Chapter 24
I’m scanning everyone in the crowd, anxious for a reason I can’t quite put into words.
The auction just ended, and thankfully Ms. Paige followed through with our agreement and won my auction.
I’ll cover the money it cost her and work an entire month of weekends to fix up the lawn of the little house she just bought in town. Seems like a win-win in my book.
“You know, we should all consider ourselves lucky that Gertie has the hots for Miller’s uncle,” Roscoe says, walking beside me.
“I’ll happily take Ms. Davis from the Last Stop Shop to the wing place in Clarksville.
I owe her for organizing all of those meals for Ma after she had surgery for her gallbladder.
Lord knows my dads would’ve killed everyone if they tried to cook. ”
“Can’t really complain about Ms. Petry from East Side High either,” Owen says, his eyes darting around the mass of people, much like mine are.
“Pretty sure my mom called in a favor since they’re friends.
Mom has known how worried I’ve been about this.
It’s given me anxiety since freshman year when Gertie won Jonesy’s auction and forced him to endure the Thunder Down Under-esque show when it came to Flagstaff.
She even went on stage and got a lap dance from one of the performers.
I think Jonesy required therapy after that. ”
Pausing in front of the fountain, my hands find my hips, and I finally give in to the frustration plaguing me. “Where the hell is Nik?”
“I haven’t seen her since before the auction started. Couldn’t find her in the audience either.” Roscoe steps up beside me, his head swiveling just like ours have been.
“You don’t think the ex-hole did something to her, do you?”
Before I can respond to Owen, I catch Cassidy heading our way. “Where the fuck have you been, and have you seen Nik?”
My sister looks us over, fiddling with her fingers in a nervous gesture she hasn’t done since high school. “I haven’t seen her since before the auction. She was in the bar grabbing something for Bea.”
Gripping her shoulders, I stare into her worried eyes. “What is it, Cass?”
“She was crying, Cars. Something upset her. She said she had to go do something and made me run the gavel to Bea for her.”
“Did you see which direction she went?” Roscoe asks.
Cass shakes her head. “Do you want me to help you find her?”
Owen shakes his head. “No. It’s better if we do this ourselves.”
“Start at the apartment?” I ask, already heading in that direction.
“Yup.” Roscoe nods, falling into step beside me.
Owen’s right there with us, weaving through the crowds as we head up Main Street.
“Let me know when you find her,” Cass calls out from behind us.
None of us respond. I can’t speak for the others, but my mind is a mess as I sift through everything that’s happened the last twenty-four hours and what could’ve triggered her. The ex-hole is the only thing that comes to mind. Unless…
“You don’t think we played our cards too early, do you? Maybe scared her off?”
Roscoe shakes his head. “No way. That girl’s feelings were written all over her face this morning. She wanted this. Wanted us. I’m sure of it.”
The lights are off at Turn the Page, but I try the handle just in case. Locked.
“What do we say when we find her?” Owen turns around, heading down the thruway between the bookstore and Doc on the Rocks.
We all hit the stairs at the same time, practically jogging up until we’re standing in front of the door to the apartment.
“We tell her again how we all feel about her,” Owen murmurs. “Make sure she understands that this is it for us. That she is everything we’ve always wanted and we will do whatever it takes to make her see that our future is nothing without her.”
We all nod in agreement.
Owen pulls out his key, unlocks the door, and we step inside. The second we enter, it’s like the entire atmosphere of the apartment is different. Her scent lingers in the air, but there’s an unsettling emptiness.
Roscoe is the only one brave enough to walk toward her door and knock. “Nik, you in there?”
Nothing.
Total silence.
He knocks again, then gives up any attempt at being civilized and throws the door open. He stands there for a moment, the tension in his shoulders growing while his hands slowly ball into fists at his sides.
“Well?” Owen finally asks.
“She’s gone.”
His words set off a bomb in my gut. “What do you mean she’s gone? Like, she’s not in there or…”
“Her stuff is all gone. Clothes, the picture frame from the nightstand, the silly little hamper she bought to save space that held nothing. There’s nothing left.
” Before I can ask anything else, he’s stalking past us out the door, crossing the landing, and banging on the door to her old apartment.
“Nik, open the fucking door and explain what the hell is going on.”
“Roscoe, man, let’s calm down until we—”
His eyes snap to mine. “Calm down? The girl reeled us in again, let us believe that she felt the same way we do, then up and fucking left us, Carson. You can really sit there and stay calm when it feels like our whole world is being upended yet again?”
“I think we need to figure out what happened before we rush to make any rash decisions,” Owen states softly. He runs his hand through his hair as he walks over to the light fixture, then finds a spare key and opens the door.
This time, Roscoe stays back with me as Owen goes inside. He’s only gone a moment before he comes back out, shaking his head.
“She’s not here either.”
“Then where would she have—”
After sharing a look, we say, damn near in unison, “Dre’s.”
In seconds, we’re hustling back down the steps.
“Her car’s gone too,” I note, knowing that her car hasn’t moved from its spot more than once since she’s been back in town.
The short walk is filled with silence as we’re all lost in our heads.
You can hear the music from the festival filtering all the way back into the quiet residential streets.
The happiness I felt earlier has vanished under the weight of the possibility that she really did leave us for good when we barely even had her to begin with.
Dre’s house comes into view, and we stalk up the steps to the front porch where Roscoe once again knocks on the door. There are muffled voices, then footsteps that are way too heavy to be Nik’s. Tennyson answers the door, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We need to see Nik,” Roscoe says without preamble.
“Ain’t here,” Ten replies just as succinctly.
Owen puts a hand on Roscoe’s chest, stopping him from making a really stupid decision. “If she’s not at our apartment or her apartment, and she’s not here, then where the hell else would she be?”
Dre appears over Tennyson’s shoulder, his face a blank mask. “What do you want?”
I step in front of Owen and Roscoe, considering I’m the calmest one of the bunch. Something tells me if we’re going to get anywhere without bones being broken, I need to be the one doing the talking. “Dre, we just need to know where she is and what’s going on. We’re worried about her.”
He forces Ten to move aside so he can step out and close the door behind him.
“I haven’t seen her.” He looks over his shoulder then back at us, dropping his voice and narrowing his eyes. “But if I had, I’d have a lot of fucking questions because she’s a fucking mess. Do I need to beat one of your asses for real this time?”
Removing my hat, I flip it backward. “We have no idea what happened. We were with her up until we had to go sign in for the auction. By the time we were done, she was gone. Something or someone got to her in the span of a little under two hours, and we don’t know where to start.”
“I suggest you figure something out, and fast. These boys start hitting on my sister, and I’ll end up booted from another fucking team. This one will cost me.”
He leaves us with that god-awful thought, then heads back inside and slams the door behind him.
Owen runs both hands down his face. “We don’t have much time. What do we do?”
“We start with the ex-hole.” Roscoe’s already halfway down the stairs and striding toward Main Street. “That doesn’t pan out, then we call in the big guns.”
I look at Owen, then back at Roz. “Who in the hell are the big guns?”
“Nan,” is all Roscoe says, never once breaking his pace.
“This is gonna get messy.”
Owen nods. “Yup.”
My sigh is dredged up from the bottom of my soul. I send up a silent prayer to the universe for a little divine intervention. We don’t get our girl back soon, and there’s no telling what sort of shit storm we’ll find ourselves in.