Life With the Butlers

Chapter 24 | We're With the Church

Chapter 24

We’re With the Church

Logan

       Convincing Mom and Jason to give me the file was easy. Convincing the other three, not so much. They argued so long I stopped paying attention. We were supposed to be focusing on Olivia. Who cared about how we found her as long as we got her back? I guess they did.

       They were the ones who would have to deal with it after all.

       My phone buzzed.

       There was a text from an unknown number.

       Meet me outside

       My chair scraped against the cold, hard floor when I pushed it back. No one so much as glanced in my direction. I heaved a great sigh and exited the room, thoroughly annoyed. They were not helping, not at all.

       “Hey man.”

       I looked up from my feet, spotting Joey’s welcoming face.

       “You’re just everywhere now aren’t you?” I said going for funny but I couldn’t even fake it. Not even with Joey.

       “You don’t have to pretend.” Joey stuck his thumbs in his pockets. “Mann told me everything.”  

       I nodded. Mann was Joey’s neighbour and practically raised the kid. They were close even to this day. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Mann would call him, knowing how close the two of us had been.

       “I’m here to help you with the search,” he told me. “Head on, the two of us.”

       It hit me like a ton of bricks all over again. I didn’t know her, I might never know her.

       “Because she’s gone,” I said lifelessly. “He took her, all over again. I don’t know her middle name, I don’t know her favourite food, or sport, or what it’s like to just hold her all night. I want to know her favourite book, her favourite smell. I just want to hear her voice again.”

       I leaned heavily against the wall. I felt incredibly sick to my stomach. I slid down the wall and didn’t stop myself. Instead I let myself drop. The entirety of the situation was starting to sink in. I may never see her again.

       And there was next to nothing I could do about it.

       Joey sat next to me when I started making demonic crying noises. I wasn’t one to cry. I hadn’t really cried even when I was a kid. But all the years of pent up anger, depression, anxiety, and even happiness were unleashing themselves.

       “I just want her back,” I managed to blubber out.

       “We’re going to find her.” Joey was blocking the light as he leaned over me. “I think I clued into the same thing you did too. So I brought you something.”

       I glanced up, the world all blurry.

       He was holding out a small, black and red case. It had some print on it. After I wiped my gross, snotty face, I was able to discern that it was a collection of TV episodes. I read over the list of names, none of them sounding familiar, until the last one. On the ‘In Memory Of’ list, Olivia Wells was the last name.

       “It’s the episode I was telling you about. I found it in my Mom’s drawer. Who knows, maybe it can give us some information while you wait for the file.”