Chapter 4
CARTER
Missed call: Unknown Number. Voicemail left
N ate’s phone buzzed obnoxiously on the coffee table and I nudged him with my foot. “Bro, wake up, your phone is ringing.”
He startled, blinking in confusion like he didn’t remember falling asleep on the sofa in the middle of a Call of Duty game. It was only midmorning, but much like the rest of us, Nate was barely sleeping. We were all sick with worry about Spark, even if some of us wouldn’t admit it.
“What?” he mumbled, sitting up slightly.
I rolled my eyes. “Your phone, dude. Someone is calling. Or was.” Because it’d stopped vibrating already.
Nate scrubbed a hand over his face, clearly still half-asleep, then leaned forward to check his phone and grunted. “Unknown number. Probably fucking telemarketers again.” He deleted the notification and tossed the phone back onto the table as he yawned. “How long was I out?”
“Like twenty minutes or so. Why don’t you go back to bed?” Because for as pissed as we all were at him right now, we did still give a fuck. “You look like crap.”
He scoffed a bitter laugh. “Yeah, and you’re doing so much better than me right now.” He stood up with a groan, stretching the kinks out of his back from the awkward position he’d been sleeping in. “I’ll make coffee. Want one?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” I replied, flicking through the TV channels to find something worth watching. I should be at class right now, but there was no way I could focus on academics while Ashley was still missing.
Nate shuffled over to the kitchen and started up the coffee machine while I checked my phone for the hundredth time in the last five minutes. I was waiting on an update from the investigators I’d hired to find Spark. So far, they weren’t worth their fee.
“Any updates from your people?” Nate asked from the kitchen, reading my fucking mind.
“No,” I admitted, frustrated as all hell. “Nothing useful anyway. It's like she just dropped off the face of the earth after leaving your birthday.”
Nate had nothing to say to that, and I gave up on the TV. I turned it off, then headed to the kitchen to wait for my coffee. Heath and Royce arrived home a few minutes later, having stopped by Ashley’s work to ask her manager whether she’d heard anything.
“Manager says Ash sent an email on Sunday morning, asking for time off and stating that there had been a death in the family,” Heath announced, not making us pry the information out. “She asked for two weeks but also implied it might be longer. Apparently.”
“And you’re sure it’s not her texting you guys?” Nate asked, handing over my coffee. “Maybe she was just distracted and didn’t notice the nickname thing?”
I resisted the urge to hit him. Barely.
“It’s not her,” I growled, aggressively grasping my coffee mug and nearly breaking the fucking thing. “My investigators have confirmed that none of her credit cards have been used, nor has she been tracked on any CCTV with facial recognition anywhere within the state.”
“Which means no train stations, bus stations, airports…” Royce mused aloud. “Or banks for that matter. Hospitals?”
A chill of sick dread ran down my spine. “Protected information, but I have them working on it,” I murmured. “They’ve already ruled out public hospitals based on patient admission data.”
Royce blew out a long breath, raking his fingers through his hair. “Well, that’s something, I guess. Has anyone spoken to Carina?” We all looked at Nate. He’d assured us that he would call her himself and then kept making excuses.
“I’ll try her again,” he mumbled, leaving his coffee and returning to the living room to grab his phone. Then he disappeared down the hall to his bedroom to make the call.
I scowled after him, not trusting his need for privacy for some reason. Why not call her out here on speaker where we could all hear what she had to say?
Before I could voice my question, the doorbell rang and Heath announced that it would be Carly. Since we’d decided Ashley wasn’t Ashley, she’d been at our apartment every day and actively working to find our girl. Unlike Nate.
“Morning, boys,” she greeted us when Heath let her in. “Someone tell me they have good news? Because I have got nothing. Nada. Zilch.”
“Only that her work thinks she’ll only be gone for a couple of weeks,” Heath replied thoughtfully, “which means that whoever sent the email does intend for her to return, right? Otherwise wouldn’t they have just quit entirely?”
My brows rose at that idea. “You’re right. Why bother asking for time off when it’d be just as easy to quit or simply not show up?”
Everyone was quiet for a moment, then Carly gave a small, humorless laugh.
“Are we still totally sure she’s missing and not just avoiding you all?
Things were getting kinda complicated with the whole…
you know…polyamory situation. And Nate’s whole fake engagement thing was messing with her head a bit.
Maybe…what if she really does just need some time and space? ”
It was wishful thinking, and she didn’t even believe what she was suggesting. But I got it. That would be infinitely more comforting than not knowing what’d happened or where she was. Because right now, we had no leads. She’d left Nate’s party and just disappeared.
“Where is Nate, anyway?” Carly asked when no one answered her.
Royce jerked a thumb toward the bedrooms. “Calling Carina.”
Carly frowned. “In private? Why?”
“Great question,” I murmured, taking a sip of my coffee. “Who wants to go listen at the door?”
Carly and Royce were halfway down the hall before I even finished my question, and if the whole situation wasn’t so fucking dire, I’d have laughed about it.
My own phone rang then, and I quickly answered it when I recognized the caller ID. “What do you have for me, Grierson? Have you found her?”
“Not exactly, sir,” the man on the other end replied.
“But we did uncover some unusual activity in your area the night she disappeared. I’ve received some unconfirmed word of mouth that there was a military medical transport spotted outside the location your girl was last seen.
My team is headed over there now to speak with neighbors to see what they can dig up. ”
“Keep me posted,” I replied, ending the call in a swirl of confusion. Military? What the hell could that have to do with Spark’s disappearance?
Raised voices from down the hall had me refocusing on the more pressing issue at hand.
“Are you, a fucking child? Who eavesdrops at someone’s door?” Nate was ranting as he stalked back out to the kitchen with a scowl tugging at his face.
“Who skulks off to make phone calls in private like a suspicious skunk?” Royce shot back, not giving a fuck that he’d been caught out. “What could you and Ashley’s mom seriously be discussing that required privacy , hmm?”
“Maybe we were discussing how fucking nosy you are, Royce,” Nate snapped, grabbing his coffee out of Heath’s hand. “This was mine, motherfucker.”
Heath rolled his eyes. “Pretty sure you left it unattended so you could have your private chat with Ashley’s mom.”
“I can’t believe I have to be the voice of reason,” I muttered under my breath, eyeing our shady-as-fuck friend. “What did Carina say? Has she heard from Ash at all?”
Nate’s angry glare shifted my way and melted into guilty concern. “No.”
My brows shot right the fuck up. “No?” I repeated, sure I must have heard him wrong.
Nate shook his head. “She hasn’t heard from her since Saturday. Carina has apparently sent a few messages but had no response, and she figured Ash was just otherwise occupied…what with her three boyfriends and all.”
There was a sneer to his lips when he said that, and it made me narrow my eyes. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Judgmental or jealous, it was a fine line.
“So the Ashley imposter is only maintaining the illusion with us…not with her mom? That seems weird, doesn’t it?” Carly asked, arms folded as she cocked her head to the side. Was she asking us or telling us? “I mean, let’s say for the sake of argument, that the imposter is actually Ash?—”
“Let’s not,” I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “We have enough fucking issues without playing more goddamn pretend. This is confusing the fuck out of me.”
“I get that.” Carly fixed me with a look that was neither pitying nor irritated. “I hate the idea of it, but…I think if we ask ourselves the questions, we’ll either narrow down the list of where she is or…get to a point where we can report her missing.”
“You’ve been watching too many procedurals,” Nate said in an aggrieved tone that just had me itching to take out my bad mood on him.
“Carly, she’s answering the texts to her.
We report her missing, the police reach out, she answers and tells them she’s fine, they close the case, and we’re still in the dark. ”
“Well, thank you for that spectacular dismissal, Nate. The next time I need to feel bad about myself, I’ll be sure you’re my first call. But —” It was her turn to cut him off with a finger pointed at him. “Uh-uh. Hush. My turn to talk. You got to say your dismissive shit. Now, listen.”
“Yeah,” Royce said, shoulder checking Nate hard enough to make him spill coffee on himself. “Listen.”
If Ash had been here, I’d have been making popcorn so we could watch Carly take Nate down a peg or three. To be fair, he’d deserved it where she was concerned for a really long fucking time, but she’d never done it.
“We’re listening,” I offered. I had no idea how long or short this would be, but if it helped Carly, fine. What else were we doing? Waiting for more news?
“Right.” Carly took a deep breath. She shot a look at Heath, but he just lifted his chin as if telling her she could handle it.
“First, if she is missing and we can’t confirm her health or her mental state beyond a text message, asking the police to locate her and perform a wellness check means they will actually have to look for her. ”
So far, no issues with that plan. Except our local police force very much answered to the Society. We might be able to work with that.
“Now, calling her is all well and good, but a wellness check means they have to see her— physically. ” She emphasized that point, focusing on Nate, who rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut.
Again, no issues.
“So, if they can’t find her, then this becomes a more complicated case, and we can report her as a missing person. I don’t think the police are going to beat whoever you guys have already hired but…”
I was starting to hate that word.
“Just because we tell Imposter Ashley we’re doing it, doesn’t mean we are.”
“I thought we were assuming she isn’t an imposter?” Nate asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“No, we are. Keep up, Nate. She’s almost definitely an imposter because, look, Ashley and her mom? They’re tight. If Ashley is really trying to get away from the testosterone train, then I get it. But she wouldn’t cut off me or her mom.” Carly seemed really damn certain.
“Except you’re my cousin,” Heath pointed out. “That could make her want to avoid you.” Not that he sounded like he believed it.
“Heath, I love you, but Ashley knows where my loyalty lies.” The blunt, on-the-nose statement had Heath gaping at her, and Royce let out the first real sound of humor since the party.
“What you want to do is have either you or Carina text Ashley and say you’re going to request a wellness check if she doesn’t call or video chat or something.” I was starting to see where she was going with this. That made a lot of sense. Oddly.
“Exactly,” Carly said, meeting my eyes with a wide smile. “Top marks, Bassington.”
“So if it is really Ashley, she’ll want to avoid the issues and call to prove she’s okay,” Nate said slowly, testing each word like he was trying to decide if he could believe it.
“If it’s not —then what? You just want to tell her this, not actually do it.
So what’s the point if it’s not her? Or she doesn’t take the bait? ”
“I don’t know, make them nervous. Knock them off their game?” Carly put her hands on her hips, clearly exasperated. “Hell, actually report it at that time. It can’t hurt if we have more people looking for her.”
“But you don’t know that this will prove anything.” The flat denial had become Nate’s way of handling everything.
“I know it’s better than standing around with my dick in my hand, making secret phone calls like I’m hiding something,” Carly countered. I wasn’t alone in looking at Nate.
“This is not a fucking game,” he said, pocketing his phone.
“Maybe she’s just not that fucking into anyone here anymore.
Call the cops if you want. Tell her you’re calling them, if you have to.
Whatever. I’m done playing make-believe over some flaky chick who is clearly just not that into m—uh, you. I’m going to take a shower.”
“You know what?” Carly yelled after him. “Screw you, Essex! I’ll save her myself!” She stormed out of the apartment as Nate stalked to his room. The slam of his door echoed the front door, but Carly had won that round.
“He’s definitely lying about something.” Royce broke the sudden silence, his jaw set.
“Yeah,” Heath agreed with a heavy sigh. “How do we get it out of him?”
It was a good fucking question. I scrubbed a hand over my face, as I tried to muster up some form of reassurance for my friends. “We’ll figure something out.” It was going to start with me getting my hands on Nate’s phone. I should have done it when he was sleeping earlier. “I’m going to shower.”
I headed back to Ashley’s room. All I wanted was to be closer to her. Some of her things were still here. Not all of them, but some. I grabbed a pair of her panties out of the drawer and sat on the edge of the bed.
Normally, I’d jack off with these. It had helped, or at least distracted me before.
They were still a poor substitute for the real thing, but I’d take even that much just to be near her.
I rubbed the fabric between my thumb and forefinger.
“I’m going to get you back,” I informed the panties, holding Ashley’s image in my mind.
“Then I’m going to make you go commando for at least a week so I can play with your pussy whenever I want. ”
We had to get her back. I pulled out my phone and called another one of the professionals I’d hired to search for her. Maybe we needed to kick in doors and not just knock on them.