Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
GRIFFIN
Jules’s due date.
One month from today.
And I felt more hopeless than ever.
I’d lie awake at night, running through the same dead ends. I could post a reel on my social media, begging her to come back. But I didn’t know if that would make things better or worse for her when DayGlow saw it. And Laney assured me DayGlow would see it.
I thought about reaching out to Jules’s friends still at DayGlow and trying to help them leave. But if the company was half as connected as Laney believed, that could make things worse for them.
Ford hired a private investigator, but he hadn’t found so much as a whisper of Jules.
I waited and prayed Jules would reach out. In the meantime, I begged my extended family to let me help with whatever they needed—any odd job to keep my mind occupied.
One afternoon, I stacked boxes of DoubleTake Beauty foundation onto a hand truck in the newly repaired barn apartment. I paused to watch Ford kneel next to Peyton as she taped up a box of eyeshadow tins.
“Hey, Peyt,” Ford said, rubbing a hand over her back. “Are you sure you want to give up? You can still do DoubleTake without her.”
“Sure,” she said softly, no fire. “I could try. But it will fail without her. Nobody wants to buy makeup from a middle-aged B-list actress.”
“Excuse me—” Ford gave her a gentle smile. “—but my wife is no B-list actress. A B-list actress doesn’t get nominated for an Academy Award. And a B-list actress doesn’t win two People’s Choice Awards.”
“Fine.” She leaned to the side, unfolding her legs. “I’m not a B-list actress, but the fact remains. No one wants to buy makeup from someone this old.”
“Aunt Peyton,” I said. “I don’t think you know how beautiful you are.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Thanks for saying that. I just…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ve lost all my verve without her.”
Same, Peyton, same.
Ford hiked a brow. “Verve, huh? Tally will be so proud when she hears you’ve been using that Snobby Word of the Day calendar she gave you.
” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I get it. But we’re storing these somewhere safe.
Because I fully believe that in time, your verve will return. In full force.”
She slid her hand into his hair and pulled his forehead to hers. “Thanks, 3673.”
“Welcome.” He kissed her.
Just then, footsteps pounded up the exterior stairs. “Guys!” Anna shot around the corner, eyes wild. “Guys! I found Juliette!”
I froze. “What?”
Peyton hopped up. “Seriously?”
I jogged toward Anna, my boxes tumbling off the dolly behind me.
Ford chuckled.
“Is she with you?” I asked.
“No,” Anna said, out of breath, and my hopes plummeted. “But she’s in Honeyville.” Hopes shot back up. “At least she was today.”
My hands tugged at my hair. Jules could’ve been anywhere in the world by this point. But she was only half an hour away?
“Where?” Peyton asked. “Let’s go get her.”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t know where she is now. I just know where she was an hour ago.” She met my eyes with a look I was getting tired of seeing. “I don’t think she wants to be found, unfortunately. Or she’s too scared to let it happen.”
“Did you talk to her?” I asked. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I didn’t talk to her,” she said, but her eyes twinkled. “I wasn’t even sure it was her at first. I went to the hospital to have my mammogram.” She turned to Peyton. “You know how they always do an ultrasound too, with my history.”
Because her mom—my dad’s twin, Sophie—had died of breast cancer at twenty-eight.
“Yes,” Peyton said.
Anna’s eyes ping-ponged between the three of us.
“So there I am in the waiting area, when a pregnant woman walks out of the imaging suite. She starts heading toward the checkout area across the room. But then she whirls and heads back the way she’d come.
Which was strange—but so was everything about her.
Jet-black hair, styled into a wolf cut. She had a bunch of piercings, and all her clothes were black, like she was trying too hard to be emo. ”
“Emo?” Peyton said like she’d smelled something putrid. “Juliette would never.”
“Exactly,” Anna said, like it was genius.
Because it was. “I mean, it makes sense,” I said. “She’d be way too easy to recognize if she didn’t disguise herself.”
Anna offered me a fist-bump for getting it.
“No.” Peyton pursed her lips. “Juliette would never do that to her gorgeous hair. Or her face.”
“Maybe it’s a wig, and the piercings are fake,” Ford said. “Anna, go on.”
She nodded. “Of course, I had to see if it was her. So there I am, following Emo Juliette down the hall, and it only took a couple of steps to realize my hunch was correct because—”
“Her walk,” Peyton squealed. “It’s unmistakable.”
“Right?” Anna bounced on her toes. “That runway strut is seared into her muscle memory, and it totally gave her away.”
Okay. Jules did have an unmistakable walk that was sexy as all get out.
“Even pregnant?” Ford asked like he was trying to picture it.
“Yes.” Anna laughed. But then her expression turned sheepish. “Not gonna lie, I was so excited I wasn’t thinking, and I just called out her name.”
Ford closed his eyes.
Peyton made a sound.
I just stared.
Anna winced. “Sorry.”
“Well, what did she do after that?” Peyton sounded disheartened, like she already knew the ending.
“She stumbled a bit,” Anna said. “Her shoulders hunched too. I called her name again, and she sped up. So I broke into a jog. Then she started to jog.” Her voice picked up speed as if reliving the encounter.
“It was insane. I’ve never seen a woman that pregnant run that fast. She darted through the exit doors, and by the time I got outside, she was gone.
Ten seconds, maybe. Vanished.” Her hands burst open like a magician’s.
I deflated, grabbed the back of my neck, and looked at the floor. “So you never saw her face?”
“No, sorry. I know, I know. I shouldn’t have called her name. I spooked her. It’s my bad.”
Her bad?
That’s what you say when you take the last slice of pizza. Not when you’ve just spooked the mother of your unborn niece or nephew back into hiding.
But I couldn’t be mad at Anna. It’s not like she’d known she was about to run into Jules and had time to map out the perfect response. She’d reacted. Anyone would’ve. At least we now knew Jules was close. Hopefully. Unless she’d hightailed it out of town.
“It might not have been her at all.” Peyton’s shoulders dropped.
“But it was her walk,” Anna said, fully confident. “And why would some random woman run when I said the name Juliette?”
“Maybe it was another woman with the name Juliette,” Ford offered, though I could tell he thought the probability was incredibly low.
Peyton turned to Anna. “Let’s say it wasn’t Juliette. Let’s say it was you. If some lunatic starts calling out a random name and jogging after you, what would you do?”
“Fine,” Anna said. “I’d run too.”
All the air went out of me.
“At least you tried, Annageddon.” Ford ruffled her hair.
“You guys,” Anna said, like we were collectively exhausting.
“I’m not done with the story.” She smirked.
“An-y-way. I walk back inside, and the sonographer is waiting at the entrance to the imaging suite. She asks if I’m Anna.
I say yes. She points to the room I need to go into, hands me a hospital gown, and tells me to let her know when I’m dressed.
As I’m peeling off my shirt, I realize there’s an ultrasound of a baby still on the screen. ”
Peyton grabbed her arm. “Did it say Juliette Serrant or Julie Skinner?”
“No,” Anna said. “Because she’d be stupid to use either of those names if she felt her safety was threatened.” She met my eyes. “It said Elaine Lannister.”
“It’s her,” I blurted. “That’s Laney’s full name.”
“I know.” Anna beamed. “And if that wasn’t proof enough, there was a message typed right above the money shot.” She did a little ta-daaah with her hands. “Can’t wait to meet you, Mom. Love, Weston.”
“It’s a boy!” I punched my fists in the air. “It’s a boy!” But then I froze. “Wait. I thought you only got one ultrasound—at five months, to determine the sex? Do you think something’s wrong?”
Peyton, who I sometimes forgot had been a nurse in her former life, began ticking off her fingers.
“Could be a growth check, she could be low on amniotic fluid, baby could be breech, maybe they didn’t get all the measurements they wanted at the last ultrasound, Jules could have gestational diabetes, possibly.
Or maybe the placenta was low earlier, and they wanted to make sure it’s raised up enough for delivery.
” She threw up her hands. “There are a hundred boring reasons that don’t mean anything’s wrong.
” She tapped her foot. “But at least we know she’s probably having the baby at Honeyville Regional. ”
“The question is, why?” Ford said more to himself than to us. “She hasn’t tried to make herself known to Griff or anyone since she disappeared. So why even bother to come back here? This isn’t home for her.”
“Nowhere is,” Peyton said.
I watched my sister, who was lost in thought. “Anna, what is it?”
“I have a theory.” She chewed her lip. “I don’t know if it’s good or bad. But I think… she wants to be near you when the baby’s born.”
We all grew quiet. I didn’t know about the rest of them, but I wasn’t sure what to do with that. Would Jules contact me to be with her during labor? Would she call and at least let me see him? The thought of only being in his life for a short while—or Jules’s life, for that matter—was unbearable.
“Maybe we alert the Honeyville Police Department to be on the lookout for someone who fits that description,” Ford offered.
“No,” I said too forcefully. “If she’s trying to stay hidden, it’s because she doesn’t feel safe. If she thinks anyone’s looking for her, she’ll bolt. She may have already, just from seeing Anna.”
Anna hugged herself and I could see she was thinking the same thing.
“So what do we do?” Peyton asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Pray? I don’t know what else to do.”
So that’s what we did. Right there on the hardwood floor.
And every day after. All the Duprees. Multiple times a day.