Chapter 21: Chapter 21

Matthew Johnson pulled up to Abigail Knightly’s residence as it was listed on the school computers. Since he was still technically a teacher over the summer break he had managed to receive by email a list of all the teachers, their phone numbers, and their addresses, an oversight that was helping him a great deal at the moment. It was a brown one-story townhouse with a neatly trimmed yard. It was rather boring, in fact. There was an aging silver sedan parked in front of the house with its trunk open. Matthew could see bags of groceries packed tightly in the trunk. He parked the truck along the side of the road, got out, and was followed by a parade of people up to the house. Before they could take a few steps, the front door opened and Ms. Knightly walked out and looked surprised.

“Mr. Johnson, Ms. Underwood, boys. How unexpected.” She said, after regaining her composure. “Please go on in, I’ll be in soon. Mr. Johnson, would you mind too terribly helping me with the bags?”

Matthew turned to Christine and nodded. Christine looked back at the teenagers and started for the door, and the rest followed. Matthew went over to the silver sedan and took out several bags in each hand and started for the front door as well. They only had to make one more trip before they were finished and after a short bout of hello’s the group headed to the living room and sat in various chairs around the coffee table.

“Thank you for helping, Mr. Johnson. I hate to be rude, but why are there so many people over at my house on the weekend?”

Matthew nodded. “Please, Matthew is fine. I’m not a teacher anymore. And we’re here to ask you a couple of questions.”

Abigail nodded. “Okay, Matthew. What would you like to ask about?”

“About Tyler.” Orlando cut in. “She’s missing, do you know where she is?”

Matthew was glad they had a talk on the way here on exactly what kind of questions everyone should ask and how. He carefully watched Abigail’s face for any trace of emotion. If she was hiding something, she didn’t let it show on her face.

“Tyler’s missing? Oh, Christine! I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Christine, for her part, looked completely miserable. “I just wanted to know when you last saw my daughter, and if you might know where she might have gone.” She stated, keeping up the cover story of Tyler being a runaway that Matthew had come up with on the ride over.

Abigail looked genuinely distraught. “The last I saw of Tyler was in class last Friday. She seemed to be writing instead of paying attention, but otherwise seemed normal. I’m so sorry, I don’t know where she could have gone.”

Christine was crestfallen, which hurt Matthew to look at, but helped keep the pressure on Abigail if she did know anything. “Ms. Knightly, did you happen to see anything odd at school this week? Anything unusual at all?”

Abigail was quiet for a moment before speaking. “I’m sorry, no. Everything seemed fine.”

Matthew couldn’t figure out how to bring Sid up naturally, so he decided to just press on. “Were you aware that McCoy was back in school on Friday? Do you know anything about that?”

“I know he’s a particularly bad bully, with a penchant for bullying Tyler, specifically. I wasn’t aware he was at the school, though. Isn’t he still serving a suspension?”

“He was. And he was on the school grounds on Friday as well. I heard there was a fight between him and Tyler.”

“Oh! Is Tyler okay? She didn’t get hurt at all, did she?”

“No. Tyler was fine, but a little rattled.” Orlando offered.

“A little doesn’t cover it!” Kyle blurted out. “She was crying the entire way home.”

“The point is, we’re wondering if Sid had anything to do with her disappearance.” Matthew interrupted.

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“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

“Okay, thank you for your time, Ms. Knightly.”

“Of course. If there’s anything else I can do, please call. I’ll have my phone on and near me all weekend.”

“Thank you, Abigail.” Christine said as the group made their way out of the house.

Back in the truck, Matthew waited for everyone to buckle their seatbelts before turning out of the cul-de-sac and onto the street.

“So I guess Ms. Knightly really didn’t have anything to do with Tyler, huh?” Durian asked.

“Yeah, she seemed really upset when she learned Tyler was missing.” Kyle continued.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Matthew said, then continued when he saw the hopeful look on Christine’s face from the corner of his eyes. “She never asked when Tyler disappeared when she learned Tyler made it home on Friday. Most people would wonder what the last thing that happened to a missing person was. And did you see how much groceries she had? I know she’s not married, or has any children.”

“Couldn’t that all just be coincidence, though?” Kyle asked.

“That’s what I thought, too, but how did Ms. Knightly know Sid regularly sought out only Tyler to bully? She should have only known about the one incident.”

“So, what does that mean?” Christine asked.

“It means I need to borrow someone’s car.”

◊◊◊

Fuck. Marisa cursed in her head, her vocal cords otherwise occupied with the effort to expel her lunch into the toilet. Fuckity, fuck fuck!

She didn’t think Christine, of all people, would visit her. She had misgivings about this assignment from the moment she realized the trophy she was assigned to retrieve was just a hunk of bronze, but this was a whole new level of stress. Even the missions that involved actively scouting out enemy buildings that had armed guards stationed outside weren’t this bad. She had made good on her duties so far, but having to lie to the woman’s face about her daughter took too much out of her. And now she was clutching the bowl of the toilet seat to steady herself as a fresh wave of nausea hit.

It’s too late now anyway. She thought, flushing the toilet to be rid of the evidence. She stood up and started to shower. Even if I stop now, there's no way I can spin everything that happened. Maybe if I had stopped everything before getting Sidney back in school.