Missing

Chapter 3

Sara had spent two and a half weeks alone when she was still recovering. Ecklie, in a rare act of kindness, had let me take off while she was in the hospital, plus an additional week during her home recovery. But the team was swamped, and Sara assured me she'd be fine. So I went off to work every night, and called home every once in a while to check up on her. Every once in a while was initially every half-hour, but eventually was every forty-five minutes. I told Dr. Grant I was proud of my progress, and he looked at me blankly.

We signed up for something called Netflix, which Greg excitedly recommended as a way for Sara to stay entertained with a steady stream of DVDs.

But instead, she decided to read.

Every morning I'd come home from work to find her curled up with Jane Eyre, or Crime and Punishment, or Great Expectations. She'd read through the nights, sleeping when I slept and rising when I rose. And then it was back to Anna Karenina, or 1984, or The Great Gatsby.

I remembered coming home one morning and finding that her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Are you okay?" I'd asked, frantically. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, fine," she'd said, smiling too brightly. "Just reading some poetry, that's all."

Poetry.

I dropped her diary, blinking out of my reverie and heading for the bookshelves in the study. Volumes and volumes of poetry, any of which could have held the poem by Tennyson. I flipped through book after book, searching until the text swam before my eyes.

Tennyson, Tennyson, where had I seen-

Right.

Back to the bedroom, where I found the Tennyson anthology on her nightstand. "The Lady of Shalott" was on page forty-five, but I would have known without reading the title. There were words underlined all across the pages. Underlined, and circled, and highlighted. There were arrows and notes and a drawing of an eye. I didn't understand any of it, nor did I understand why she'd written the word "curse" twenty-two times. I stared at the poem, waiting for everything to become clear.

Sara had left me.

She'd left me because...

Bruno jumped on the bed, lying down with a sigh. He was used to having two people in the house, not twenty, and he didn't like the disturbance everyone else had created. He wanted it to be just the three of us again, all warm and safe in bed, and he wouldn't rest until Sara was home.

No, I wasn't projecting at all.

We got our first break just before eight that night. I'd been checking bus schedules when my computer announced I'd gotten a new email.

"Nick!"

I didn't want to call him, but everyone else was out following leads. He'd stayed behind to keep an eye on me, but all he'd really managed to do was make me feel guilty every time I looked at his face.

He jogged into the room. "You got something?"

"Sara sent me an e-card." I pointed to the computer screen. "See?"

"Good," he said excitedly.

"Yeah. What's an e-card?"

He smirked, leaning forward to click the link at the bottom of the email. "This'll take you there."

We watched as a new browser window opened, taking us to the e-card site. Then there were bears bouncing across the screen, looking sad and perky all at once. They hugged each other, then the picture dissolved into a message. We both leaned forward to read it better.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

I hope you can forgive me.

I love you, so much. (Aluminum Siding.)

Nick frowned. "Aluminum Siding?What could she mean by that?"

I just read the message, over and over again, desperately hoping there was some clue I was missing.

"Grissom?"

"What?"

"Aluminum-"

"It's our safe word," I said, biting my lip.

"Oh, gross-"

"Not that kind of safe word. After she was... taken, we decided to have a code to use, in case we were ever in trouble. If we were fine, the code was aluminum siding, and if we weren't fine, the code was artificial forsythia."

He was quiet for a moment, before muttering something under his breath.

"Anyway," I said, clearing my throat. "We can trace where she sent the card from, right? ISP number, or something?"

"E-cards don't work that way," he said apologetically. "They're not necessarily sent when you fill them out. You can set up an e-card to send up to a year after you've completed it. My mom does e-cards for all the relatives' birthdays in one day, and sets them up to send throughout the year."

"Meaning-"

"Meaning Sara could have sent the card from this computer, last week."

I sighed, replaying the e-card again and feeling my heart sink even lower. "So that's it."

"Sorry, Grissom. It's..." He frowned, leaning forward to look at the screen again. "Wait. That's not Sara's normal email, is it?"

I leaned forward, too. "Is that a Yahoo account?"

"Yeah."

"Sara doesn't have a-" But I didn't finish my sentence, because clearly she did.

"I don't get it," he said, squinting. "What kind of a screen name is ckofshadows?"

I stared at it for a moment, before it dawned on me. "Half-sick of shadows," I murmured.

"What?"

"Half of the word 'sick' is 'ck.' So it's half-sick of shadows."

"If you say so."

He got a call from Greg, and left the room to take it. Meantime I chewed on my thumbnail.

Maybe she would check this account.

She'd obviously made it after the incident with the poem, so there was a chance. I opened up a new email, typing in the Yahoo account carefully.

That was the easy part.

Dear Sara,

No.

Dearest Sara,

No.

Sara,

No.

I leaned back, rubbing my palm over my chin.

It had to be meaningful, evocative... it had to make her pick up the phone and call me, or at the very least get back on whatever bus she'd hopped to leave me behind. It had to make it clear that I loved her more than anything in the world, that I needed her, that she was everything to me.

My thumb started bleeding after I chewed too far, and I grabbed a Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet.

Think, Gil. It has to be perfect. Something, something perfect.

In the end, though, I couldn't come up with anything perfect at all. I typed out a sentence and sent it, swallowing back a sob.

Please come home.