by Jamie Howard
At my feet, Elvis started whining. “Hungry, little fella?”
He let out a huff and pawed at the ground. Tongue going wild for something half-way underneath the refrigerator. I sighed. “I see we still need to do some work on refining your palate.”
Getting down on one knee, I cautiously wedged my fingertips under the crack between the refrigerator and the floor, fearing what gross thing I might find. A semi-sharp edge pricked the tip of my finger, and with a little wiggling I managed to pull it free.
I held a hastily torn piece of loose leaf paper, folded in half. A peanut butter thumbprint decorated the bottom right corner. “You a big fan of the PB, Elvis?”
He barked.
“Good choice, my man.” I slid the paper on the counter next to my brisket, flipping on the lights so I could find a plate without knocking a whole stack of the damn things out of the cabinet on accident. Once it was loaded down with beef and veggies, I tucked it in the microwave and turned my attention to the refrigerator’s buried treasure.
What the hell was it? A note about a doctor’s appointment? An old grocery list?
Before I got a chance to find out, my phone started ringing.
My pulse roared.
There was only one reason someone would be calling this late.
Chapter 28: Dani
Juliet’s keys dug into my palm with how hard I was squeezing them. I just needed to grab my bag, two minutes tops, and then I’d be on the road. I was still mentally kicking myself for not having come up with the solution earlier. I could’ve been there by now.
I didn’t waste any time waiting for the elevator. My ankle protested how quick I took the stairs, but it barely registered. I’d learned a long time ago that, channeled appropriately, pain could be a catalyst rather than a deterrent. And that’s exactly how I used it right then.
Shoving open the door to the stairs, I fumbled in my pocket for Gavin’s set of keys. It was the gold one, not the long one, the stubby one with the round-ish head.
I looked up and lost my grip on them entirely. They slammed onto the floor with a clatter that startled the young woman sitting outside Gavin’s door. She had Gavin’s curls, but instead of black they were a bright auburn. Her green eyes stared back at me, almost startling against her pale skin and freckled cheeks. I’d have bet everything I had to my name—a meager forty-seven dollars, but still—this was Gavin’s missing sister.
“Daphne?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s me.” She looped her backpack strap over her shoulder as she stood. “Do I know you?”
“No, but we’ll get to that in a second. We need to call your brother, right now.”
She snorted. “Good luck with that. I think he changed it again because every time I’ve tried to call him since it’s gone straight to voicemail. Well, it was until my phone died last night. Forgot to pack my charger.”
Christ, when I found out who’d been handing out Gavin’s number I was going to throat punch them.
I thrust Gavin’s keys at her. “Here, let yourself in.”
“This is—” she widened her eyes “—a lot of keys.”
“They’re your brother’s, you’ll have to take it up with him.” I took two steps backward. “Stay right here, I’ll be right back. I just need to get Gavin’s number.”
“I’m confused.” Her brows knit together. “You’re staying with my brother and you don’t have his number?”
My feet itched to get moving. I needed that number, fast. “They got ahold of Gavin’s new number, so when he left he couldn’t take his phone, so he has Ben’s phone, but I don’t have Ben’s number,” I spat out at her, rapid-fire.
“Wait, where did Gavin go?”
“Listen, I will answer all your questions in just a minute. Actually, Gavin can once we can get him on the phone.” Like hell I was having this conversation with her. “Just go inside and I’ll be back in just one second.”
I sprinted back through the door and flew down the stairs. My breath was coming a little hard by the time I pounded on Felix and Jules’s door again.
“What now?” Felix glared at me.
“I need your phone.”
“Are you for real? You don’t have a fucking phone?”
“Daphne is upstairs and I need to call Gavin but I can’t call Gavin because even though I do have a phone I don’t have Ben’s number so do you want to be the asshole who keeps him from knowing his little sister is safe or will you just give. Me. The. Fucking. Phone?”
It might have been a trick of the light, but it looked like a tiny dose of fear crept into the corner of his eyes as he slowly held out his phone toward me.
“Thank you.” I did him a favor and slammed the door shut in his face.
Another sprint session back up the stairs, and my ankle’s minor griping became more persistent. I found Daphne in the living room, settled comfortably on the couch.
I practically shoved the phone into her hands. “Call your brother.”
She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “He’s mad at me isn’t he?”
“I’m not sure that’s exactly how I’d describe it.”
Her nose wrinkled as she dialed. I wasn’t sure whether it was for her benefit or mine, but she let the call go through on speakerphone. The phone only rang twice before he answered it. “Felix? What is it? Did you hear something?”
“It’s not Felix,” she said hesitantly. “It’s me. Daphne.”
“Daph, is that really you?” His voice was so cautious it was barely loud enough for us to hear.
“It is.” She sucked in a quick breath. “And before you say anything else you should know you’re on speakerphone. Your girlfriend is here with me.”
She was probably hoping my presence would be some sort of buffer. But after the day he’d had today I wasn’t sure that would be the case.
His end went silent for almost a full minute. “Are you okay, Daph?”
Her gaze flicked up to me in question. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know what you put us through today?”
A deep line creased her forehead as she frowned. “I honestly have zero clue what you’re talking about.”
“We’ve all been worried sick. The police have been looking for you, Lilah’s got missing person fliers posted from here to fucking Canada, half the world is sharing your picture on every social media site we could think of, we—”
“Are you serious?!” Her shriek went right through me.
“What did you think would happen when you just disappear—”
“I called you. Sent you messages. Don’t you check those anymore?”
“—without telling anyone where you’re going—”
“I told you. And I left a note for Mom on the fridge.”
“There was no damn note, Daphne!”
“Yes, there was!”
“Where have you been? I thought you weren’t rebelling!”
“I wasn’t rebelling, you assface. Yo-Yo Ma was playing at Carnegie Hall and my roommate had an extra ticket, so they offered to come get me—”
“All this over fucking Yo-Yo Ma?!”
“Do not talk about Yo-Yo Ma like that.”
Daphne’s cheeks were on fire, her hands flying through the air as she shouted at her brother. Cautiously, I stood up from the couch, not wanting to draw her wrath in my direction. She didn’t even notice as I padded over to the bedroom.
I shut the door behind me, but even with it closed I could still hear their voices through it. I tried my best to stay awake; the least I could do was offer to make her some food or make sure she was comfortable in the guest bedroom or . . . something. Although she’d probably stayed here more often than I had. I didn’t even know where a linen closet was if she needed a towel or a pillowcase or anything like that. Hell, I wasn’t even sure there was a linen closet here.
By two o’clock, the voices in the living room had faded to a dull roar. It was harder to hea
r now, but it sounded like there might have been a woman or two on the call as well. I tucked a pillow under my head and curled up on my side. I’d just rest my eyes for a little bit. Just a few minutes.
Chapter 29: Gavin
I should’ve slept in and taken a later flight, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep easy until I’d laid eyes on that little turd. My eyes felt like they were coated in sand and my rate of yawning had increased to almost once per minute. As soon as I laid eyes on Daphne and sent word to Mom that her youngest daughter was indeed safe and sound, I was going to pass the hell out.
Leaning forward, I handed over a tip to the cab driver. It would’ve been a heftier sum, but he’d been giving dirty looks to Elvis the entire ride. Which would have been entirely understandable if he hadn’t told me it was, “no issue, man” with bringing him along.
The trip from the ground floor to outside my place took less than three minutes, but in that brief timespan I yawned four times, almost nodded off on the elevator, and said, “Good morning, ma’am” to a person who was most definitely not a ma’am.
Elvis hurried across the threshold ahead of me and headed straight for the couch. A foot was dangling over the side of it, barely covered with a blanket. He sniffed Daphne’s bare toes, trotted a few cushions forward, popped up to sniff her face, then, apparently satisfied, retired to his dog bed.
I dropped my bag on the floor and quietly followed in Elvis’s paw steps. Daphne’s soft snores reached me first, her mouth parted on an exhale. Oh, kid. I breathed out a heartfelt sigh. All this over a damn concert.
With Ben’s phone, I snapped a quick picture and sent it on to Mom with the caption, safe and sound. Switching it over to vibrate, I kicked my shoes off at my bedroom door and pushed it open.
Dani’s hair was like a beacon against the white pillows. She looked so tiny curled in the middle of my king size bed. I stripped off my clothes and crawled underneath the covers. She arched her back as I slipped my arms around her and laid my head on her stomach.
Cool fingertips stroked my cheek. “Back already?”
“I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep until I actually saw her.” Beneath me, Dani’s heartbeat lulled me with its soft rhythm.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, so softly that I almost didn’t catch it.
“No.” I gave my head a gentle shake. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”
She took a deep breath. “I wanted to be there, but an airport—”
“I know. When I finally stopped freaking out long enough to think about it, I put it all together.” I traced a circle with the pad of my thumb over her hip. “I was just out of my mind worrying about that little shit.”
Her fingers slipped into my hair, stroking it.
“God, Dani, I was so scared.” My walls crumbled, the bright and cheery persona I’d been playacting for the past twenty-four hours disappearing. “She was just gone and we didn’t have any leads to go on. My mom was like a zombie walking around the house and Lilah with her endless projects. Darlene kept calling and Val was debating flying back home. And they were all looking to me, leaning on me, and I didn’t have any answers. All I kept thinking was, holy shit, what if she doesn’t come home? What if we never find her? What if we do find her and . . .”
Dani hugged me a little tighter to her. “She came back.”
“But what if she didn’t?” I rolled back a little so I could look at her.
She lifted one dainty shoulder. “Then I would have gone after her for you.”
A smile curved my mouth as my head hit the pillow. “Like my own personal Liam Neeson?”
“I’m not sure what that means, but sure.”
My eyelids drooped. “Is that what you’re always doing? Running off to fight the bad guys?”
I meant it as a half-hearted joke, not a carefully crafted question to hunt for more information. So, when my eyes closed and sleep reached out for me, I barely heard her say, “If only it were that simple.”
Chapter 30: Dani
I eased the bedroom door shut behind me, careful to keep the noise to an absolute minimum. Gavin looked wrecked, an utter mess from the toll Daphne’s disappearance took on him. The way he’d opened up like that to me, the way his whole body had been wracked with tiny tremors, filled me an uneasy combination of elation and utter terror.
He’d needed me there, wanted to lean on me in one of his darkest hours. That fact alone made my heart soar. But the truth of the matter—that he couldn’t lean on me, that in the near future it wouldn’t even be an option—dismantled me. The thought of him suffering and me not being there to comfort him tore a huge, gaping hole inside me.
We’d both let things go too far between us. That was the danger of living in the moment. We’d both leapt from an airplane, hands entwined, with the full knowledge we had no parachutes to soften our landings. So while the fall had been exhilarating, more than I could’ve ever hoped for, the impact that was coming was going to destroy us both.
My eyes were still crusty with sleep when I wandered out of the bathroom. The few hours I’d managed to grab weren’t as much as I wanted, but they’d have to do. Something was sizzling in the kitchen, the smell of it drawing me toward the kitchen.
Daphne’s bedhead rivaled Gavin’s, though she’d had the foresight to pile it on top of her head in a crazed bun. Her oversized tank top hung off one shoulder, and her tongue poked out from between her lips as she concentrated.
“Making something good?” I tapped my fingers on the kitchen counter.
“Not good.” She squeezed a bottle of honey, making a swirling pattern out of the amber liquid on the slice of bread. “Amazing.”
My gaze scanned her work area—honey, some cheese, bread, basil.
“Don’t make that face.” She shook her head at me. “You can’t judge my honey basil grilled cheese until you’ve tasted my genius.”
Well, I could see she got her modesty from Gavin.
I held up my hands in surrender, and took a seat opposite her to watch her work.
“So,” she placed two more slices of bread on the griddle, “what is the deal with you and my brother?”
Suddenly, I had the pressing urge to retreat back to the bedroom. Gavin’s snoring be damned. “What has he told you?”
“Nothing.” Her eyes narrowed as she gave me a once-over. “Which means there’s something to know.”
I leaned my arms on the counter. “He tells you about all the women he dates?”
“First, I think ‘date’ is a bit of a strong word.” She concentrated on separating two slices of cheese. “Second, don’t be ridiculous. Like I’d actually want to hear about all the groupies he ‘spends time with.’ But he always mentions them in passing, jokes about them. You, on the other hand, he hasn’t said one word about. Not one. Which, for someone who spends their life dealing with words, is incredibly odd.”
I huffed out a quick laugh. “Are you sure music school is the way to go? Some law school is seriously missing out.”
“Huh. So he’s mentioned me to you. That’s interesting.”
“Is it?”
“It is.” She took an extra slice of what looked like provolone and ripped it in half, offering me a piece. “So, why didn’t you go with him yesterday?”
I wasn’t sitting in an interrogation room, but I swear I could feel the lights burning down on me. “I have a thing with planes.”
“A thing with planes or a thing with meeting our mother?”
“Your mother?” That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, though realistically I’m sure that would have been quite the experience.
“Yeah, you know, the woman who birthed us. Don’t you have one of those?”
“Yes,” I answered tightly. “But she’s dead.”
Some of the hellfire left her eyes at that. “Oh, sorry. Your dad still hanging around at least?”
“He’s the only family I’ve got left,” I admitted, then nearly punched myself for the slip.
&
nbsp; She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. Turning around, she scooped up one of her famous sandwiches and slipped it onto a plate, which she set in front of me. “Look, I don’t want to give you a hard time, but my big brother, I love the hell out of him. He’s always had my back, no matter what. He shouldered everything when Dad left, he’s been our rock. He worked through high school so Darlene didn’t have to stop taking her art classes. He helped Lilah through law school, he sends money to Val all the time for her adventures which he disguises as birthday or Christmas or Flag Day presents. And he’s always had my back, bought me my cello.” She sighed. “What I’m trying to say is he spends so much time looking out for us, but I’m not sure we ever really think to do the same. He’s Gavin. He’s solid and happy and the most dependable human being on the planet. But this feels different. I want to make sure that you’re not going to hurt him.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. I’d always known what kind of guy Gavin was, it was one of the many, many things I loved about him. But I couldn’t promise Daphne I wouldn’t hurt him. The hurt was inevitable. Did it make it any better that we’d both walked into this knowing full well that was the only way it would end?
“Eat your grilled cheese before it gets cold.” Apparently she wasn’t really looking for an answer. She took a healthy bite of her own and smiled.
I was a bit hesitant about the taste combinations here, but I’d never been one to be all that picky about food. There was only so much you’d say no to when you’d spent a solid thirty days eating nothing but PB&J.
My mouth filled with one of the most delicious tastes at first bite. I covered my mouth with a hand as I chewed. “This is amazing.”
“Told you.”
* * *
Daphne’s nose scrunched up as she stared down at the guitar. “Does this sound right?”
“Kind of?” I laughed.
She strummed across the strings of the guitar we’d pilfered from Gavin’s music room. We’d carefully selected this one since it seemed the oldest and least likely to be very expensive. She tilted her head to the side. “What the hell do you need six strings for when four works perfectly fine?”