I Can’t Even

Chapter Eighteen

L iam blinked at me. I don’t think he expected my acquiescence to be so swift. Maybe after all of my embarrassing stunts, I should have played hard to get and made him work for it, because truly, he had been a real prick the other night. But I was running on empty, and I wanted to be with him, naked with him, as swiftly as possible. And not for nothing, but the run back home was mostly uphill and riding with my arms and legs wrapped around the back of him sure seemed like the better option to me.

He grabbed my hand and yanked me across the park almost as fast as I’d been when I was running. When we arrived at the bike, he took off his leather jacket and held it out to me. I was just reaching for it when my phone rang. I glanced at the display. It was Soph. I desperately did not want to interrupt what was happening here, but my sisters came first. I’d just answer quick and call her back later.

“It’s Soph,” I said.

Liam nodded. He’d always understood the Blumer sister bond.

“Hi, Soph,” I said. “It’s not the best time right now, can I call—”

“Em is missing,” Soph interrupted. She sounded upset and my stomach clenched.

“What?” I asked. “That’s not possible. I just saw her last night.”

“She never showed up for our lunch date today,” Soph said.

“Maybe she didn’t want you to see her hair,” I suggested. “She’s been acting really weird.”

Liam watched me with eyebrows raised, and I made a sorry face and held up a finger to indicate I just needed a moment. He unstrapped the helmet off the back while he waited. As he stood there with the Pacific breeze tousling his dark brown hair, I almost forgot I was on the phone.

“Jules, it gets worse.” The tight note of anxiety in Soph’s voice brought my attention back to her.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’ve been calling and texting her cell phone all day and there’s been no answer until just a few minutes ago,” Soph said.

“So, you got in touch with her?” I tried hard to track why my usually calm older sister was worried.

“No! A man answered,” Soph said. “A strange man.”

I gasped. Our innocent Emily?

“I know,” Soph said. “Jules, I’m scared. He sounded like a very bad man, and when I demanded to speak to Emily, he hung up on me and when I called back it went right to voice mail. Jules, I think she’s been abducted.”

My insides went cold, and it occurred to me that terror had its own temperature—like ice, freezing my lungs and making it hard to breathe.

“Don’t panic,” I said. Ironic given the note of fear in my voice. “I’m on my way home. Meet me there. We’ll figure this out. We’ll find Em, I promise.”

I ended the call and glanced at Liam. He was frowning and I wasn’t sure how much he’d heard. I squeezed his forearm. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “There’s an emergency. I have to go.”

With that I bolted. Panic had me running far faster than introspection. The green park and blue ocean were watercolor blurs as tears filled my eyes and I sprinted to get back to the house.

Em! Where was she? Who had her phone? What had happened in the twenty hours since we’d seen each other? Oh, god, if anything had happened to her I don’t know what I’d do. Why hadn’t I forced her talk with me? I ran faster, cursing myself with every step.

How could I have just let her be when I knew she’d been struggling? I let her go to bed with her blue hair and shadowed eyes, allowing her to keep all her pain and sorrow to herself. So self-involved in my own ridiculous junk that I hadn’t reached out to her when she so obviously needed it.

Self-loathing choked me, and it was harder and harder to make it up the hill when the panic whispered in my ear that she’d likely been abducted and was even now lying in some cockroach-infested drug den with sweaty men doing horrible things to her. What if we never found her? What if she was murdered? It would be all my fault.

“Jules! Damn it, Jules, wait!”

It took a second for the sound of the motorcycle and a man yelling to cut through the paranoid monologue in my head. I glanced to the left and saw Liam on his motorcycle roaring up beside me.

“Em is missing! I have to go home!” I cried.

He jumped the curb and pulled up in front of me—I had to stop or run right into him.

“I got that,” Liam said. “Get on. I’ll get you there a hell of lot faster.”

“Oh. Thank you,” I panted.

I climbed onto the seat behind him, and he plopped the helmet onto my head. “Hang on.”

The bike roared to life, and we were off, skimming over the earth like we were flying. I wrapped my arms tight around his middle in a death grip. At any other time, I would have enjoyed the feel of my front pressed to his back, but right now all I could think about was my baby sister and where she was and how I was going to find her. Tears leaked and I let them, pressing my head into Liam’s strong back as we jetted home.

Sophie was standing in the front yard when we pulled up. I let go of Liam and yanked off the helmet, thrusting it at him as I swung my leg over the seat and jumped off before he’d even gotten to a full stop. I rushed Soph and when she saw me coming her arms opened and we hugged, clutching each other for support in our mutual terror.

“This is all my fault,” we said at the same time and then again, “No, it isn’t.”

“Have you tried her phone again?” I asked.

“There’s no answer,” Sophie said.

“I’ll try it.” I pulled my phone off my arm holster and tried to call Em. It rolled right to voice mail. Damn it!

Liam approached. He looked wary as if uncertain of his role here but still he asked, “How can I help?”

Soph stepped toward him. “You haven’t seen Em at all today, have you?”

“No, sorry,” he said.

“Em didn’t meet me for lunch and when I tried to track her down through friends, no one has heard from her and then when I called her cell phone a strange man answered.” Soph brought her knuckles to her lower lip. “And now all I’m getting is her voice mail.”

Soph started to cry. Liam gave her a quick, bracing hug, which I knew was one of his specialties.

“I’ll call Ryan, my buddy at the Gulf Harbor police department, and see what he says. Even if we can’t declare her missing officially yet, I know he’ll get the word out to the patrol units to keep an eye out. Then we need to go search for her,” Liam said. “I’m sure she’s fine. She’s lived in this town her entire life. Everyone knows her. People will look out for her if she’s gotten herself into a jam. I’m sure of it.”

“You’re right.” Soph exhaled with force as if she’d been holding it in for hours.

I didn’t know if Liam was trying to convince us or himself, but his words made me feel better nonetheless.

“I’ll call my staff at the coffee shop, too,” he said. “The more people looking, the better.”

“I’ll call Hannah and Harry,” I said. “They can get all of their friends to be on the lookout as well.”

“I’ll call Stan.” Soph reached for her phone. “Maybe he can help us search.”

My call was easy. Hannah and Harry were actually at Liam’s Coffee Shop but promised to spread the word to their friends and then rendezvous with us at the house. Liam was on his phone considerably longer.

“Do you have a recent picture of Em?” he asked. “It’d help the patrol officers to know who they’re looking for.”

“Hang on,” I said. I was not a big picture taker, but I checked the photos on my phone. Shots from my life in New York popped up, including some of Jessie and me when we went ice skating at Rockefeller Center this past winter. I quickly scrolled through, hoping Liam didn’t see. It was a bust. I had no photos of Em. “I’ve got nothing.”

“What about social media?” Liam had his phone to his ear.

“Em’s not online,” I said. “Babs forbid it.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. His brow rose.

I shrugged. I supposed it was worth checking although I couldn’t imagine my introverted baby sister had any desire to have her life played out on social media, especially if it was met with maternal disapproval.

I opened up a search engine on my phone and did a cursory search. I got nothing on Emily Blumer. I tried a variety of name and initial searches and even some of the nicknames I called her. Nothing. Lastly, I did an images search for Emily and Gull’s Harbor and my phone blew the fuck up.

Picture after picture filled the small screen. Huh. Who knew there were so many Emilys in Gull’s Harbor? As I scrolled through the pictures, I realized there weren’t. There was just one; my baby sister who apparently had a whole other life happening online.

“Holy crap!” I cried.

“What is it?” Soph raced over to me, looking at my phone as I held it out for her to see. There had to be more than fifty pictures, memes, and short videos of Em. I glanced up at the top of the page. The girl already had thousands and thousands of followers, and it looked like she’d only recently gotten online. In fact, she’d joined the day after Babs passed away.

“Is that our Em?” Soph asked.

I played one of the videos. It was footage of Em getting her belly button pierced. We both cringed as the guy put the clamp on and we watched in shock as Em in her shorty shorts and knotted T-shirt flirted with him while he did it.

“I’m speechless,” I said. “I am without speech.”

And I was. Soph’s phone rang, and we both jumped. She glanced at the display. It was Stan. She turned away from my phone and took the call while I continued to scroll through all of Em’s posts.

Liam joined me and peered over my shoulder. He frowned. “Is that Em?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m assuming this is how she’s decided to manage her grief. See? She’s using the hashtag grief and another hashtag Emily for every post.”

“Processing bereavement by becoming a social media star?” Liam gave a low whistle. “She’s got a ton of followers. I don’t even have that many for the coffee shop and I’ve been in business for years.”

“Looks like a celebrity shared her posts and now she’s trending.” I frowned. “Except now she’s missing, and a stranger has her phone. Oh, god, what if it’s one of those woman-hating-incel-troll types and he’s abducted her?”

My voice was shaking, and Liam put his hand on my back to steady me. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find her.”

I knew he was bullshitting me, but I was ever so grateful for how assured he sounded. He messaged the link to her social media account to all of his employees and his friend Ryan.

“My sister is missing!” Soph was pacing and her voice was raised. “I know and I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt. Isn’t there any way you can cancel your dinner with your colleagues for a family emergency?”

I couldn’t make out his words, but I heard Stan’s deep drone on the line, and it was all I could do not to snatch the phone out of Soph’s hands and tell him to get his ass over here and help us. Perhaps it was my panic kicking in or maybe I just didn’t like a man who couldn’t be there for his wife when she needed him. Then again, I couldn’t remember a time when Stan had ever put anyone ahead of himself.

Liam squeezed my shoulder and I realized I’d taken one step forward as if I would actually grab Soph’s phone and curb-stomp it like I wanted to Stan’s head. I glanced at my sister’s face. She looked upset enough. She didn’t need me brawling with her husband to make it any worse.

“Aunt Jules, has there been any word?” Hannah and Harry asked as they parked in front of the house and jumped from the car.

“No,” I said. “But we have discovered that your Aunt Emily has a lot going on in her life that we didn’t know about, but I’m guessing you two did.”

I turned my phone around so that they could see it. Hannah and Harry were in a couple of the pictures and they both looked duly alarmed that I had found Em’s page.

“We can explain,” they said together.

“I’m listening,” I said.

Soph shoved her phone in her pocket and joined the group. One look at their mother’s face and both Hannah and Harry hugged her close.

“We’ll find her, Mom.” Harry sounded as absolute as Liam had. “Don’t worry.”

Soph nodded but her eyes were watery, and it looked as if it was taking all she had not to cry. I had the urge to kick Stan’s ass for the second time in ten minutes. It must have shown on my face because I felt Liam squeeze my shoulder again, reminding me to stand down.

“Hannah and Harry were just going to tell me what they know about Emily’s posts,” I said.

I showed Soph one of the pictures on Em’s page with the twins in it. The three of them were each wearing some kind of faux animal skin hat with the pointy ears and the sides trailing down to make a scarf with mittens sort of thing.

Soph looked from the phone to the teens. “When did you three do that?”

“Farmer’s market,” Hannah said. “Some guy was selling those spirit hoods.”

“Spirit hood?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, like it’s your spirit animal,” Harry said. “I’m the lion.”

“Uh huh,” Soph said. “And you didn’t mention to me that Em has this social media site thing happening?”

“Everyone has one,” Hannah said. “NBD.”

“Em never had one before,” Soph said. “That makes it a very BD.”

“The farmers market? Wasn’t that the night Em was wearing her boots?” I asked.

Harry nodded. “She had a trail of dudes following her. That’s why we stayed with her until she went home. She kinda needed a bodyguard.”

“Those are Em’s boots?” Liam asked. “Interesting.”

My cheeks heated as Soph shot me a questioning glance. I made my face blank as I shut out the memory of the night before and tried to ignore him. Must focus on missing sister, I told myself.

“Have you two tried calling her?” I asked Harry and Hannah.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “And texted her, too.”

“No answer,” Hannah added.

“Why don’t we all split up and search town?” I suggested. “We can cover more ground. Soph, maybe you should stay here in case she comes home and then you can call us and let us know.”

“Hell no,” she said. “We’ll leave her a note telling her to call us if she comes home. I am not just going to sit here and go slowly crazy when she’s out there possibly hurt or harmed.”

“Is Dad coming to help?” Hannah asked.

There was a beat of awkward silence and then Soph said, “No, honey, he can’t. He has a work thing.”

I saw the twins exchange a glance. Soph might have been trying to protect their opinion of their father, but something told me it was already too late.

“Okay, then, we’d better get going.” I turned to Liam. “Thanks so much for the ride.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. This is Em. I’m not going to be able to function until I know she’s okay.”

“Huh,” Harry grunted. “I wish Dad felt that way.”

There was another awkward silence and I desperately wanted to ask Soph what was going on in her house, but I resisted—it was definitely not the time.

“Thank you, Liam.” Soph gave him a smile of gratitude. “Hannah and Harry, take your car and try down by the water, I’ll take my SUV and search the center of town, Liam and Jules, you have the motorcycle so you can zip around the perimeter of town faster than any of us can. Keep your phones on and call the second you see her.”

I looked at my sister in surprise. She hadn’t done the bossy older sister thing in a while, and I’d forgotten how good she was at it.

“Got it,” Harry and Hannah said and took off for their car.

Soph squeezed my hand as she passed me to go to her own vehicle. I grabbed her fingers and stopped her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

She glanced past me toward Liam. “I’d love it if you were with me, but Liam’s going to need you to show him all of Em’s favorite places like the jogging trail up in the hills, the winery on the edge of town, and the old, abandoned church. She loves that creepy place. We can cover more ground if we split up.”

“All right,” I said. “But stay in contact and be careful.”

“I will,” Soph said. “You, too.”

Soph hugged me hard and then hurried to her SUV. With a wave, she zipped out of the drive and headed toward town. Watching her brush away a tear from her cheek, I felt impotent fury with my brother-in-law for making her do this by herself. What an asshole.

“Hey, you ready?” Liam asked.

I nodded and followed him to his bike. He held out his leather jacket and I pulled it on. It was getting dark, and the temperature was dropping. The sweat from my earlier run had already dried and I was feeling the chill on my skin. I zipped up the jacket and Liam’s scent, the sea and sunshine, filled my nose. The jacket was baggy, and the sleeves hung halfway down my fingers. I didn’t care. I was warm.

He plopped the helmet on my head, and I fastened it while he climbed onto the bike. I followed, wrapping my arms around him just as I had before. He put on his own helmet and glanced back once with a small smile and then we took off.

We jetted all the way to the outskirts of town, trying the most popular places as we went. Em wasn’t at the creepy church, thank god, and there were no cars parked nearby.

Liam drove to the popular hillside jogging path, positioning the bike in the small lot at the trail head which was illuminated by two tall streetlights. There were several cars but none belonged to Em. If she’d come here with a friend, I had no way of knowing whose vehicle they’d taken. We walked onto the trail. We didn’t go far but I couldn’t help but notice how quiet the area was after the noise of the motorcycle.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Okay.” I was so far from okay I was sure we weren’t even on the same planet. In a panicked voice, I called out into the darkness, “Em!”

We both stood still, listening. There was no rustle in the darkness, no muffled cry for help, nothing.

“Em!” Liam yelled. Unlike me, he had no problem bellowing. If someone was out there hiking to enjoy the quiet, they were not going to be happy with him.

We stood still again, listening. There was no response. I started to tremble. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the stress of the past couple of weeks coupled with all the emotional stuff that came with it, but my eyes welled and my throat closed. If something had happened to Em, well, I just didn’t think I’d survive it.

Liam must have sensed my impending crash because he folded me into his arms, pressing my face against his shoulder while his arms locked around me, holding me close while I pretty much lost my shizzle in a torrential downpour of tears.

“Shh,” he said. He ran his hand up and down my back. “We’re going to find her.”

I nodded. We had to press on. I needed to get it together so that we could. Time was a critical factor here and there was no time for a breakdown.

“Sorry.” I stepped back from him and wiped my face with my hands. “It’s just, yeah, there’s been a lot going on.”

“ I’m sorry,” he said. “The other night, what I said, what I did, I was such a son of a bitch. You’re already dealing with so much; I never should have—”

“No, it’s fine,” I interrupted. “Totally fine. We really should get going.”

I began to walk away. While I was grateful for his apology, I didn’t want to hear him say that he shouldn’t have slept with me. Maybe he was in love with someone else and maybe he was moving on, but that night with him had meant so much to me, you know, before he crushed my poor heart, that I couldn’t bear to let him dismiss it as just a fallout from our past.

Liam grabbed my hand before I made it more than a yard. He tugged me around to face him. Oh, man, he was going to tell me how the other night had been a mistake and my heart was going to shatter right here at his feet.

Instead, he kissed me. He cupped the back of my head and kissed me until I was clinging to him, and he had one hand fisted in my hair and one hand at my lower back, locking me up against him.

“Where were you today?” His voice was a low rasp that made me shiver.

“I thought you might appreciate some space from me,” I said.

He moved his lips to that trigger spot right under my ear and I promptly forgot my name, my purpose, where I was, or what I was supposed to be doing.

“I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think about anything but you,” Liam said. He returned his mouth to mine and kissed me deeply. “I missed you all damn day, surfer girl.”

My heart melted into a puddle. He had missed me. I hugged him hard.

“I missed you, too, new boy,” I said.

He kissed the top of my head and hugged me tight one more time. “Okay, we’re talking later. Finding Em now.”

He clasped my hand and we hurried to the motorcycle. Something had shifted between us. I didn’t know what, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to look too closely at what was happening on the chance I was wrong, and he was going to kick me to the curb again. Instead, I followed where he led and hoped that once we found Em, the talk we were going to have wasn’t going to decimate my poor heart...again.

We hit three other places that Em was known to enjoy. There was no sign of her, her car, or any of her friends. I checked in with Harry and Hannah and Soph and none of them had spotted her either. I hated that panic was beginning to be my default setting, but I couldn’t seem to switch off the feeling that my sister was in pain and needed me.

We were headed toward the center of town when Liam pulled over the motorcycle. While the engine idled, he took out his phone and checked the display. His eyebrows went up and he looked at me.

“There’s been a sighting by one of my employees.” Liam glanced at his phone. “She’s in Duff’s bar.”

“Duff’s?” I asked. “The most diviest of dive bars where the surf crowd and the bikers hang out?”

“Yup,” he said. We gave each other a wide-eyed look and then he gunned the motorcycle while I clutched him close and prayed we weren’t too late.