Elevation

'I don't want to be alone, I want to be left alone.' - Audrey Hepburn
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"Honey," Harlyn's mother opened her bedroom door a crack and slid into the room, shutting it behind her. "I know that this has been a tough day for you and you probably want to be alone right now, but Detective Thomas has some questions she needs to ask you while this is all fresh in your mind."

Harlyn groaned and rolled over to face her, her eyes red and puffy from tears that just wouldn't stop. She'd lost one of her best friends.

Sometimes between when she'd taken her into the guest room and woken up this morning, Amber had been stolen... while she slept, unharmed in the next room. It wasn't fair.

"I don't know how much help I'll be," she admitted, sitting up. "I didn't want to get in anyones way earlier."

Her mother smiled sympathetically at her, "You just stay right here, I'm going to send Detective Thomas in and I want you to do the best that you can to answer all of her questions."

Harlyn nodded, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged. She didn't really want to talk to anyone about anything at the moment, especially not this. Thinking about how Amber was lost out there somewhere, terrified and possibly dead made her stomach ache.

But if whatever the woman asked her could help bring her home, Harlyn would answer as well as she possibly could.

Two soft knocks sounded on the other side of her door, "Harlyn, I'm Detective Thomas, would you mind if I came in to ask you a few questions?"

"Come in, Detective," she called, surprised that the woman had knocked at all.

A tall, dark skinned woman stepped into the room. Her mouth was firm, but there was a sympathizing softness about her dark as night eyes, "Good afternoon, Harlyn, how are you feeling? I know this must have all come as a great shock to you."

She frowned, staring into her lap where her hands were fidgeting, "I feel guilty that it was her that was taken," she whispered, unable to look the woman in the eye. "And for not noticing sooner."

Detective Thomas grabbed a box of tissues off of her dresser and handed it to her, while taking a seat in her desk chair and flipping open a little blue note book. "It is absolutely not your fault what happened to your friend. Now I need you to answer my questions to the best of your ability." She reached across the space between them and patted her gently on the knee, "I need you to be completely honest, so please don't feel bad to say when you don't know an answer."

"Yes, ma'am," Harlyn whispered, biting her lip.

The detective smiled, "Do you remember anything different about Amber's behavior last night? Did she seem withdrawn or brooding?"

She shook her head, remembering how Amber had winked extravagantly from across the living room before downing her entire cup of throat-burning spiked punch. "She seemed her usual self, comfortable and it looked like she was having a good time. I mean, she's always a little withdrawn, but I think it's because she likes to watch what's going on more than actually being involved..."

"That's good," Detective Thomas encouraged her, patting her knee again before leaning back into the desk chair. "How long have you know Amber Shield?"

"Five years," she supplied, pointing to a photograph of the two girls on the desk, "That was us when I was thirteen and she was fourteen, we had just met about a week before and already called each other best friends."

She nodded, "In the time that you've known her, has she ever disappeared before? For longer than a day?"

Harlyn shook her head, "Not without telling someone where she'd be. She was kind of wild sometimes and liked to do dangerous things, but she always made sure we'd know where she would be in case she needed a ride home or something."

"Your mother told me that you usually walk to and from school and work," the detective continued without skipping a beat. "Did you notice anything out of the ordinary on your way home from work last night? A car parked down your street that you'd never seen before? Someone you didn't recognize?"

She immediately thought of the man she'd run into and her mouth fell open to tell the woman about him, but closed before she could get the words out. Something felt wrong about telling her.

The nightmare that had woken her that morning came back to her in full swing. Could the blood have been Amber's? How would it have gotten there, and what would this detective think if she told her about it?

She would suspect her, no doubt.

Maybe not of killing her friend, but definitely of knowing more than she really did. Or worse, she could think that she was crazy, suppressing the memory of murdering her friend and cart her off to some asylum for the criminally insane.

Harlyn couldn't take that chance. She didn't understand the dreams herself and couldn't expect the woman to. She couldn't tell her, she decided. There was too much that didn't make sense.

"The weather was pretty bad, it got really cold and windy when I got to my street," she said, telling as much of the truth as she could. "I was actually pretty freaked out by it and I think I may have seen a few strange shadows, but when I looked around I didn't see anything. Honestly, I think half of it was in my head."

"Thank you, Harlyn." Detective Thomas nodded, closing her little blue note book and tucking it into her pocket. Out from the pocket on the other side of her jacket, she retrieved a shiny business card, "If you remember anything else that might be useful, please call me immediately."

As Harlyn reached out to take the card from her, she held it tightly and looked so deeply into her eyes that she was afraid the detective knew she wasn't telling her everything. "Anything, Harlyn," she said again. "Anything at all, big or small."

Harlyn nodded, shoving the card into her own pocket when the woman finally released it. "Anything," she repeated, smiling a sugary sweet fake smile at the detective, who returned with one of her own, just as false.

For once in her life, the world felt out of her control and she hated it. She hated that she couldn't make herself tell the detective about the strange man from her nightmare and she had no idea what was stopping her or what had happened to Amber, for that matter.

She did know one thing for sure, though: there was no way in hell she was going to call Detective Thomas.