CHAPTER 29 - TOBIAS
Eleven hours, thirty seven minutes, and fifteen seconds.
That's how long it takes for me to go insane over a girl who is missing.
I love her. There is no doubt about it.
I am absolutely in love with Beatrice Prior.
And I have been since the first day we met.
Natalie and Andrew Prior are talking with the police and authorities on their phones when I decided I am tired again. It's only three in the morning. I aimlessly wander through the Prior's home, them now really noticing or caring, until I reach a familiar bedroom door.
I turn the knob and push the door open to her room. It's dark, so I flip the lights on. Her room is a soft grey color to match with the rest of the many varying colors of her bedspread. A small desk sits in the corner of the room. A small shelf of books she keeps reading a hundred times over and a stack of Ellie Goulding and Junkie XL CD albums. A small, delicate, beautiful miniature chandelier glistens in the center of her ceiling. A ring of glowing plastic stars her parents got for her last year encircle the chandelier, giving the little diamonds an eerie light when the light is turned off. But what really hits me hard is her smell. It surrounds this room. The smell of lemon lotion and cinnamon.
I cannot do anything to contain the tears that escape my eyes at the thought of her living here, breathing here, growing up here in this room and home. Even if she has a sadistic brother who is probably hurting her beyond repair right now, she belongs here.
I lay down on her soft bed, pulling her favorite blanket over myself, resting my head on her lemon scented pillow. Tears flow from my eyes as I stare at the twinkling lights of her chandelier being caressed by a dozen glowing stars. They shine green.
Green. Like green eyes.
He had red hair and green eyes. Kind of cute actually. He was talking to Beatrice as they walked. But he kept texting someone as they walked.
Susan's words hit like stones when something clicks in my head.
Peter. He has to know something. Everything.