can’t even begin to know what you went through. What your parents went through.”
“My parents.” I sigh as I hang my head.
“What about your parents?” she asks nervously.
Two weeks Nicole has been gone. Two weeks our town has been turned upside down with her going missing. Everyone is still looking for her day and night. Brecken and I don’t sleep. Don’t stop to eat. We’ve been skipping school and driving around aimlessly. Still nothing! My parents refuse to leave the house. And I’ve refused to go home. Everywhere I look there, I see Nicole. I see her standing in the entryway kissing Brecken good-bye when he leaves late at night. I see her sitting on the couch covered up with a blanket as she cries over a sappy movie on TV. I see her walking into my room yelling at me for something I did to piss her off. I can feel her everywhere. And it rips my heart out.