Chapter Nineteen
Mimi called Kara’s cell phone again. It was already two p.m. and she still hadn’t heard from her. She dialed the main number of the power plant. Maybe Kara had showed up late for work after all.
“Hey, Betty, it’s Mimi. How are you?” she asked the secretary. There was no need to bother Jackson. Betty would know if Kara was there or not.
“Oh, just fine, you know. How are you, Mimi? I heard about Daryl. I’m so sorry.”
Mimi rolled her eyes. Does everyone know? “Yeah, well, he’s a pig. What can I say? Bet, have you heard from Kara? Did she show up for work today?”
Betty rustled papers. “She wasn’t scheduled today, hon.”
“But Jackson called. He said she was supposed to be there.”
Betty sighed. “Hold on a sec.”
When Betty came back on the line, her voice was apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mimi. It looks like she had swapped hours with Ben for today. I thought she went to school during the day and that’s why she was working nights.”
“She does. It is. I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“She was scheduled to take over Ben’s earlier shift.
Well, I don’t doubt she’d be upset with all that’s going on with Daryl and Kelly.
When did she find out? I heard she wasn’t there for the turnover last night either, although that’s not very surprising.
Seems no one does the handshake turnover anymore now that they’ve gotten the word that the plant’s closing. They even cut my hours.”
Mimi listened to Betty rattle on about how the power plant had once been the mainstay for the industrial town, but she was thinking of Kara.
Mimi wondered when Kara had heard about Daryl, or if she had at all.
Had she just been speculating? Her heart ached for her daughter.
Mimi clung to the phone, listening to Betty ramble on about how they’d downsized to four crew members on each shift.
“Thanks, Betty. I gotta run.”
Mimi drove around town looking for her daughter.
She stopped at Kara’s local haunts: Sheetz, where she bought coffee before work; her hairdresser Polly’s little shop on Artizan Street.
She even drove out to the canal where Kara sometimes walked when she needed an escape.
She was nowhere to be found. No one had seen her, or heard from her.
By the time she got home, she was emotionally exhausted, and she slumped onto the couch in the living room.
Ted walked in, his smile quickly fading. “Hey, hon. You look awful. You okay?”
She looked up at him in silence. Her chest ached with worry. She’d driven her daughter away. She hadn’t believed her, she hadn’t stuck up for her, and she hadn’t protected her. And now, she’d lost her.
Ted sat down beside her. He reached his arm around Mimi and leaned back. “What’s got you so upset?”
Mimi looked down at her hands, knowing if she told him he’d only pass it off as no big deal. She had to be strong and trust her intuition. Her daughter was hurting and she had to find her, regardless of what Ted might say.
“Mim? What is it?”
Mimi looked up at him with tears in her eyes. She tried to speak but her lower lip simply trembled, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
He pulled her close. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
She shook her head. “You’ll only get mad.”
“No I won’t. Whatever it is, if you’re this upset, it’s something bad.”
She shook her head.
“Is it work?”
She shook her head.
“Kara?”
She looked at Ted’s serious eyes and the way he leaned toward her, as if he were intent on listening, and wished she saw concern. She knew what he was thinking, though. Kara again? What do we have to bail her out of this time?
“What happened to Kara?”
Something inside Mimi snapped. She couldn’t fight with Ted anymore.
She didn’t care if he cared or not. At that very moment, Mimi’s body crumbled against his chest and she sobbed.
She sobbed until her chest hurt and her eyes felt as if they had sand under the lids.
She sobbed for the loss of her daughter’s love, for the strain of Ted and Kara’s relationship, and for Kara’s heart breaking over Daryl.
Mimi sobbed until she had no tears left.
“Shh…whatever it is, we’ll fix it. I promise.”
Mimi pulled back from him, wondering where his concern came from, but she held onto it with a thread of hope. “Daryl cheated on her.”
“Come on. You said yourself she just didn’t trust him.”
“Ted, I asked him. He cheated on her. She was right.” She broke down in tears again.
Ted’s teeth clenched. “You’re sure?”
Mimi nodded.
“Son of a bitch,” he said angrily.
“You didn’t know?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t know. Don’t you think I would have done something? I thought she was just messed up from, well, you know, from when she was a kid. You said she didn’t trust anyone because of her father, so I just thought…”
Mimi wiped her eyes. “But…you don’t really…you have issues with Kara.”
“No, I just have issues with how she acts sometimes, and with picking up the pieces of her life all the time. You’re always taking up her slack.”
“Oh, God, Ted, I’m the worst mother. I thought you just didn’t like who she was, and I didn’t believe her about Daryl, either. No wonder Kara hates me.”
He pulled her close again. “She doesn’t hate you, Mimi. She’s upset. Jesus, no one believed her. That son of a bitch.” Ted pushed off the couch, heading for the door.
“Ted, where are you going?”
He put his arm through the sleeve of his jacket. “I’m going to talk to that piece of shit, Daryl.”
“No, Ted, that won’t help. I have to find Kara. No one’s seen her. She didn’t go to class, or to work.”
“She probably went for a drive. Hell, she probably left town.”
Mimi shook her head. “Her car’s in the shop.”
“So?” He set his keys on the coffee table. “Then she can’t have gone very far. Did you check her apartment?”
She nodded.
“The canal?”
“I’ve checked everywhere and I just don’t know what to think.”
Ted’s face pinched. He lowered himself onto the couch. “Dean.”
“Dean?”
“Dean. You know, that slug who’s always hanging around her apartment complex? I never told you, but I’d heard…something about the two of them. It was a while ago.”
“Kara and Dean? Come on.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you. Murphy told me. He heard it from Kyle, and—”
Mimi held up her palm. “Okay, okay. I get it. The Williamsport hotline. Whatever happened between them happened. He has nothing to do with her now, right?”
“Not that I know of, but where is she? Who else would she be with?” Ted pulled out his phone. “I’m gonna have a talk with him, too. When’s the last time you saw her?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since before she went to work yesterday.”
“Okay, so did you talk to Jackson?”
“Yes, and I spoke to Betty. She clocked in and out, but missed the changing of the shifts. And no one’s heard from her since.”
Ted paced. “Okay, so she’s been gone since when? Last night? This morning?”
“They changed shifts at midnight last night. I went to her apartment this afternoon and her bed was perfectly made, as if it hadn’t been slept in.”
“So we have no idea how long she’s been missing, or if she really is missing. She’s probably holed up somewhere. Did you check the library? She’s always studying.”
“This morning.”
“Where else could she be? She has no friends to call.”
Mimi gave him a stern look. Kara hadn’t had a group of real friends since they’d moved.
After that, Kara had become cautious. Fallout from Mimi’s divorce and the sudden relocation had left her scarred.
In an effort to help Kara move past the events and forget them, Mimi had never spoken of them again.
Within a few short weeks, Kara seemed to have forgotten why they’d moved and what they’d left behind, but she’d never fully outgrown her newfound shyness or tendency toward solitude.
Mimi had never shared the details with Ted; she simply hadn’t seen the need.
Ted had assumed that Kara was just a loner, someone who preferred solitude over friendships.
“Maybe we should ask someone at her apartment complex? Maybe someone saw her? Or maybe she went out after work with Joe and Paige. I can call them,” Ted offered.
“I already called Paige. She said she and Joe didn’t see Kara at all during their shift or after, but they knew she was there. She’d punched in and out.”
“Isn’t that unusual?”
“Paige said it’s not. She said with the new skeleton crew there are only four of them, and they rarely see each other. They take care of their own areas and Kara’s always studying.”
“Maybe we should take a ride over, check things out. That’s the last time anyone saw her?”
“That we know of.”
“Well, let’s drop by her apartment first. Maybe we’ll see Dean or someone who’s seen her.”
Mimi didn’t move.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you think we’re overreacting? The last thing I need is for Kara to get upset at me for meddling.”
“We’re not going to the police or anything. We’re just checking things out.”
“I…um…”
“Oh, Mimi. Really?” His eyes hardened. “You went to see Mitchell Grant?”
Mimi knew there’d be a price to pay. The alpha male struggle between Ted and Mitch had been there since Mimi had gotten together with Ted. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“A grown woman is missing for a few hours and your first thought is to go to him, and not me?”
“No! It was my second or third thought, and I didn’t go to see Mitch, specifically. I went to the police, in general. I don’t know. I just went, but I left before reporting it.”
Ted shook his head. “You’re a prize, Mim. No one can say you don’t love your daughter.”
She’d take that compliment, even if it was said with more than a hint of sarcasm.