CHAPTER 61
Declan
It’s the ass crack of dawn, and I’m already seated at the large conference table with my coffee when my brothers begin to file in, one by one. Cal’s glowering, but I don’t know if it’s because I made him get up so early or if it’s because he has news I’m not going to like.
Evander glides in, wearing a dress shirt and a tweed vest and trousers, looking dapper but grumpy.
Finn comes in with his hair sticking up and his eyelids half closed. He looks way beyond grumpy—the man’s pissed off.
Special K is last. He’s dressed in ranch jeans and a flannel shirt, and he’s got a repulsively large sandwich in his hand. There’s mustard on the inside of his wrist. He sits down without a word and looks no different than he always does, and immediately starts to eat.
“What we got?” I ask.
“I’ll start,” Evander says. “The annulment agreement isn’t binding.
It looks like she printed something off a freebie website and signed it, but she’s left out several required components and didn’t file anything.
Maybe she intended it to serve as a placeholder while she hires an attorney and starts the process for real, but at the moment, the document is nothing you need to worry about. ”
“Roger that,” I say.
“I’ll go next,” Cal says. “She went in person to First National of Sweetbriar and withdrew ten thousand dollars from her savings in three chunks, staggered over two weeks, to avoid making one large withdrawal that might draw attention. Which means she knows not to use credit cards. It also means that she put a lot of thought into this—it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. ”
It hurts to hear, but Cal is right.
I think about the last two weeks. I noticed Summer was far more subdued than usual, but I assumed it was because of the fertility blow. Clearly, I had no idea what was really going on in her head.
Summer once called herself a guarded person. Jason Bourne might be closer to the truth.
It’s heartbreaking to know that sneaking off was the way she decided to handle this. Maybe she suspected I’d never agree to let her go. And… she’d be right. Because she knows me.
I prop my forehead in one of my hands.
“Her 401K is intact and so is her Roth IRA,” Cal continues. “But she’s paid her mortgage six months in advance. She plans to stay gone for a while.”
“I tossed the cabin,” I say, raising my head. “All her credit cards are still there, along with all her clothes. She took her coat and hat, but I think that’s about it.”
“She’s too smart,” Finn says. “You sure she left early yesterday morning?”
“I’m sure,” I say. “She was asleep when I left for the airpark at about six. Special K said he saw her drive out in the direction of the cabin not long after. Is that right, K?”
He nods, chewing.
“Well, her phone’s deactivated,” Finn says.
“That’s because she threw it into oncoming traffic in Vegas. She didn’t want the family FaceTiming her anymore.”
Evander narrows his eyes. “That’s pretty extreme.”
“Also, she didn’t want anyone to know we were married.”
“Ohhhh,” Evander says. “Totally understandable, then.”
“Well, she left no digital footprint whatsoever yesterday,” Finn says. “She didn’t show up on any retail, public transport, or traffic surveillance camera in Sweetbriar, which I find interesting, since that’s the logical place of departure for anyone leaving the area.”
“Did you use facial recognition when you hacked into the cloud and on-prem data?” I ask.
Finn tilts his head. “Of course, I did.”
“Then what did the girl do—just walk off the ranch and hitchhike cross-country?” Cal asks.
I know he’s exaggerating, but it’s a possibility that I’ve already considered.
“And nothing else is missing?” Evander asks.
“Well…” I don’t want to mention it, but I know that withholding details won’t get us anywhere. “She took the Vegas wedding ring Beyoncé gave us. It was on her dresser in the cabin, and it’s gone.”
Cal winces. Finn’s eyes widen. Evander slowly shakes his head.
My wife has run off, and I’m the object of pity.
“No one saw her at all yesterday,” Cal says. “I checked in the bunkhouse and with all the hands and nobody knows a damn thing. Unfortunately, I asked Victoria if she’s seen Summer, and now everyone knows we can’t find her.”
“This is about not being able to have kids, isn’t it?” Evander asks me this with a kind tone of voice, which is unsettling.
“Yeah,” I say, trying my best to keep any hint of emotion out of my response. “She doesn’t believe me that none of that matters to me. That the only thing I care about is her.”
“That’s rough, man,” Cal says. “I’m sorry.”
“That fuckin’ sucks,” Finn whispers.
I glance over at my baby brother, who’s managed to devour the entire triple-decker meat tower of a sandwich he brought in here with him. He goes over to the conference room coffee bar to grab a dozen sheets of paper towel. He wipes his face and hands and sits down again.
He turns to look at me. “I may have some information,” he says.
I rear back. “Oh?”
“I located an ATV by the hot springs, keys in the ignition. I found footfalls leading to the White Snake River. It looks like she launched a kayak from the west bank. One of our new Trak 2.0s is missing from the shed.”
“What?” I stare at him, incredulous. “And you’re just now telling me this?”
“I was eating.”
“When did all this happen?” Cal asks.
“Yesterday.”
I snarl at my little brother. “Kevin, I’m gonna kick your ass. Then, I’m gonna reenact the ass-kicking.”
He doesn’t bother to respond to my threat. “Summer’s tough, though. She can take care of herself. I doubt she’s in any danger. She’s just taken off, is all.”
“Right, but where?” I ask.
“No idea. But I followed the ATV tire tracks and found where she’d hidden the vehicle near the cabin. She had it all worked out well in advance.”
“What else?” My voice cuts through the air like a whip.
“That’s all I know. But that’s how she got off the ranch without being seen. And downstream is in the opposite direction from Sweetbriar.”
Finn laughs. Evander wads up a piece of paper from his legal pad and throws it at K’s face. Cal gets up, walks all the way around the conference table, and smacks Special K on the back of his giant melon head. Then he sits down again.
“We find out where she went to shore,” I tell my brothers. “We go to every ranch and every gas station and every fork in the road within hiking distance until we find someone who’s seen her.”