CHAPTER 667: 667-THE VANISHING HOUR

Helanie:

Our eyes widened together before we sped in the direction of the screams. Emmet was faster, so he reached the house before I did. It was a small house near a toy shop, where the screams had come from.

While Emmet started knocking on the door, I began walking around the house to look for any signs of an intruder.

All the windows were boarded up, and no doors were open. There was literally no one around.

By the time I returned to the front of the house, the family had opened the door and let Emmet in. I rushed past them as well, taking in a few things at first glance. We both ran around and checked every window, they were all locked. By the time we returned to the first floor, we had checked every corner and every closet in the house.

Emmet ran outside to look around while I stayed with the family. There were four people living there: a husband and a wife, along with their three children. Two were under eighteen, and only the daughter was nineteen years old.

After Emmet informed Altan of yet another abduction, he returned to investigate.

"Who was the first one to realize he was missing?" I asked, while Emmet held his diary and wrote everything down.

The parents were a mess. They had been crying nonstop, while the nineteen-year-old was in shock, probably scared. The way she was holding onto her fifteen-year-old sister’s hand was heartbreaking.

The one who had gone missing was a thirteen-year-old boy.

"I did," the mother sniffled, raising her hand before her husband gently placed his hand on her thigh to comfort her. She broke down again. They were all sitting close together on the couch, squeezed in as if they were afraid of losing another member of the family.

Emmet and I sat in chairs across the table, both of us worried for the boy.

"I was doing my regular check-ins on the kids. You see, Beau had this habit of using his phone to play games whenever everyone fell asleep. I’ve stopped him many times, because then he can’t wake up for school, but he never listens. And recently, he’d grown annoyed with us, so I started checking on him more often at night. That’s when—" her voice broke "—that’s when I found him gone. Only dust was left on his bed." She buried her face in her hands.

I’d never had a family that would cry for me like that. So Beau was lucky. And because of that, I was going to do anything to find him and bring him back.

"Let’s take a walk around the house one more time," Emmet suggested, leaning over and whispering in my ear. I had already checked every corner, but I trusted Emmet, he had an eye for details.

He always seemed to want to know more and more. We got up and excused ourselves from the family, walking upstairs again to where Beau’s room was.

"He had a separate room while the sisters slept together," I told Emmet. "His mother said he was growing very impatient with them. He wanted privacy, wanted to lock doors and all that."

We reached his room, and Emmet checked the dust. There was nothing particularly special or significant about it, so we didn’t look too deeply into it. However, of course, Emmet still collected a sample.

"Hmm, interesting," Emmet said the moment he reached the window and knelt down, a small smile creeping across his face.

"What is it?" I asked, rushing over to him.

"Look at this, darling. The window isn’t shut from the inside, it’s locked from the outside." He touched the latch, and my eyes widened. I hadn’t even noticed it earlier.

"Does that mean someone definitely came in through the window and abducted Beau?" I asked, but Emmet began to pout slightly, lost in thought.

"No. It doesn’t seem like that," he finally said. "His mother mentioned that Beau doesn’t sleep early. It’s only ten, darling, he must have been awake. If someone came in and abducted him, he would’ve put up some kind of fight. But it doesn’t look like there was any struggle. And look at the shoe rack."

He turned toward it. It was empty.

"There were wet slippers underneath it before, but no shoes. His mother said they all take a bath before bed, so Beau must’ve taken off his slippers and put on his shoes, that his mother mentioned, before leaving," Emmet explained, making my heart thump louder in my chest this time.

"You’re saying Beau left on his own? So—this is a runaway case?" I asked.

Emmet turned back toward the bed.

"The sand on the bed is like the other cases. Let’s visit the houses where other children went missing. Only by looking at the details will we know what’s really going on," he said, heading out of the room with me following.

After saying goodbye to the family and promising we’d do everything we could to find their son, Emmet led me to the back of the house.

"Look at the structure of the house and Beau’s window," he pointed out. "There doesn’t seem to be an easy way for him to climb down. For him to leave without making any noise and still manage to get down by himself, it’s sketchy."

I was so glad I had brought Emmet with me. His observations were sharp. I guess everyone had been too quick to point fingers at some unknown danger without paying attention to the small things.

"So—what are we going to do now?" I asked.

Emmet gently touched my elbow, guiding me to follow him. His sleeves were rolled up, even though the night was cold. I asked if he wanted his coat back, but he shook his head.

"We’ll go home. You’ll eat some pizza and rest," he said with a smile, "and then we’ll continue our investigation in the morning."

He sneakily wrapped his arm around my waist as we walked back home. I felt shy at the casual touch, but I didn’t pull away.