I left it? I wasn’t careful about carrying it with me. It was probably sitting on my workbench. But right now I could have punched myself in the damn teeth for leaving it.
I hopped in my truck, wishing I had my Charger back. It was faster. The truck revved to life and I took off out of town, my heart thumping hard.
She was fine. I’d find her on the couch, still napping with Cash. Or maybe taking him outside so he could do his business, or sitting cross-legged on the floor, doing her weird meditation thing. Whoever that guy was, he hadn’t sounded like he knew she was here. But he’d definitely been talking about her.
Some things are meant to stay buried.
I tore around the hairpin turns to my property and kicked up gravel all down the long driveway. Slammed on the brakes and came to a stop. Her rental car was still here, but she wasn’t outside.
Cash didn’t bark when I rushed up to the front door and shoved my key in the lock. So much for his guard dog abilities. I threw open the door and looked around. Empty.
“Callie?” I called out, barreling through the house. It wasn’t very big. Took me all of a few seconds to check every room. No sign of her, or my dog.
“Shit.” I stuck my head out the back door, finding an empty porch. No pretty girl out back tossing a ball or walking the dog. “Callie? You out here?”
Maybe Cash had run off and she was hunting for him in the woods. I jogged out to the trees, but there weren’t any real trails out here. Henrietta seemed to move through the forest without disturbing a single branch, and the game trails didn’t lead this close to my house. If they were out here, they couldn’t have gone far. Not past shouting distance.
I called for her, called for Cash, whistled to see if he’d come. Nothing. Just the breeze whispering through the branches.
There was a sickening familiarity to it. To the silence in the woods and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest, fear spreading through my gut.
I’d only been scared—really, truly scared—three times in my life. The first was when Scarlett was a kid and tumbled out of a tree. I’d thought she’d broken both legs. Turned out it had just been the one. The second was when Jameson had fallen through the ice and almost drowned. We’d made a human chain to pull him out, but that could have gone very, very wrong. The third was the day I found out Callie had disappeared.
Right now was number four. And it was feeling a hell of a lot like number three.
19
GIBSON
Thirteen years ago
I kicked my aching feet up onto the crate I used as a coffee table, next to a half-eaten greasy pizza still in the box. I’d worked late, eaten dinner late—that pizza was sitting like a rock in my gut—and now I couldn’t sleep.
I flipped through the channels, idly looking for something to watch, caught between not tired enough to go to bed and too tired to do much else. I settled on a rerun of some cop show, and tossed the remote on the couch next to me.
My phone rang and I picked it up. Why were my parents calling? It was getting close to midnight.
“Yeah.”
“Gibs, it’s Mom.”
“I know it’s you, Mom. Your number comes up when you call.”
“Right. Listen, sugar, I need a favor.”
The hitch in her voice got my attention. She sounded upset. And she hadn’t called me sugar in years. “What’s up?”
“Can your brothers and sister come stay with you tonight?”
“I s’pose. Why?”
“It’s nothing,” she said quickly. “It would just help me out.”
I rolled my eyes. My mom upset, asking for a favor, trying to get my siblings out of the house? She and Dad were fighting again. I didn’t bother asking what it was about. It wasn’t like it mattered; they were always fighting about something.
“Sure. You need me to come pick ’em up?”
“No, Bowie’s gonna drive ’em over,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Uh-huh.”
I hung up and put my phone down. Damn it, Dad, what did you do this time? He’d probably come home drunk again and Mom didn’t want Scarlett to see. As if we all didn’t know. I hoped there hadn’t been too much yelling. It was like they didn’t realize half the town could hear them.
Even though it was late, I wondered if they’d eaten any dinner. I