“Daydreams Parts 1-3” faded out. Heather rested the mic on her hip, bathing in the applause.

            Tabby’s eyes were flapping like a bird’s wings. “Imagine being up there. What that feels like.”

            Being on stage was the least of Jennifer’s worries. Josh had been snatched. Kidnapped. Taken.

“It’s like Pat Benatar and George Michael had a baby. Gosh, Jen. Imagine.”

If Tabby were in charge, they would’ve kept their butts by the front of the stage, living vicariously through the pop star who Jennifer admitted blew her expectations out of the Lake Michigan water. They would’ve continued to laugh about the Peter joke.

            “He’s seriously okay. He’s making this about him.”

            Jennifer wasn’t having it. 

            When Kraig jumped off the stage the crowd responded with murmurs but quickly buzzed back to center stage when “Daydreams” began.

            “Remember what Schefty told us?”

            Tabby held her hands out, hoping for a high five, a wave, a graze of a finger. “My brother’s like a talking computer. They could make a movie about him.”

            “But he’s never wrong.”

            “Wrong. He thinks the moon landing was fake. Same whiteboard with the Sandler Crew, different presentation. I love him. A bit hair-brained at times.”

            They were shouting over the crowd wondering if Heather had an encore. Jennifer knew Tabby didn’t want to relinquish their prime standing seats, so she lied and said she had to use the bathroom. There was one on the same side of the stage. Jennifer led them around the crowd to the other side. 

            “You’re annoying,” was all Tabby said. 

            They passed Mrs. Parsons and Ms. Chalmers. Ms. Chalmers gesticulated her hands like a magician. That’s how she taught. With calculated flamboyance.

            “Chalmers is on acid or something,” Jennifer whispered. “Her pupils?”

            “Stoned for sure,” Tabby agreed.

            They passed the women’s bathroom, where Becky Sinclair stood guard like a sad crossing guard. It was rare to see either of the twins on their own, like capturing one turtle dove in the wild. Jess’s red eyes bulged with tears. Jennifer knew Jess to be empathetic. Sobbing over Josh felt a bit much. 

            “Need some help getting it together there, kid?” Tabby asked, younger than Becky by three days, their birthdays in late May. Before high school they celebrated jointly at Michigan’s Adventure Amusement Park.

            “St-st-st…” Becky gave up and buried her face in her hands.

            “Stop, in the name of love?” Tabby was having too much fun. 

Jennifer smacked her.

Heather was having her own fun on stage, one shoulder of her denim jacket draped off, revealing cream skin and what video-pausing fans would notice soon after the video aired, a peninsula-shaped birthmark on her shoulder. 

“We’ll find Josh. Where’d they go?”

Jarrod walked up with a coney dog and tray of fries. “Herd alert! What’s up? You catch that show? She made eye contact with me. I’m sticking around. Try and get more than just her autograph if you know what I’m saying.”

Jennifer paused in case Tabby destroyed Jarrod with an uppercut.

Herd alert was an old, played out fat joke that would be lost in the trash heap of time.

A nice shiner to remember her by was long overdue.

            “Shut it and eat your dog so you can help us find him.” Tabby dismissed Jarrod.

            “Who?”

            Jennifer relaxed when Tabby’s fists finally unclenched.

            Becky chirped through her fist. Her sister came out of the bathroom and consoled Becky. “Any sign yet?”

            “You were with him,” Jennifer barked, angry at herself for being so mad.

            She had imagined Josh holding her hand during the opening credits of The Goonies, with director Richard Donner introducing each character via a Cyndi Lauper-backed montage. An electronic shock strong enough to power a factory.

“St-St,” Becky tried again, then stopped. She swallowed hard and wiped her eyes, noticing adults from the crowd walking their way. “I thought I saw three people go through those doors.”

Tabby held her hand up flat like one of their teachers when Jarrod interrupted a lecture. “Three people plus Josh? Or three people including Josh?”

Bonnie came out of the bathroom with a throng of excited girls. “Any word from Josh yet?”

Tabby flattened her hands emphatically as if to say, “See?”

“Where did they take him?”

Bonnie didn’t know. “The new kid hopped off the stage. Looked like Jordan himself.”

Jennifer wondered how long people would call her the new kid if her dad uprooted them from Haven Park to San Diego, like he’d been talking about. Nothing serious yet, he reassured them during dinners recently. She gave him credit for even eating at home, even if that meant taking earlier flights, missing the schmoozing happy hours and late-night bourbon and cigar affairs with business partners. Securing deals and their future.

But.

She did not want to move to San Diego.

It was on another coast. But not this coast. Not her home. This was in California. The weather made for a year-round paradise. All points her dad made, all points she didn’t care about.

Tabby was here. Josh was here. Heck, even Schefty and his white board tracking the Sandler Crew. 

Her eyes got big. 

It happened when a man who looked like he wore too much cologne said from the stage that Heather would be signing autographs and taking photographs by the dolphin fountain.  

            Jennifer yanked Tabby by the wrist away from Jarrod and the twins. She’d already buried the exhausting whiteboard lecture Schefty had given them in the basement that morning on the treasure cove robbers. “The Sandlers,” she whispered.

She didn’t see Tabby’s eyes widen then sharpen but knew it the way her best friend loosened the tension in her pulled arm, used Jennifer as a leverage to slingshot herself in the lead, pushing away from the loading dock.

“Stay here,” Tabby called. “If you see Josh, grab him. And stay put.”

To Jennifer, she said, “Maybe they snuck him in the back, but I’ve seen that misdirection. Better thorough than sloppy.”

Tabby hated Jennifer’s obsession over Josh but she always supported her. Even if it meant hurrying around a packed mall.

            They checked both men’s bathrooms. Tabby ducked her head under each stall. Jennifer told her to just knock but Tabby would forever be Tabby.

            No luck.

            The food court was slammed. Kids carried trays of pretzels and cheeseburgers and fries. The Dairy Queen line wove through the crowd back and forth, everyone waiting for the new blizzards.

            Dale Ackerman from first period algebra passed with a pepperoni pizza and pop. Jennifer held her rumbling stomach.

            “Maybe he needed to eat. He always talks about fueling his body.”

            Tabby snatched a slice of pizza from Dale’s tray without him looking. She chewed and pointed from table to table, counting. “He’s not here. Josh? Leave a Heather concert because he had a craving for a Butterfinger Blizzard?”

            Jennifer said mmm. “You’re right. Theater check, then back to the loading docks.”

            The lines outside the Loew’s were longer than the Dairy Queen. They stretched from the ticket windows halfway down to the food court. The marquee listed Rambo: First Blood Part II, A View to Kill, Fletch, and The Goonies.

            Jennifer was out on the first two and in on the last two.

            “So Rambo gets cut for the first time a second time?” Jennifer joked, turning fast to head back.

            She smashed into a man and nearly fell. He caught her by the elbow before she stumbled into a rush of boys wearing red bandanas as headbands.

            “Careful, young lady,” the man said, his voice like honey dripping into cold tea. He wasn’t just any man, tall and dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, like the ones her dad wore before driving to the airport. Ivory silk shirt. Gold cufflinks glinting under the mall fluorescence.

            Jennifer wanted to side-eye Tabby but couldn’t.

            Richard Baldwin had her in his beams.

            Instead, she stepped back, embarrassed. “Sorry, sir, I—”

            He released her and went about his way but then stopped. Before he did, she noticed his walk.

            He wasn’t hurried but not slow. Mrs. Parsons used the word economical that year to describe Ernest Hemingway’s writing. They joked after class that Mrs. Parsons and Schefty could use to take a dose of economical pills.

            But Richard Baldwin. He was different. It was like every step was calculated to take up the exact amount of space he needed. His arms hung at his sides, longer than they should be, like tentacles, moving with a deliberate ease. She knew he never wasted a gesture in his life because Josh described his father’s gate with disdain.

            Richard adjusted his cufflink with his thumb, nudging it parallel to the light, increasing the glow. He was in his fifties like her dad, with silvered dark hair. The lines around his eyes technically resulted from smiling, but Jennifer knew those smiles were rarely genuine.

            Josh told her once, “My dad smiles more at people he doesn’t respect than at people he does.”

            Richard was glancing at her with sharp, glue-gray eyes, like the ice that froze over the break wall. She’d seen that look in Schefty’s eyes before, but with more warmth. He was assessing her.

            “I know you?” He asked himself, not her, or Tabby, who was doing her best to stand still.

            “I… go to Haven Park High?” was all Jennifer could muster.

            He scanned Tabby quickly, came back to Jennifer, and moved on. “You look worried. Lose someone?”

            She hesitated. His attention was disarming the hatred Josh had instilled in her. His attention felt flattering and invasive, like how they dissected frogs and studied them under magnifying glasses in biology.

            “We’re looking for a friend,” Tabby chimed in.

            Baldwin’s laughed once, deeply. “Aren’t we all.” There came that smile again, crinkling his eyes. Did he mean it? It hit his eyes but didn’t seem to reach anywhere else inside him. “I’m Richard Baldwin. I own most of this place.”

            He didn’t gesture towards anything, just let his aura point for him. He extended his hand.

            Jennifer reached for it, but Tabby cut her off, squeezing and shaking his hand. He was firm with her but not aggressive.

            More calculations.

            Jennifer hated math.

            “Nice grip,” he said, releasing Tabby. “If your friend is here, rest assured they’re fine. We keep the mall incredibly safe with top-tier organization.” He paused, searching her face. “What’s your friend’s name? I’ll inform security.”

            Before she could think better of it, Jennifer blurted, “Josh.”

            His expression shifted slightly, like a door opening and closing.

            “Josh Baldwin?”

            Her rumbling stomach flipped. “Yes, sir.”

            Why the sir? Tabby was going to kick her. But not before she kicked herself.

            “As in my son.” Richard’s smile remained steadfast. “I’m sure he’s traipsing around here somewhere. Same as you lot. Kids being kids. He likes to disappear sometimes. Has ever since his mother and I had him. Always causing trouble.” He adjusted his other cufflink. “Mind doing me a favor?”

            They didn’t but could only utter, “Yeah.”

“Tell him his father’s looking for him when you find him. My son,” he stopped to laugh, then rather than finish the conversation, walked past the girls, rhythmically strode away.

            Tabby let out the breath she’d been holding in, her face purple with restraint.

            “Seriously,” she said, “What in the fuck?”

They made their way back to the loading dock in shell shock.

Jarrod had either waited to eat his coney dog or had went back for seconds. Or thirds. “You chicks missed it. Heather went back on stage and played an acoustic version of “Let Me Go”.

“Really?” Jennifer asked.

“No,” he said, licking coney sauce off his hand. “But would’ve been rad, right?”

“Right,” Tabby said, storming around him. “Be less of a dick, Jarrod. And one day I might even ask you to prom.”

He tried to laugh but started coughing.

Becky and Bonnie rushed to his side, slapping him on the back.

Jennifer and Tabby left them to sort it out. They faced the doors marked “Authorized Personnel Only.”

“I say we’re not going in there, and you’re going to say,” Tabby said.

“Yes, we are.”

            And they did. The dock was mostly empty. A few men in black shirts pushed rolls of cable towards the open back of a truck. Others rolled dollies with empty record crates.

            “Heather’s crew,” Tabby said. “No Kraig.”

            “Look whose talking about boys,” Jennnifer said. She led them quickly towards the only other door in the room, another one labeled “Authorized Personnel Only.”

            It led to an office with two computers, numerous filing cabinets, a large cork board with miscellany notes.

            And an open hole in the floor with a ladder descending into darkness.

Tabby peered into the hole. “This is dumb. We’re the people in the movies we make fun of.”

Jennifer patted her on the back. “But then there wouldn’t be any movie, Tabs. No heroes to root on.”

“Fine. But when I die, I’m haunting you.”

The more she thought about it, about Josh, about why someone would take him, the more she stabilized the pit of fear in her stomach. 

Tabby hooked a leg down the ladder. She held her pinkie out. Jennifer twined hers around it. 

“BFF,” Tabby said. “Big fucking favor.”

There wasn’t anything abnormal about the hole. It was in a secure spot in the back section of a respected and newly built shopping mall. The room was tidy with stacks of paperwork and two empty hooks along the wall.

“There must be,” Jennifer said, and then began rummaging through the filing cabinets. She found a flashlight in the last one, along with a disposable camera.

Noises echoed up from the hole. Voices, dead or alive.

            “From down there,” Jennifer said, flashlight wielded like a torch.

            “No, duh. It’s always from down there.”