He glanced up at Julia, his cheeks tear-stained. “She could be alive, right? She could be…”
Julia offered him a fleeting smile without a verbal answer as she rubbed his back, glancing at Grant for help.
“Hey, Alex, why don’t we sit down on the couch and discuss this a little more,” Grant said, hooking a hand under his arm and tugging him up gently.
“Yeah, right,” Alex said, recovering a little. “Right, we need to…we need to discuss this and figure out a way to find her. She’s probably okay. I’m sure she’s okay. I just…I would know if she was dead, right?”
Julia licked her lips as Grant eased him onto the couch before she took a seat next to him taking his hand in hers. “I know this is going to be hard to hear, but…”
“No,” Alex said with a vehement shake of his head, “no, don’t say she’s dead. She’s not dead. She can’t be dead. She can’t be dead. Because I can’t live without her. We just…we just started out lives together.”
“How about this…Grant has some contacts at DHS…maybe he could give them a call and see if somehow Ava didn’t get on the plane. And in the meantime, we’ll give her phone a call. How about that?”
“Juls, are you sure this is a good idea?” Grant whispered.
“Yeah,” Sierra said, “I mean she’s obviously–”
“Not here,” Julia finished for her. “Right. Yes, everyone just…do the tasks we talked about okay?”
“But Julia–” Sierra hissed.
“Just do it,” Julia said through clenched teeth before she crossed back to Alex.
He tapped his fingers nervously against his thigh as he stared at the coffee table.
“Did you try Ava?” Julia asked, trying to keep her voice bright.
“Not yet. Uh…my brain just isn’t firing after that bogus report.” He huffed out a laugh. “Crazy.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket, his hands still shaking. As he found Ava’s number, he hesitated. What would happen if she didn’t answer?
Julia rubbed his back, offering him a slight smile. “Do you want me to try her?”
“No, that’s…uh, maybe,” Alex said.
Julia nodded, slipping the phone from his hands and pressing the call button. She toggled on the speakerphone as the voicemail picked up.
Ava’s voice filled the room. “Hi, you’ve reached Ava, I can’t take your call right now, but–”
Julia hit the end call button, sliding her gaze sideways to glance at Alex’s reaction.
He shook his head, his brow furrowing. “Could be that she’s driving.”
Julia swallowed hard. “Alex…”
“I’ll check her location. Did Doc tell you that I hacked into Raven’s block on her phone and got it to send her location to me?” Alex grabbed his laptop and opened it, retrieving his newly modified program. “Now, we’ll see where she is.”
He tapped in her number and set the program running. Itreturned her last known location a few seconds later. “There we go,” Alex said as he bobbed his head, grabbing the coordinates and popping them into a map.
The software drilled down to show the last known location of her phone. His heart stopped, his stomach plummeting. She’d been at the air strip.
He stared at the screen before he slammed it shut, his eyes filling with tears again as he shook his head.
“Alex…” Julia said as she touched his shoulder.
He jumped, shrugging away from her. “Don’t.”
She winced a little, hesitating before she spoke again. “Look, uh…”
