Page 1 of Trust

PROLOGUE

It’s not my life flashing by in these final moments, it’s hers. Twelve years of her. From the first time I held her in my arms to earlier tonight, when I brushed her hair before I kissed her forehead and wished her sweet dreams. The softness of her red waves still lingers.

“You need a trim,” I’d said.

She leaned back into my touch. “I don’t want one. I like it long.”

I laughed at her small, stubborn protest and tucked a strand behind her ear. “I know, Bug. I didn’t say we were going to cut it. Just that you need one.”

Instead of talking about hair, I should have told her about the diary. But I put it off again, betting on a future we don’t have. Now, it’ll stay hidden. She won’t know where to look or who to trust.

How could we not talk about family if family’s all that we got. The song drifts from the radio, filling the wreckage of my overturned car. My breaths come shallow. I can’t move, the pressure across my chest and hips too intense. I swallow and stare at the cracked windshield above me. The crash didn’t kill me; the approaching footsteps will.

I’m not scared for me, I’m scared for her.

My beautiful little girl.

THE WATCHER

Chris – Today – five years later

Ilean against the hard metal of the lamppost, a worn photograph clutched in my hand. Sara stares back from it with braids and a shy smile. She seems innocent and utterly harmless. The girl coming out of Madison West High School, however, is her opposite.

Her stride is confident; her eyes caked with dark makeup. She scans her surroundings with a mix of defiance and detachment.

The heat clings to everything, rising in waves from the pavement. Students in bright T-shirts, shorts, and breezy dresses stream toward yellow buses while others file toward their cars, all of them eager to escape and enjoy the afternoon sun. Laughter and talk fill the place. Someone shouts a goodbye. A couple kisses near the gate. The energy carries the nervous buzz of a new school year. Sara drifts past it all untouched, eyes fixed on something farther away than the parking lot.

She’s easy to spot with her black jeans and clunky boots. She should be cruising down the highway on a chopper in that leather jacket, not sitting in class and pretending to care about algebra. The only splash of color is the metal band print on her shirt and her long coppery hair halfway pulled through a tie, the loop hanging down her back.

Unlike most others, she’s not in a rush to leave. She strolls back and forth, reaches into her black bag, and pulls out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Curiosity stirs among the bystanders. A couple of girls whisper, one of the guys nudges another, pointing her out.

A staff member spots her and storms across the lot. His voice cuts through the chatter. Sara taps her earphones, shakes her head. The balding man angrily gestures at the cig, his other hand slicing across his neck in a clear signal to stop.

She flicks the stick past him and walks off, while he stands there with slumped shoulders.

I furrow my brows. At this point I understand how her behavior could cause problems, and why someone has to step in. Apparently, that someone is me. This job’s absurd. I never asked for this. But debts don’t give you the luxury of choice.

I adjust my baseball cap, pull it lower to shield my eyes.

After three weeks, I still can’t find any rhythm to her life. Tracking her is more challenging than anticipated. Some days she skips class and claims a table at the cafe near the park with a drink that cools long before she takes the last sip. Other days she turns up at the train station, studies the schedules but never boards. She sits for hours on one of the benches, watching the people pass by while I watch her.

Once she spent three hours in the bookstore downtown, paging through titles she didn’t buy. Another time, she drifted through the mall, paused in front of displays but never went inside a store. Her anti-everything social media posts don’t reveal much. They’re infrequent, vague, mostly filtered shots of food or clouds. Each day presents a new pattern, or lack thereof. All of it sabotages my approach.

She avoids crowds and hardly talks to classmates. At home, she holes up in her room, while her music spills into the neighborhood. Without routines or relationships to anchor her, planning her disappearance becomes almost impossible.

I can’t move on her at school, or at home, or in a public place. Too exposed. Too many ways it could go wrong. What I need is a pocket in her routine no one watches. A clean extraction, free of mess or questions. Disappearing people is what I do, what I’m good at.

The bookstore has potential. Rear exit. Slow traffic in the afternoons. No cameras. Owner’s alone most days and easy to distract. An obscure title request sends him to the storage room for a few minutes. Enough time to dose her and get her out the back into my waiting van.

My plan will only work if she shows up, and with no schedules, routines, rhyme or reason to each day. That’s easier said than done. The challenge ignites a certain thrill in me. It’s a game now, and I intend to win while she doesn’t even know she’s playing. That makes it better. Or worse. I’m not sure yet.

The schoolyard is empty by the time I cross to where she flicked the cigarette. The entire thing is still there, barely smoked. A statement, not a habit.

The smoke’s gone, but the smell still hits a nerve I thought I’d killed years ago.

I turn and head in the same direction she went, thoughts already recalibrating, curious about what she’s up to tomorrow. The plan needs tweaking, but adapting is what I do.

Soon, Sara. Not yet. But soon.