Chapter 27 (Felicity)

                                        

                                              
****This chapter contains discussions of child abduction/kidnapping and references to substance abuse. Readers who may be sensitive to themes involving missing children or addiction may wish to proceed with caution.
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The lights in the police station hummed overhead as I sat in the hard chair, watching Caden pace the small waiting area. Detective Morrison had disappeared twenty minutes ago to coordinate the Amber Alert, leaving us to stew in our own fears.
My phone buzzed. Maliyah's name flashed on the screen, and I felt a pang of guilt. I'd forgotten to call her back earlier this week like I'd promised.
"Hey, it's Maliyah. I should take this," I said to Caden, who nodded distractedly, still staring at his phone as if he could will Macy to text him back.
I stepped into the hallway and swiped to answer.
"Hey, MayMay."
"Finally! I was starting to think you'd forgotten you had a sister." Her voice carried that familiar teasing tone, but I could hear the underlying concern.
"I'm sorry, I've been—" I paused, my voice cracked unexpectedly—unsure of how to even explain this last week. "It's been a complicated week."
The teasing disappeared from her voice immediately. "Hey—Felicity, what's wrong? You sound terrible."
Where do I even start? "So...I'm at the police station."
"What? Are you okay? Is Caden okay?"
"We're fine, but..." I took a shaky breath. "Macy's missing. Her mother took her and disappeared."
"Wait. What? Like took her how?"
"There are a few things happening and—Jesus, Maliyah, I don't even know how to start."
"Okay. Let's just take a minute. How long has she been gone?"
"We don't know exactly. Maybe since this morning? We discovered that Jessica has been stealing from Caden's company for years. We're not talking a few dollars here, May. I mean like half a million plus."
"Holy shit." 
"Exactly. And when we tried to see Macy today, Jessica wouldn't let us talk to her. Then she sent this text from Macy's phone saying they were going away. We don't know if she knows we found out what she's been doing, but why else would she take off?"
There was a moment of silence. When Maliyah spoke again, her voice had shifted into what I called her "professional mode." Maliyah runs a women's shelter down in Orlando and she is an awesome problem solver.
"Tell me about Jessica. What's her behavior been like recently?"
I leaned against the wall, grateful for my sister's steady presence even through the phone. "Increasingly hostile toward me. She's always been...difficult—well, you know—kind of an asshole. But lately it's been different. More intense. She picked up Macy's phone when I called—and hung up on me. Twice. I'd asked to speak to Macy. Caden tried calling her right after. She told him Macy didn't want to see me, which makes no sense. Like a day before—she'd been planning a surprise for me. No way she just flipped a switch when I hadn't even seen her since."
"Control and isolation," Maliyah said immediately. "She's trying to control the narrative and isolate Macy. It's textbook manipulation."
"But why now? Why take this risk?"
"Sounds like maybe she knows she's cornered. Felicity, if she's been stealing for years—and now she realizes something's off, she doesn't even need to know you know everything. In her circumstance, it could just be paranoia. And that paranoia may lead her to make desperate choices. Taking Macy makes her feel in control."