Chapter Thirty
Ellie didn’t know the area.
The building that looked to be a part of the marina was closed. And even though she’d driven by the location many times, she couldn’t say for sure which way she should walk to find the nearest anything that had a phone.
In the freezing rain, a mile felt like ten.
Eventually, a gas station became a beacon.
The anger and bravado she’d felt for those fleeting moments when Trevor’s phone was becoming one with the fish had passed, along with any dry portion of her body.
She didn’t bother holding back her tears, and no one could hear her sobs.
The small convenience store attached to the gas station had a lone man behind the counter.
Feeling completely out of place and stupid for being in her current position, Ellie walked inside and approached the man.
She opened her mouth to talk, and emotion choked her up so much she couldn’t get her words out.
“My phone . . . I, uhm . . . my . . .”
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Are you homeless?”
Did she look that bad? Ellie looked down at herself, then back up at the fiftysomething-year-old man with a gray beard and brown skin.
She shook her head a third time and managed a tiny “No.”
Ellie took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Can I use your phone?”
He didn’t answer, he just reached for a cordless landline and handed it to her.
She dialed Madison’s number and heard it ring . . . and ring.
When her sister didn’t answer, it dawned on Ellie that the call would look like spam.
The phone made a clicking noise and then announced that the mailbox was full.
Ellie’s bottom lip started to quiver all over again.
She hung up and tried again.
This wasn’t happening. “C’mon, Maddie, pick up.”
The tears started fresh and hot.
“They didn’t answer?”
Ellie couldn’t talk. Who else could she call?
She racked her brain.
Why hadn’t she memorized her friends’ numbers?
Even her mom . . . dad. She didn’t even care that they’d find out. She was cold, wet, and a little scared. It was too far to walk, too dark.
Mari. Her father was with Mari at the dance studio.
Only she couldn’t remember the name of the place.
The clock on the wall behind the man at the counter said they wouldn’t be there anyway.
The restaurant.
“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked the man.
She saw the skepticism on his face.
“Can you look up the phone number of a restaurant? My dad’s girlfriend owns a restaurant.”
That seemed to appease the stranger.
He grabbed his phone that was sitting on the counter behind him but didn’t hand it over.
“It’s called D’Angelo’s. D with an apostrophe.”
“A. N. G. E. . . .”
“L. O. S.,” she finished for him.
He showed her the number, and she dialed it on the landline.
“D’Angelo’s. How can I help you?” The pleasant voice belonged to a woman.
Tears were choking her up again. “Uhm . . . is Mari there?”
“I’m sorry, no, she’s not tonight.”
“What about Luca?”
“Yeah, he is. Did you want a reservation?”
“No. I need to . . . need to talk to Luca.” Ellie’s voice was breaking. “Please, it’s really important.”
“Okay. Who is calling?”
“I’m Ellie.”
“Luca knows you?”
“Y-yes.”
Instead of being put on hold, Ellie heard people talking and then the sound of dishes, laughter. “Luca. You have a call.”
“Can you take a number?”
“No!” Ellie shouted into the phone, unsure if the person who answered could even hear her.
“The girl calling is crying. Said her name is Ellie.”
Please, please, please.
The sound of the phone scratching something, sounding muffled, and then Ellie heard a familiar voice.
“Ellie?”
She couldn’t stop the tears. “I didn’t know. I didn’t have any numbers. I can’t—”
Luca’s voice softened, and the noise in the background faded.
“What happened, tesoro?”
“I n-need a ride. He left me. I didn’t want to get on . . . h-his motorcycle. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Where are you?”
“A-at a gas station.”
“Okay.” The sound of Luca shouting in Italian was followed by him coming back on the line, his voice soft. “Is there someone there with you? The person who works there?”
“Yes.”
“Give them the phone.”
Ellie offered the phone to the stranger. “Can you talk to him?”
The man put the phone to his ear. “Hello. Gas Mart a mile south of the marina . . . yeah, that’s the one.”
The attendant looked at her.
“I can’t tell. She’s pretty upset. No, no one. Of course. No problem.”
The attendant handed her the phone again.
“Hello?”
“I’m ten minutes away. Fifteen tops. Don’t go anywhere. Stay inside.”
“O-okay.”
Luca hung up the phone, and Ellie handed it back to the attendant. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay, honey. Why don’t you wait over here?” He motioned to the side of the counter to a lone chair.
Her fingers started to tingle as feeling started to come back into them.
The man handed her a handful of paper towels that she used to remove a layer of rain from her hair and face. He offered something to drink, but she refused.
Thirteen minutes later, a car pulled in front of the glass doors, and Luca jumped out.
He walked in, calling her name. “Ellie?” A level of fear laced his voice.
She stepped from behind the counter and opened her arms.
He folded her in. “Shhh, it’s okay. Jesus, you’re freezing.”
Luca thanked the attendant and opened the car door, tucked her into the passenger seat, and got behind the wheel.
He cranked the heat and then turned to her.
“Where do you want me to take you?”
Her dad was right.
Her mom was going to be pissed.
And all Ellie wanted to do was crawl into a tiny ball and wake up after graduation.
She shrugged and shook her head.
Luca put the car in drive and headed to Little Italy.
“When did nine thirty start to feel like midnight?” Mari asked from the passenger seat.
The windshield wipers clapped against the glass at a rapid speed.
“When did driving in bad weather become something you dread instead of a teenage adventure?” he asked in response.
They’d left their new friends behind and were en route to James’s La Jolla home when Mari’s phone started to ring.
She reached into her purse and looked at the screen. “It’s Luca.”
James tried to keep his face neutral. His first thought was her son wanted to interfere with their night. Mari spending Tuesdays with James was new and likely to get some pushback.
Mari lifted the phone to her ear. “Pronto.”
When Mari fell silent, James glanced over.
“Cosa? Okay, okay. No, we’re in the car headed to . . . Okay.” Mari placed a hand on James’s arm. “Turn the car around. We need to go home.”
“What’s the matter?”
James could hear Luca’s voice but not his words.
“Wait, James needs to hear this.”
Mari held her phone between the both of them and put it on speaker.
“What’s going on?” James asked.
“It’s Ellie. I just picked her up from a gas station by the marina, soaking wet and crying.”
James felt every muscle in his body tense. “What—”
“She’s fine. Not hurt, anyway. I don’t know all the details, but it sounds like she snuck out of the house to meet her boyfriend.”
“What the hell did he do to my little girl?” James glanced over his shoulder and changed lanes.
“I’m not sure he did anything. Brooke is in with her now, getting her in dry clothes and talking to her.”
“Why didn’t she call me?” James pulled off the freeway, only to get in the lane to get right back on in the opposite direction.
“Her phone is with her sister. Ellie didn’t want to be caught sneaking off. Didn’t want for you to track her. And apparently, memorizing phone numbers isn’t a priority, she didn’t remember yours, so she called the restaurant.”
James gripped the wheel. “If he hurt her, I’ll kill him.”
“Wait until we know what happened, okay?” Luca asked.
“We’ll be there shortly,” Mari said before hanging up.
James slammed his hand into the steering wheel. “I knew that kid wasn’t any good.”
Mari placed a reassuring hand on his arm as they sped their way to Mari’s home.
“Do you want me to call Cindy?” Mari asked.
“Let’s get some facts first.” James wanted to stop his mind from reaching for the worst-case scenario, but it was damn hard to do. “She sneaks out to meet her boyfriend and ends up alone at night in the rain?”
“Don’t let your mind go there, James. If Luca thinks she’s fine, she probably is. Maybe Trevor was drinking, and she didn’t want to get in his car. We don’t know.”
James didn’t bother parking properly.
He pulled into the back lot, turned off the car, and ran toward the back door.
He made it to Luca and Brooke’s apartment and was happy to see the door open.
Luca and Brooke sat at the dining table with mugs in their hands.
“Where is she?”
Luca and Brooke both stood up.
“In our room, resting,” Brooke told him.
Mari held on to James’s arm as they talked.
“Is she okay?” Mari asked.
“She is, Mama,” Brooke said.
Luca indicated the chairs across from them.
James didn’t want to sit, but he also wanted to know what was going on before seeing her.
“Did he hurt her?” As much as James wanted to consider a life with Mari, if he had to go to jail defending his daughter, he would.
“According to Ellie, no.”
Mari pulled on his arm until they were both sitting.
“She made arrangements to see her boyfriend . . .” Brooke looked between James and Luca before setting her eyes back to James. “I know this is hard for dads to hear, so please hold off on any judgment.”
James looked at Mari.
He knew exactly where this was going. “They had sex.”
Brooke bit her lip. “They were going to. She got cold feet.”
Thank God.
“And when she stopped him, he got angry. Broke up with her, called off prom. Said some shitty things. Ellie told me twice he didn’t try and force her or manipulate her .
. . well, maybe by holding prom over her head, but she didn’t backtrack,” Brooke told them.
“He’d taken them to his parents’ sailboat in the marina, and when they were leaving, she tried to call Madison, and his phone ended up falling into the ocean.
He got even more pissed, and no, he didn’t hit her. I asked,” Brooke said.