Round Thirty-Five
OLLIE
I pull into my driveway in the dark, my eyes glazed over from exhaustion and my entire body heavy from lack of sleep, but my lips curl into a smile anyway, because I’m home, and I have the next two days off work.
Thank fuck.
Two days to sleep. To laze around with Rose.
To whisper in the dark and stay up late without thinking of the consequences tomorrow.
Two days to bum around the house and cook a meal and watch movies and, if she’s still feeling okay, to drag her into my bed and study every delicious new curve she creates now that she’s eating three consistent meals a day.
To smother myself in her hair. To sleep with her wrapped around me.
Fuck. She’s my idea of Heaven.
Bringing the truck to a stop and yanking on the parking brake, I simply sit for a beat and absorb the last remnants of heat before the cold outside intrudes.
I rub my eyes, losing myself to a yawn that holds me prisoner and makes my eyes water.
But even through the moisture clouding my vision, I stare across the hood and up to my house.
Dark. Still.
I blame my exhaustion for how long it takes to understand the scene laid out ahead of me. My sluggish brain for not noticing a lack of smoke lifting from the chimney, or the fact that there is no light burning inside. Not even the flicker of a television.
My heart kicks in my chest, a violent thump as painful as if I’d stepped in front of a train. Then my brain and body catch up again.
I tear the keys from the ignition and shove my door open, almost losing it to the icy wind. Then I drop out of the cab and onto my driveway, skidding on the slippery ground. I sprint across my frozen lawn, white fog racing ahead of me, and scramble onto the stairs. “Rose?”
Maybe she’s asleep. She hardly slept last night, too.
“Rose?” I bound up the stairs and onto the porch, and jamming the key into my front door, I shove it open and step into a house seemingly colder than the air outside.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “Rose!” I slap my palm to the light switch and bathe the room in harsh white light, then I stride across to the couch and check to see if she’s lying down.
Nope.
“Rose! It’s just me. Come out and show me where you are.” I stalk into the hall and open every door as I go. Her bedroom. My bedroom. The bathroom. Every spare room I own. The fucking linen closet.
It’s like she hasn’t been here in days.
Was I tired a minute ago? I can’t even remember it now as adrenaline surges through my veins and the fire in my belly burns me from the inside out.
I spin and charge into the kitchen, flipping more switches on and filling my entire house with light, only to find our oatmeal bowls still on the counter, exactly where we left them this morning.
Fuckkkkk. I jam my hand into my pocket and snatch my phone out, and stampeding across the dining room, I unlock the back sliding door and whip it open. “Rose!? Where are you?”
“Doctor Darling?” Mrs. Gunderson huddles into a fur-lined jacket in her yard, shivering under the light of her back porch. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m looking for Rose, Mrs. Gunderson. Is she with you?”
She shakes her head, quick and jerky, and feverishly rubs her hands together to combat the cold. “I saw her this morning. Looked like she was heading out for a walk.”
“A walk?” I jump off the edge of my porch and sprint to the fence that separates our yards.
I search every corner of her property, the landscaped edging and large pond, already frozen over for the winter.
I lean to the side and attempt to glance past the massive greenhouse, just in case Rose wandered back to the wrong yard.
Lost and scared, vulnerable and freezing.
“What time did you see her, Mrs. Gunderson?”
“Early. Nine or ten, I’d say.”
“Nine or ten!? That’s nine hours ago!”
“I was having a cup of tea in the front room when I saw her out on the road. She seemed unsure. Kept glancing back at the house, like she was talking herself into going another step further.”
My stomach rebels. My entire fucking soul threatens to give out. I unlock my phone with a shaking hand, but I have no missed calls. No unread texts. I bring my eyes back to the little old lady next door. “You haven’t seen her since? She didn’t come home and then head out again later?”
She swings her head side to side. “I haven’t seen her. I kept an ear out all day long, especially with how cold this wind is. But I didn’t sit on my porch all day watching, so she might’ve snuck past.”
No. She fucking didn’t.
I nod and turn away from the fence. “Alright. Thanks.” I hit dial on Janine’s number and bring the phone to my ear. “I’m gonna go out and look for her, Mrs. Gunderson. If you see her while I’m gone, maybe you could call me on my cell?”
“Sure. I will.”
“Ollie?” Janine answers her phone with a snicker. “You’ve been gone fifteen minutes and you already miss us?”
“Rose isn’t there, is she?”
From laughing to deadly serious, her voice turns cold. “What? No, why?”
“Is she in the ER? Could she have been picked up and handed off to Dawes, so I didn’t see?”
“In the ER?” Her breath comes faster, meeting the same pace as her racing feet on the old linoleum. “What the hell is going on, Ollie?”
“She’s not here, Janine!” I swing back onto my deck and stalk through my back door.
Closing the glass with a snap, I retrace my steps and check every room one last time.
Every space a woman could crawl into and hide.
Every fucking inch I own. “She’s not at the house, and Mrs. Gunderson says she saw her heading out for a walk this morning. Nine fucking hours ago.”
“In this weather?”
“She doesn’t have a phone. She doesn’t have money. Even if she’s not frozen or drowned in the lake, she’s not here, and she has no way to buy food. So she’s starving either fucking way. Is she there?”
“I’m walking into the ER now. Hang on.” She tears curtains open and strides past beeping monitors. She murmurs her questions and gives answers when prompted. Then, with a sigh, she brings the phone back to her ear. “She’s not here, Ollie.”
“Fuck!” I cross my house at a jog and burst through the front door. Snatching my keys from the lock, I charge back down the steps and across my lawn, throwing myself into my truck and slamming the door. “Call me if she turns up, okay?”
“O-okay. I promise. You’ll update me if you find her, right?”
“Yeah.” I stab the key into the ignition and turn the engine over, then I end one call and tap on Eliza’s name next.
I’ll drive every fucking road in this town if I have to.
Every back alley. I’ll shine my headlights over every yard and between every tree if I must. I’ll be damned before I let her become a victim of the cold a second time.
“Hi, this is Eliza Darling. I didn’t answer this call, and since this isn’t the nineties anymore, that was probably intentional. Text me like a normal person, you moron. Or, ya know, leave a message at the beep. But I probably won’t listen to it. K. Bye.”
Beep.
“Eliza! Answer your fucking phone. Rose is missing. Have you seen her?”
Ending that call, I back out of my driveway, my wheels skidding on the gravel. Slamming my foot to the brake, I push the gear into first and spin the wheels in search of traction. Then I dial Tommy’s phone and set the call on speaker.
“Come on, come on, come on, come on.” I battle a mental war between driving fast to find Rose sooner, and driving slow, to ensure I don’t blow straight past her in the dark.
I have no clue which is the right choice.
I just know I want to puke, and at the same fucking time, I want to wrap her up and lock her in my house for safekeeping.
“This is Tommy. I can’t get to the phone right n—”
Fuck! Fury burns in my veins, turning blood to fire and rational thinking into something else entirely.
My wheels slip on the road, my truck veers onto the shoulder, and skids back onto the black when I right it again.
Way too fucking dangerous. Too stupid. But I grab my phone and dial Cliff next.
I’ll call every fucking human I’ve ever met if I have to.
Someone has to know where she is. Someone has to have seen her earlier and thought shit, she needs a little help.
“Hey.” Cliff answers, ridiculously chill. “What’s up?”
“Thank fuck! Have you seen Rose?”
“What?” Just like with Janine, I destroy another person’s evening and turn them from relaxed to alert. “What’s going on?”
“Rose isn’t at my house, and she hasn’t been there all fucking day. Mrs. Gunderson said she went for a walk hours before lunchtime, and she hasn’t come back since.”
“But it’s dinnertime. It’s dark.”
“No fucking shit, Clifford! And even if, by some miracle, she’s not dead, frozen, or picked up by a stranger who likes to collect women on the side of the road, she’s gonna be starving. And it’s dark out, so she’s probably lost and scared.”
“I’ll help you look.” His breath bursts out on a gusty exhale, the groan of his couch telling me exactly where he is. “Where have you looked? Did you call Eliza?”
“Yeah. Eliza’s not answering her phone. Tommy didn’t answer either.”
“They’re probably at the gym then. Maybe they’re sparring, and that’s why they didn’t answer. You go to the gym yet?”
“No. I haven’t checked there yet.”
“I’ll head that way. You call Chris? He’s more likely to answer the phone.”
“No, but I’ll call him in a sec.” My phone vibrates, Tommy’s name flashing on the screen. “Hang on. Tommy’s calling me back. You go to the gym. And for the love of God, if you find her, don’t scare her. She doesn’t handle the dark very well.”
“You can count on me. Let me know if you find her, okay?”
“Yeah.” I end one call and accept the other. “Tommy! Rose is missing. Have you—”
“Come to my house.” He breathes out a sigh. Worry, maybe? Pain? “She’s here.”