36. Ellis
THIRTY-SIX
ELLIS
“You’re really good with him,” Mom says as she passes me where James and I are laid out on the couch, her hands full of random socks.
He snores softly, his sticky little hand clutching my shirt.
The kid crashed in my arms about twenty minutes ago after his reign of terror with Fefe finally came to an end. “A natural.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumble, snapping a selfie and sending it to Scarlet.
“I mean it, El.” She’s in her mother hen fussing phase. We usually don’t get here until day four of her visits, but having a baby in the house has definitely sped up her when-are-you-going-to-settle-down guilt -trip timeline.
“Ma.”
She eyes me shrewdly before changing tactics. “Are you and Scarlet serious?”
This, at least, I can give her. “Very serious.”
Her eyes light up as she falls into the overstuffed chair no one except her uses. “Like first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Scarlet with a baby carriage serious?”
I shrug as best I can with the deadweight of a clingy toddler snoozing on my chest.
“I knew it,” she whispers, fist pumping the air.
“Knew what?” I check my phone to see if Scarlet’s replied, but there’s nothing. I know she’s missing me as much as I am her today, because she rarely gets to check her phone at work. So, the constant contact has been pretty nice.
“I knew it was serious the second you told me she was staying here.” She taps her nose with her index finger. “A mother’s intuition.”
“Okay, Ma. Whatever you say.”
“Don’t you whatever, Ma, me.” She springs up from the chair and smacks my feet as she struts into the kitchen. “Now, if I wanted to cook a big, nice dinner for my future daughter-in-law, what would she like? Breakfast for dinner... French toast, perhaps?”
My chest swells as I suck in a deep breath before slowly exhaling it. “I’ve already made it for her.”
James startles she crows so loud. “Shh!” I hiss, trying to comfort him back to sleep. The kid’s gone hard today, and I worry if he gets overly tired, the fun of being here will wear off, and he’ll miss his parents.
“Sorry, sorry.” She has the decency to looks chagrinned. “There’s so much to do. To plan.”
“Plan?” I ask, my eyes widening in alarm. “What exactly are you planning?”
“Your wedding,” she says, like it should be obvious.
“Don’t you think Scarlet would like a say in this?” My phone buzzes, but it’s a call from a number I don’t know. “Or that I should, you know, actually be engaged to her?”
She flicks her hand at me in a dismissive wave. “Just a formality, dear.”
My phone buzzes again. The same number. I send it to voicemail.
“Who’s that?” Mom asks, opening and closing all of the cabinets like she doesn’t already know exactly where everything is.
“Spam call, probably.”
It buzzes again with yet another incoming call, but this one’s from the doctor’s office where Scarlet works. Maybe her phone died?
“Hello.” There’s a slight question in my voice, which only amps up when the person to reply is not Scarlet.
“Ellis, it’s Cara. Have you heard from Scarlet?”
I go from confused to concerned in the blink of any eye. “Not for a little while. Why?”
Cara sucks in a deep breath. “We, um, can’t find her.”
“What do you mean you can’t find her?” I clench my jaw so tight, I worry my molars may crack.
“She went to lunch and never came back.”
A quick glance at my watch, tells me her lunch ended hours ago. “I’ll call you back.”
I end the call without waiting for her reply, immediately pulling up her location. “Why the fuck is it pinging in four places?” I dial her cell, hoping against all odds she answers. But the call rings and rings before going to voicemail. I try again, but it’s no use.
“Is everything okay, El?” Mom asks, her eyebrows knitted with worry.
“Can you take him?” I ask, nodding to James. “I-I’ve gotta go.”
“Go where?” she asks as I pass James to her so I can call Silas.
He answers on the first ring. “Thought you were off this week, man.”
“Scarlet’s gone,” I say, not beating around the bush.
“What do you mean gone? Like y’all had a fight and she left, or—”
“Like she never came back to work after her break and has been missing for hours—”
“What’s her location?” he asks, suddenly all business.
“There are four. Her car is parked at the office, but they’ve already confirmed she’s not there.”
“How long ago was she due back?”
“A couple of hours at least.”
“Last contact?” His no-nonsense tone combats the panic threatening to overtake my logic.
I swipe over to our chat thread, rattling off the timestamp.
“Got it. Send me the locations of her phone and shoes, and we can divide and conquer.”
“Ten-four.” I end the call and turn to my mother, who’s pacing the room while murmuring to a disgruntled James.
“El?” she asks, her voice watery.
“Need you to watch James, Ma.” I retrieve my gun from the safe, checking the mag and the chamber before placing it back in the holster and securing it to my belt. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Baby, what’s going on? Is Scarlet okay?” She glances down to the gun at my hip, her eyes tight with worry.
“I-I...” I scrub a hand over my face, groaning into my palm. “I don’t know.”
I hope she’s okay. Fuck that—any other outcome is unacceptable. She has to be, or I will absolutely lose my mind. If someone hurt her, I will— I shake my head, snapping myself out of the dark line of thinking.
My dad’s favorite nugget of wisdom pops into my head.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I return to my safe grabbing another mag, as yet another piece of his fatherly wisdom, passed down mostly through stories of him, makes itself know.
Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
“Okay, well...” she nods before patting my cheek. “I know whatever’s going on, you’ll bring her home.”
“I really hope you’re right.”
“I know I am.” She sounds so sure of me, in the way only a mother can. “Now, go get our girl.”
After dropping a quick kiss to both her and James’s foreheads, I shove my feet into my boots and sprint out the door to my truck.
A text comes through the second I crank the engine.
Silas: First location’s a bust. Side of the highway, phone’s busted.
Me: I’m heading out now. Will update ASAP.
Silas: Let me know if you need backup.
I toggle out of our thread and redial the office, barely tamping down my frustration when the stupid automated menu starts. “Thank you for calling Lake Fortune Obstetrics and Gynecology. Please listen carefully to the menu options, as they have recently changed.”
“Fucking hell.” I check her location again, none of the blips have moved.
I home in on her necklace, and my heart lodges itself into my throat, a sense of helplessness washing over me.
She’s damn near forty miles away, as the crow flies.
And to make matters worse, the location completely unfamiliar.
“To speak to the front desk, press two.”
I jam my finger against my screen, my stomach churning as I wait for a real person who can get Cara on the phone. But the universe has apparently decided to shit all over me, because all I get is hold music.
“Motherfucker.” I punch the wheel as my frustration gets the better of me. I feel as though I’ve aged fifteen years in the last five minutes.
“Lake Fortune Obstetrics and Gynecol—”
“This is Ellis Wilder calling for Cara,” I snap, cutting whoever’s on the other end of the phone off.
“Sir,” she starts, “There’s no need—”
I cut her off again, softening my tone this time. “It’s about Scarlet.”
She releases a shaky exhale. “I’ll get her right now.”
“Thanks,” I say, but she’s already placed me back on hold.
Minutes that feel like hours pass before the awful jazz is replaced by Cara’s worried voice. “Did you find her?”
“Not yet.” Admitting it feels like defeat. Like I’ve failed her in a situation where failure’s unacceptable. “I need you to walk me through everything you can remember. No detail’s too small.”
“Okay,” Cara whispers, her voice carrying the same worry swirling inside of me like a hurricane. “I-I can do that.”
I listen intently as she begins recounting their day, committing every word to memory.
“I saw her this morning in the break room. We chatted for a minute, and she showed me a picture of James you sent this morning. I didn’t really see her after that. I, um, I poked my head into the break room during her lunch break, but she wasn’t there.”
“Her car is still there?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“It is. She went to lunch with...” she hesitates.
“With who, Cara? I need to know everything.”
“Dr. Snider said the cameras showed her talking to Clint in the hall before leaving with him.”
“And what about Clint?” I ask, pressing the accelerator down as I merge onto the interstate, wishing like hell this was just a bad dream. “Did he come back to work?”
“No.” Her single-word response lands like an anvil on my chest, making it damn near impossible to breathe.
“Has anyone tried calling Clint?” Unease over his involvement flickers to life inside of me. Is his presence a coincidence or something more?
“Yes, both of them. A few times.”
I deflate at her reply. What if they were in a wreck? “Thanks, Cara. If you think of anything else or hear from either of them, call me.”
“I will.” The line goes dead. and I give my full focus to the stretch of interstate before me.
The bitter taste of dread coats the inside of my mouth as I eat up the miles separating us.
It only intensifies as an insidious thought creeps to the forefront of my mind. What if Clint isn’t missing? What if he took her?
“Fuck, no,” I mutter the words aloud, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. “Then again... his interest in her was definitely more than friendly.”
God, I’ve devolved to arguing with myself—out loud. But now that the idea’s taken root, I can’t shake it. He felt like bad news from the moment I first met him. Reading people is something I’m damn good at. In fact, the only person I’ve ever been wrong about was Scarlet.
He’s been off from the jump. Too invested in her. Too everywhere when it comes to her.
I tap Silas’s name on my nav screen. “Update?” he asks, getting straight to business.
“Clint, the bartender from The Creek is with her.”
“Are you en route?”
“I am.”
“Good. The shoes were a bust. Bagged in a dumpster on the edge of town.”
“Feel like I’m gonna puke,” I mumble as my vision swims, the road blurring before me.
“Get it together, Wilder,” Silas snaps. “Send me the address you’re heading to.”
“Yeah, okay.” I take a deep breath before grabbing my phone to share the location with him. “Just sent it your way.”
“You’ll make it first, but we won’t be too far behind.”
I nod even though he can’t see me. “Yeah, okay.”
“Stay alert,” he orders, the sound of his bike roaring to life as he ends the call.
Within minutes, my phone starts alarming with a sound I’ve never heard before.
“Please, please, please,” I beg as I pull to the shoulder, popping on my flashers and grabbing my phone once I come to a stop.
Sure enough, it’s the panic feature on Scarlet’s necklace. She still has it, and she’s alert enough to send the ping.
I give myself two seconds to freak the fuck out before locking in and pulling back into traffic. “Hang tight, Princess. I’m on my way.”