The candles were still burning. The stuffed rabbit was on the chair.
Emily was gone.
Her rain boots were gone from beside the door.
Daniel Carter had been in situations that would have broken most men. He had been ambushed in mountain passes. He had lost radio contact behind enemy lines. He had carried a dying friend for two miles through the dark.
None of it had ever made his heart stop the way it did in that moment.
"Emily!" he roared into the storm. "EMILY!"
The wind threw his voice back in his face.
Then, through the rain, he saw headlights. A car skidded to a stop in front of his house. Blake jumped out, followed by Richard.
"We saw your flashlight!" Blake shouted over the wind. "Power's out on the whole street. Is everyone okay?"
"Emily's gone," Daniel said. His voice was steady, but his hands were not. "She went after the dog. Toward the creek."
Blake's face went pale. But only for a second.
Then something settled in him. The thing Daniel had spent all summer teaching him.
Breathe. Stand still. Choose.
"Dad, call 911," Blake said. "Then go get Mr. Hayes and wake up the neighbors. We need flashlights. Lots of them." He turned to Daniel. "Which way?"
Daniel looked at the young man in front of him, the same young man who had thrown punches at him in front of a crowd just a few months ago.
"With me," he said.
They ran.
The creek behind the houses had turned into something monstrous. Brown water churned over its banks, carrying branches and trash and pieces of somebody's fence. The noise was deafening.
They split up along the bank, flashlight beams cutting through the rain.