Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Then she checked their call log. There were too many calls to him to count.
The last call from her was at eleven PM.
“Oh God, what did I do?” she muttered into the pillow, then screamed.
She was many things, but a stalker wasn’t one of them.
She knew something was wrong; she could feel it in her bones.
The last thing Dahlia wanted to be known as was desperate.
But by the looks of her room, the truth of the previous twelve hours was slowly unfolding, and it wasn’t painting her in a good light.
She lifted her head from the soft cotton pillowcase and brushed the hair off her face.
Why hadn’t he called her back? Why didn’t he come over?
She bit her nail, deliberating whether she should send a text.
She started worrying that something had happened to him, but her pride got the best of her. So she called Kara instead.
She slurped the water while it rang.
“Dahlia?”
“Morning,” Dahlia said with a raspy voice.
“Oh, thank God. You’re alive,” Kara said.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Dahlia asked. She glanced at the empties on the floor, her face suddenly feeling pale.
“I don’t know—because you could hardly form a sentence last night?” Kara said sarcastically.
“When did we talk?” Dahlia sat up against the headboard and rubbed her eyes.
“You don’t remember? What else don’t you remember?”
“No, I don’t. That’s what I’m afraid of.” She winced. “I know I called him a lot, but what if I went to his house? God, kill me now.”
“Geez, I’m just glad I’m not you this morning.” Kara laughed.
“Gee, thanks.”
“Listen, with all the secrets you’ve uncovered, you’re allowed a night to blow off steam. You missed that whole drunken college phase. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Plus, it’s not every day you find out your real grandfather is a leading man.”
“Is that what I did? Blow off steam? It feels like I blew a gasket. Like I partied in Vegas all weekend long.” She held her head.
“I’m too old to drink like that. I was upset I didn’t hear from Noah, especially after talking to Penny.
” She wondered how many more messages she’d left for him while in her inebriated stupor. She looked out the window and huffed.
“What, what is it?” Kara asked.
“His truck, it’s missing,” Dahlia said, blinking rapidly. “Something isn’t right. I can feel it in my bones.”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Maybe he had a few too many and stayed with his sister. Maybe you should text Gretchen.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Dahlia said, feeling unfocused and hazy.
“I can’t believe the house will be on the market in ten days.
It doesn’t seem real. It feels like I just got here.
” There was an ache in her heart that throbbed a little harder today.
She was torn between a career choice that made sense and a life she was starting to belong to.
“You can always tell the gallery no or ask for more time.”
“It’s crossed my mind once or twice, but I don’t want to decide anything based on a guy,” Dahlia said, searching for her slippers.
“You wouldn’t be making this decision for a guy. It would be for you. You’re happy there. Admit it.”
“I am happy here, probably the happiest I’ve been in a long, long while. But what do I do for money if I stay?” Dahlia looked around the room at Lil’s belongings.
“Maybe you could open your own gallery.”
She felt a juxtaposition of emotions. Her shoulders tightened, and adrenaline coursed through her body, waking every molecule. “Kara, that’s too risky. And I have zero clients, zero artists, and no name for myself here. I’m completely anonymous.”
“You have one artist—Lil,” Kara said.
Shivers ran up Dahlia’s spine.
“You there?”
“Yeah,” Dahlia’s voice cracked. “It’s a great idea, but I don’t have the capital.”
“Lil’s house is going to be listed for three million. You can afford to take a loan against it.”
“True. Listen, I’ve got to run.” Dahlia held her stomach. “I have some puking to do. Then painting and boxes from the basement. And I need caffeine, lots of it.” The mere thought made her belly gurgle, but she couldn’t make it through the day without it.
“Please tell me you’ll think about it.”
“I’ll noodle on it.”
“Oh, and think about the party tomorrow night. It’s a fundraiser. You can bring McHandy too, if he comes to his senses.”
If he ever calls me back. And I get rid of this hangover. “Sure, maybe.”
“Toodle-oo,” said Kara.
Dahlia’s feet swiftly shuffled into the bathroom.
She expelled the remnants of last night’s pity party and splashed her face with cold water.
“Never again,” she said, looking at her puffy eyes in the mirror.
She knew better than this. Plus, she had too much to do.
She opened the medicine cabinet that still seemed to stick in the humidity, and grabbed the ibuprofen.
Three didn’t seem like enough, but she wasn’t about to take any more.
Harry was waiting by the door for her when she walked out.
It seemed Kara wasn’t the only one concerned.
“Need to go out, boy?” Dahlia couldn’t help but ruminate on what Kara said about opening her own gallery.
It seemed risky, yet something had uprooted inside her like a tree in a storm when she mentioned it.
But was that a good thing? It was yet to be determined.
They took their time descending the old, creaky staircase.
She let Harry out, plugged in the percolator, and fed him.
It’s funny the things you do when you’re drunk; apparently, making the coffee the night before was a priority.
The aroma of freshly ground java floated through the air.
Just smelling it made Dahlia feel more awake.
But it wasn’t the same without him. Where was he? She still had no idea.
She sipped her coffee and began typing to Gretchen.
Hey, have you seen your brother? Is he okay? I haven’t heard from him since yesterday afternoon, and it’s not like him.
Right away, Dahlia saw the bubbles, and her smile grew.
Hey, not sure what’s going on with you two, but he sounded upset when we spoke last night. He said he was going to the beach for a few days.
Dahlia’s heart sank. What could have happened?
Something didn’t feel right. It was similar to the feeling she had the night her parents died.
The tiny hairs stood straight erect on the back of her neck, the way they did at the sleepover right before Lil’s phone call.
Obviously, Noah was fine and not hurt, but it was the same eerie sense.
It was as if a tectonic shift was coming, and she needed to hold on for dear life.
K. Thx. Just wanted to make sure he was safe.
For what it’s worth, I hope you 2 work it out. You better come to the opening on Sunday, regardless.
It was tough to swallow the brick lodged in her throat, but she typed back. I’ll be there.
Dahlia’s heartbeats collided, creating an uncomfortable hiccup in her body.
Noah seemed happy yesterday. Did she do something to upset him?
She didn’t like uncertainty because with it came chaos she couldn’t control.
This kind of feeling always brought her back to her thirteen-year-old self, waiting for Lil to pick her up from the sleepover, not knowing what actually happened.
But she wasn’t thirteen; she was a middle-aged woman who’d survived the unthinkable, and because of that, Dahlia knew that whatever curveball was thrown her way, she could handle it. Or at least she hoped she could.
She instead decided to turn her focus to something she could control, like her research.
She finished her coffee and got to work.
Determined to find more clues, maybe even the key, she was done wallowing in the why.
Whatever was left unanswered about the affair lay hidden in the deposit box.
And she knew it was the only way to keep her mind off Noah.
She reminded herself that this was why she’d never leap without a safety net.
Charleston was her safety net. There was a reason she’d kept her options open, even after meeting the man of her dreams. Falling in love, as romantic and unraveling as it was, it was also messy and unpredictable.
And certainly not something in her wheelhouse.
After dressing in layers, including a knit hat from Lil’s mudroom, she was armed and ready for any low-hanging arachnids and cement crawling rodents.
She inhaled the damp, moldy air as she slowly stepped down the rickety staircase to the black hole known as the basement.
Meeting the last step, she looked around, feeling an emptiness in her heart.
All the old boxes and containers that sprawled across the floor contained moments that had come and gone.
Yet, Dahlia was the only gatekeeper to their existence and immortality after this.
She squeezed her eyes shut, promising to bring them up and go through every last one of them.
Even if she had to put them into storage for a bit until she got settled.
With her knit gloves on, she lifted two boxes and headed up the stairs.
She placed them by the mudroom door and went back down for more.
There were four trips in all, and on her fifth trip, she spotted something in the crawl space.
It was hard to tell what it was at first because of all the cobwebs.
All she knew was that it was green. Dahlia pushed the remaining container against the wall and used it as a step to climb up.
Dahlia let out a squeal before pushing her hand through the silky threads.
It was like something from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
And she felt a little like Indiana Jones.
With her hand firmly gripping the top of the object, she yanked it out.