Twenty-two #3
Looking at the clock again, I note it’s just nearing one o’clock.
I’ve been at the club for the last three hours, going over everything we have on Caitlyn.
There’s nothing giving any possible whereabouts, or indicating where she could be now, and it’s pissing me the fuck off.
The foreboding feeling I have in the pit of my stomach hasn’t left me all day.
Something isn’t right; we’re missing something.
I just don’t know what. I’ve been texting Alyssa all morning, and now and then, she will send a brief response.
I have had no response since 11:20 a.m. though.
I’m telling myself it’s because she’s busy, or at lunch with Sarah, and just hasn’t checked her phone.
“We will find her, Zac,” Dean says from where he sits on the sofa in my office.
“We have to. She had a fucking headstone made up, man. A headstone with Alyssa’s fucking name on it.”
I know he already knows this. It was him and Bray who smashed that headstone to pieces when they located it at the small cemetery three hours away in the little rural town.
Right next to her mother’s fucking grave.
I haven’t told Alyssa that it was actually there, that the photo she received in that dressing room was, in fact, an actual photo and not something edited just to scare her.
“How the fuck have we not found her yet?” I ask.
Dean may be my best friend, but he is also the head of my security, and I want him to do the job I fucking pay him to do and find this bitch.
“I’ve been working day and night on this, not to mention still ensuring everything in this club gets handled in your absence.
I know you’re stressed and worried, but Caitlyn is a ghost right now.
There’s been no activity on any of her bank accounts.
She has no traceable family. Nothing… It’s like she’s vanished off the face of the earth. ”
“I know, man, sorry. I know the last three weeks haven’t been easy around here. But fuck…”
I’m pulling at my hair in frustration when my phone blares from my pocket. It’s not the ringtone I want to hear right now though; it’s not my sunshine calling. When I look at the screen and read who the caller is, my blood turns to ice, knowing immediately something isn’t right.
“What’s wrong?” I ask Sarah as I answer the call.
She should be at lunch with Alyssa right now. The only reason she’d be calling me is if something were wrong.
“Where are you hiding her, Zac? You have to learn to share, you know. She was mine first. I’ve been waiting in this damn café for an hour.”
“Fuck!” I yell out, tempted to throw the phone. Sarah’s tentative voice comes through the speaker.
“Zac, she’s not with you, is she?”
“No, she’s not fucking with me. She was meant to be with you right now. Have you tried to call her? Text her?” I ask.
Maybe she’s running late, got stuck in the ER. As I think this, I know that’s not the reason she didn’t show up for lunch.
“I’m heading to the ER now; I’ll ask the nurses’ station to find her,” Sarah says in a huff. “I’m sure she just got held up.”
“Don’t bother. I’m locating her now.”
I place the call on speaker as I open the tracking app on my laptop. It takes only moments before the app loads her exact location on a map, the red dot showing her location is moving.
“What do you mean you’re locating her? How the fuck are you locating her, Zac?”
Ignoring Sarah’s questions, I stand, grabbing my keys. Dean is already holding the door open. “Sarah, I’m going to get her. I gotta go.”
As I hang up, I hear Sarah screaming at me, “Don’t you dare hang—”
Putting my phone in my pocket, I tell Dean as I make my way down the hallway, “She’s got her; she fucking has my sunshine. Get a team to follow us. We need to go.”
“Where? Where did she ping?” he asks while he loads the tracking app on his phone.
As his app loads, he curses, knowing where she’s heading.
“She’s already got two hours ahead of us.” Stating the fucking obvious, Dean follows me into the carpark behind the club. “I’ll drive. You keep tracking,” Dean says as he climbs into the driver’s side.
I don’t argue, knowing I’ll probably kill us both in the state I’m in if I get behind the wheel.
As we peel away from the club, I pray to a god I don’t even believe in that she’s still alive.
That I can get to her in time. Looking in the side mirror, I see not only Dean’s team following behind but also Bray’s SUV behind them.
I will get there… I will get her back… There is no other alternative.
A half hour passes and the red dot on the tracker has stopped. She’s at the cemetery, the one where that fucking psycho had a headstone made. I know she’s planning on burying her next to her mother.
“She’s stopped at the cemetery,” I grit out to Bray as he speeds down the highway.
“Fuck, we’re still at least an hour and a half out. Put a call through to the men in Glenvale and get them to the cemetery now. She’s there now.” Dean speaks into the headset he has on.
“You have guys already in Glenvale?” I ask him.
How did I not know this already?
“I’ve had two guys there on standby ever since we found the headstone. They’re only five minutes away from the cemetery.”
“Thank fuck. I want her alive. Caitlyn, I want to be the one to fucking end her,” I tell him.
“I know.” Dean smirks my way.