Chapter 27
Rhonan
My Worst Nightmare Times Two
“I don’t think I could ever get sick of Carolina’s baked goods.” Brody shoves the last bite of his pizza roll into his mouth. He’s not even done chewing his first one before he reaches for another.
Jordan nods. “Especially these damn pizza rolls. I could eat them every day.”
“You’d get sick of them after a while,” Brody interjects. “Right, Rhonan?”
I’m so immersed in my computer that I wasn’t really paying attention to their conversation. Glancing up from my monitor, I make eye contact with Brody. “What?”
“Dude…you all right? You’ve had your head buried in your computer for hours.”
Shaking off the hypnosis I feel like I’ve been under, I lean back in my desk chair and drag my hand down my face.
“Yeah, just…got a lot on my mind.” My phone vibrates next to me, so I pick it up from my desk and see my sister is calling me.
“Sorry, guys. I’ve got to take this.” I stand from my desk as I answer.
“Hey. Aren’t you supposed to be leaving for your honeymoon right about now? ”
“Yes. We’re on our way to the airport as we speak, but we just tried video calling with Vienna so we could ask Ellis what she wants from Bora Bora and she didn’t answer.”
“Okay, well, try calling again.”
“I did, Rhonan.” Laney clears her throat. “The first time it kept ringing, but then the second time it went straight to her voicemail, like she turned her phone off or something.”
Awareness crawls up my spine. “She never turns her phone off… Maybe it died.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I—I don’t want to worry you, but I just wanted to let you know. Maybe she’ll answer if you call, but…”
“I’m sure everything is fine,” I say, more to convince my sister than myself because my mind is spinning at the moment. “I’ll try calling her and let her know that you want to talk to them, all right?”
“Okay. I love you.”
“Love you too. Have a great time.”
After Laney ends the call, I immediately bring up Vienna’s number to call her, but unfortunately, I’m met with her voicemail.
A bad feeling races through me. “Fuck. Something’s wrong.”
Brody stops chewing as he watches me slide right back up to my computer. “What do you mean?”
“Vienna isn’t answering her phone. That’s not like her.”
He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “Okay…”
“Hart!” Chief Banks enters the room, a worried look on his brow.
“Yeah?”
“You…you need to come back here with me.”
I follow him into his office and shut the door. “Chief?”
He blows out a breath. “I finally got an ID on that man that Mrs. Higgins was complaining about.”
“All right. That’s great, but why are you just telling me and not the other guys?”
Our eyes lock. “He’d been walking everywhere until this morning, when she saw him driving a black SUV. And then one of the office ladies at the school reported that the car was parked in front of the school virtually all day.”
Sweat forms on my brow the longer he talks. “Get to the point, Chief. Please.”
“Have you spoken to Vienna today?”
“Earlier.”
“What about now?”
“Respectfully, sir. What the fuck are you trying to tell me?”
He inhales deeply and says, “Your girlfriend isn’t exactly who she seems, and the man who’s been hanging around town might have something to do with her.”
***
By the time Chief Banks finishes telling me about Vienna’s husband and how the guy snooping around town is a private investigator, my stomach is churning so hard I can barely stand up straight.
“Well, I knew about her husband, but the rest? How do we know this guy was here for Vienna?”
“He’s from the D.C. area. I called a few of my contacts out there and showed his picture once I had a decent one from Mrs. Higgins.
Then when I started to look at where he spent the most time, several of the office ladies and teachers at the school recognized him, and I started to put two and two together. ”
“Wait. He’s been at the school?”
“Yes. That’s what really startled me, especially after what happened to Hailey Zachmann.” Shaking his head, he says, “I don’t ever want to relive something like that again.”
I pull out my phone and try calling Vienna again with no luck. “Chief, Vienna isn’t answering her phone.”
His face grows pale. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“No. And she’s at home with Ellis. I need—”
“Don’t say another word. Go. I’ll send Brody as back-up just in case.”
“Thank you.”
Brody and I race out to our cruisers as fast as we can after I tell him that his assistance is urgent, and then we flip on the sirens and speed across town.
I know I joked with Vienna about how getting to put on the sirens in my cruiser has always been something that brings me joy, but right now? I feel nothing but dread as I close in on my house.
I’m trying to convince myself that my paranoia is just rearing its ugly head, but deep down, I know something is very wrong, and I’m not going to believe it for myself until I see with my own two eyes that my daughter and the woman I love are okay.
Every cell in my body is vibrating. My palms are sweaty and my chest is so tight that breathing is difficult.
Fuck. I can’t lose them too.
I spin my cruiser into my driveway and barely park before I leap from the vehicle and barge inside, finding the front door unlocked but the house silent.
“Vienna? Ellis?” With no sign of them anywhere, I reach for my gun on my hip, lift it into position, and slowly walk down the hallway, uneasy about what I might find.
But I find nothing.
They’re not in my room or Ellis’s.
They’re not in the backyard.
Maybe they went to Vienna’s house?
When I exit my house, I find Brody standing watch in the front yard. “Anything?”
“No. I’m going to Vienna’s house to see if they’re there.”
When I arrive at her door, I don’t bother knocking, entering the house with my gun poised just in case. But the silence is deafening, eerie even.
Then Roscoe scratches at the back door, begging to be let in. I head for the sliding door as I return my gun to my hip and let him inside. “Hey, buddy. Where’s your mom?”
He runs to the front door, scratching to go out there.
This dog and I haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye since I’ve met him, but I know he might be my only shot at figuring out what happened to Vienna and my daughter at this moment.
“All right, let’s go for a walk.”
I grab his leash from the hook by the door, attach it to his collar, and open the front door.
“We’re walking the dog right now?” Brody calls out to me.
“He loves the girls. I’m hoping he might be able to pick up their scent, or something.”
Roscoe starts sniffing away from the house and down the sidewalk. He doesn’t stop to pee or doddle, though. No. He’s got something on his nose and he’s following it with a passion. We walk for a few blocks before he stops completely, fixated on something on the sidewalk.
“What did you find, buddy?”
But when I lean down and pick up the rainbow charm that’s on the ground—the same one that I know is from my daughter’s new shoes I bought her a few weeks ago—panic washes over me.
And when my eyes land on the smashed cell phone on the street right near it, I have to fight not to collapse onto the ground.
Instead, I lift my radio from my chest and immediately call into it.
“AMBER alert. Missing child. Ellis Hart, age five, last seen with Vienna Lewis, age twenty-eight, also a missing person.”