Chapter Twenty-Nine
Katrina
The screen door creaked open behind us. I turned to see Maggie stepping out onto the porch, Cami close behind her.
Something was wrong. I could see it in Maggie’s face—the way her skin had gone pale, the tightness around her mouth, the worry etched into every line of her expression.
“Kat,” she said quietly.
My stomach dropped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Cami stepped forward, her hands twisting together nervously. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but not from panic, from something else. Guilt, maybe. Or fear.
“Frankie’s gone,” she said, her voice carefully controlled.
The world stopped.
Frankie’s gone.
“What?” The word came out strangled, barely recognizable as my own voice.
“She’s not in her room,” Maggie said carefully. “And Nox is gone too.”
I stood up so fast the world tilted. My vision blurred at the edges, and I had to grab the porch railing to keep from falling.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” I demanded. “When did you last see her?”
“Last night,” Cami whispered, still not meeting my eyes. “We went to bed and when I woke up this morning, she wasn’t there.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, but it wasn’t the crack of someone who’d just discovered their friend was missing. It was the crack of someone who was carrying a secret.
“No.” I shook my head violently. “She wouldn’t just leave. She wouldn’t—”
Maggie stepped forward and held out her hand.
In it was Frankie’s stuffed bunny.
Time stopped.
My heart stopped.
Everything stopped.
“She left this on the bed,” Maggie said softly.
I stared at the bunny, unable to move, unable to breathe. The worn gray fabric. The floppy ears. The mismatched button eyes.
My hands were shaking as I reached out and took it from Maggie. The fabric was soft under my fingers, worn smooth from years of being held, clutched, loved. The weight of it, so light, so familiar, made my knees buckle.
I sank down onto the porch step, clutching the bunny to my chest.
Frankie never went anywhere without this bunny.
Never.
When we’d lived in the car, she’d held this bunny while she cried herself to sleep. When we’d moved into the shelter, she’d kept it clutched in her arms like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to reality. When the trailer exploded, she’d grabbed this bunny before anything else.
And now it was in my hands.
Left behind.
On purpose.
I looked up at Cami. “She left this deliberately.”
Cami’s eyes filled with tears, but she still wouldn’t meet my gaze. She nodded once, a small, guilty movement.
“She planned this,” I said, my voice hollow. “She chose to leave.” I closed my eyes, wondering why my daughter would run. After everything we’d been through. Everything we’d survived, why now?
“Cami,” I said, my voice breaking. “Where is she? Where did she go?”
“I don’t know...” Cami started, then stopped. She looked at Maggie, then back at me. “They wouldn’t tell me.”
They.
Frankie and Nox. Together. Planning this.
“Her father gave it to her,” I heard myself say, my voice hollow and distant. “Before he signed away his rights and left. It’s the only thing she has from him.”
I looked down at the bunny in my hands. She’d had this bunny for ten years. Ten years of holding it, sleeping with it, crying into it, whispering her secrets to it.
And she’d left it behind.
“Why would she leave it?” My chest constricted with every breath.
My vision blurred with tears, and I pressed the bunny against my face, breathing in the familiar scent. Frankie’s shampoo, strawberry and vanilla. The faint smell of lavender detergent. And underneath it all, that indefinable scent that was just Frankie.
“She’s had it since she was two,” I choked out. “She takes it everywhere. She sleeps with it every night. Why would she leave it?”
Sam had gone very still beside me. When I looked up at her through my tears, her face was pale, her eyes wide with shock.
“Kat,” she said carefully. “When you say her father gave her this bunny—”
“Before he signed away his rights,” I said, my voice breaking. “He came to meet her before he walked away. She was two years old. He gave her this bunny and then he left. We adopted her after that.”
Sam’s face went even paler. She stood up abruptly, pulling out her phone with shaking hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Calling Jack,” she said, her voice tight and strained.
She stepped away from the porch, the phone pressed to her ear. I watched as she paced back and forth across the gravel driveway, her movements jerky, frantic.
The wait was agony. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and the bunny kept slipping in my grip because my palms were slick with sweat.
I pressed it against my chest again and tried to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out.
But all I could think about was Frankie. Out there somewhere. Alone.
When Sam came back, her face was set with grim determination. “Jack’s coming with Derek,” she said. “They’re bringing the club. We’re going to find her, Kat.”
Derek.
The name hit me like a physical blow.
I was going to have to see him. Face him. After everything that had happened at the clubhouse. After I’d dragged Frankie away from him.
And now I needed him.
I nodded, but I couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop staring at the bunny in my hands.
“She’s out there,” I whispered. “My baby is out there, and I don’t know where she is.”
Sam sat down beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “We’re going to find her,” she said again. “Derek will find her. I promise you that.”
The minutes crawled by. Maggie brought me a glass of water that I couldn’t drink. Cami sat on the steps below me, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
And I just sat there, clutching the bunny, waiting.
The sound came first, a low rumble in the distance that grew louder with every passing second. Multiple engines, roaring in unison.
My heart hammered against my ribs. My hands tightened on the bunny until my knuckles went white.
The motorcycles appeared one after another, kicking up dust as they turned into the driveway. Jack dismounted first, his face grim. Then cars and a familiar truck pulled in behind them.
Derek.
My chest tightened as he cut the engine and stepped out. Even from a distance, I could see the bruises on his face. The black eye, the busted lip.
His gaze found mine immediately, and I watched his jaw clench tighter.
“What happened to you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step closer before I stopped. I looked around the yard at the club members who’d gathered. “Where is Zero?”
Derek ignored my questions; his eyes scanned the porch, then landed on the bunny clutched against my chest.
“Where is she?” His voice was lethal. Controlled, but barely.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. All I could do was stare at him.
Derek took another step toward the porch. Then another. His eyes never left the stuffed animal.
“Kat,” he said, his voice sharper now. “Where. Is. Frankie?”
Sam stepped forward. “Derek—”
“Where’s Frankie?” he interrupted. His eyes darted from me to Sam to Maggie. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone,” I managed to choke out. “She ran away. Last night. We don’t know where she is.”
The change in him was instantaneous.
His entire body went rigid, every muscle coiling with tension. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and his jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” His voice was dangerously quiet now. “How long has she been missing?”
“We don’t know exactly,” Maggie said from the doorway. “She went to bed last night in Cami’s room, but when she woke up this morning, Frankie was gone.”
Derek’s eyes snapped past me, locking onto Cami where she stood behind Maggie in the doorway. His gaze was sharp, penetrating, the kind of look that stripped away every defense.
“Cami,” he said, his voice low and commanding. “What happened?”
Cami’s face went pale. She took a step back, her hands twisting together nervously. “I... I don’t know. She was just—”
“Don’t lie to me.” Derek’s voice cut through her stammering like a blade. He took another step toward the porch, his entire focus on the thirteen-year-old girl. “You know something. Tell me what happened.”
Tank appeared from somewhere behind Derek, his presence suddenly solid and grounding. He placed a steadying hand on Derek’s chest, not pushing him back, but anchoring him. A silent reminder to keep control.
“Derek,” Maggie said, moving protectively in front of her sister. “She already told us everything she knows—”
“No, she hasn’t.” His eyes never left Cami’s face. “Look at her. She’s terrified, and it’s not because Frankie’s missing. It’s because she knows something she doesn’t want to say.”
Cami’s eyes filled with tears. Her lip trembled, and she looked at Maggie, then at me, then back at Derek. The conflict was written all over her face, loyalty to her friend warring with the weight of what she was carrying.
“Cami,” Derek said again, softer this time but no less intense. “I need you to tell me the truth. Where did Frankie go?”
“I don’t know where she went,” Cami whispered, her voice breaking. “She wouldn’t tell me. She said it was better if I didn’t know.”
Derek’s jaw tightened. “But you know why she left.”
It wasn’t a question.
Cami’s face crumpled. A sob escaped her throat, and she pressed her hands to her face. “I tried to talk her out of it. I told her it was stupid and dangerous, but she wouldn’t listen. She said—” Her voice broke. “She said it was the only way.”
“The only way to what?” Derek demanded.
“To make you and her mom work together.” The words came out in a rush, like Cami couldn’t hold them back anymore. “She said if she disappeared, you’d have to find her together. That you’d have to talk to each other. That maybe if you were both looking for her, you’d figure things out.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
I stared at Cami, my mind struggling to process what she’d just said. Frankie had planned this. She’d deliberately run away. Not because she was scared or hurt or in danger, but because she wanted to manipulate us into...
“She left the bunny on purpose,” Derek said, his voice hollow. He looked down at the worn stuffed animal in my hands, and something shifted in his expression. Understanding. Recognition. “She wanted you to find it. Wanted you to panic. Wanted you to call me.”
He turned to Jack, and a bitter, humorless laugh escaped his throat.
“We’ve been parent-trapped, again.”
Jack’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Frankie.” Derek dragged a hand through his hair, his jaw tight with a mixture of frustration and something that looked almost like admiration. “She orchestrated this whole thing. Just like at the diner.”
The diner? The night I had dinner with Derek; the night I told him everything. The night he left to go after Richard.
“She’s not in danger. She’s not lost. She’s hiding somewhere, waiting for us to come find her together.”
Sam’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“She planned it,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. The bunny felt heavier in my hands, like it was made of lead instead of stuffing and fabric. “She chose to leave.”
Cami’s shoulders shook with silent sobs. “I’m sorry. I tried to stop her. I told her it was a bad idea, but she said... she said you needed help seeing what was right in front of you.”
Derek’s expression was unreadable. He stared at the bunny for a long moment, then looked at me. His eyes were dark, intense, filled with something I couldn’t name.
“She left it because she knew what it would do to you,” he said quietly. “She knew you’d panic. Knew you’d call for help. Knew I’d come.”
Jack moved to his brother’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We still need to find her, Derek. Even if this is some kind of setup, she’s out there somewhere. A twelve-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy in the woods overnight...”
“I know.” Derek’s voice was tight. “We’re going to find her. But when we do, she and I are going to have a very long conversation about manipulation and trust.”
He turned back to Cami, his expression softening just slightly. “Where would she go? You said Nox went with her. Where does he like to hide?”
Tank let out a low, derisive snort from where he stood. “Of course that kid’s involved. Kid’s nothing but trouble.”
“That’s not fair,” Maggie said sharply, stepping forward. Her protective instinct flared, her spine straightening. “Nox is a good kid. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He’s just... he’s just a kid who knows the land. He went to protect her.”
Tank snorted.
“You don’t know him,” Maggie snapped, her voice cold. “And you have no right to judge him.”
“Cami,” Derek pressed, ignoring the tension between Tank and Maggie.
Cami wiped at her eyes. “He knows all the hiding spots in the orchard. The old barn, the equipment shed, the treehouse Dad built near the creek. But Frankie said they were going somewhere no one would think to look.”
Derek nodded, his jaw set with determination. “Then we search everywhere. Every inch of this property and beyond if we have to.”
I stood there, clutching the bunny to my chest, trying to make sense of what was happening. My daughter, my sweet, stubborn, brilliant daughter, had orchestrated all of this. Had left behind the one thing she treasured most in the world, knowing exactly what it would do to me.