Siren Falls by Nick Balgaard

Author:Nick Balgaard [Balgaard, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Claire

With Warren trailing her, Claire went to the old cabin. She moved through it at a frenzied pace, searching everything twice, then a third time. Following that, she went to their parked vehicles and searched them thoroughly: inside and underneath. Following that, she searched the sinking tractor, going so far as to lie down and crawl as far underneath as space would allow. Following that, she searched the shed, coming up empty. Last, she began searching the woods, spiraling away from the cabin’s cleared area in increasingly wide circles.

“We should call the cops again,” Warren said, keeping pace with her as he scanned the forest. “If this isn’t worthy of a missing persons case, I don’t know what is. They will get involved this time. They won’t have a choice.”

Claire said nothing as she continued her march through the fallen leaves and thin underbrush. At times, the trees were close together; other times, they were far enough apart to drive a truck between them.

“Claire!” he shouted, “are you listening to me?”

“We need to find them,” was all she said.

“The cops can help.”

“They won’t be able to get started right away. We need to do this while it is still fresh.”

“While what is still fresh?”

“Dani’s…I don’t know…disappearance.”

“The cops are better at this than we are.”

“This is Siren Falls,” she said. “No one up here is good at anything except drinking, watching TV, and dying. You said so yourself.”

“Are you saying you are an exception? What makes you better than the cops? You drink and watch copious amounts of TV. What makes you an expert?”

“Maybe I have better reasons than they do.”

“Like what?”

“Like living with a world-class husband,” she said.

“It is my fault that you don’t make something of yourself? You are putting that on me?”

“If I prioritized work, rarely spoke to you, and never ate dinner with you, would you consider me an award-winning spouse?”

“You were getting so cold and distant.”

“Fine,” she said. “I will take that. I don’t deny it. The trouble is, Warren, that you disappeared. It was a vicious circle, sure, but you started devoting every spare minute to work and I got left behind. We were going to start a family. What happened to that?”

“I wanted to get financially established, first. We agreed that was the right course of action.”

“How long is that going to take? When will we have enough money, Warren? When?”

He threw his hands up. “I don’t know. You never brought it up. I assumed we were putting our heads down and working for a few years.”

“Then why did we buy the new house? That set us back.”

“You were thrilled with the new house! Where is all this coming from?”

“It is a great house, but it is also far too expensive. It is pushing kids further down the road. Is that what we want?”

“You said nothing!” he said, shouting now. “I feel like I am getting blindsided.”

“Would you want to have kids by now if I was Dani?”

“Stay on point. She has nothing to do with our family plans.

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