“I don’t know,” I said, but it felt like a lie. “I need to check something at the library.”
Before anyone could ask another question, I was out the door.
“Mara?”Icalledout,breath uneven, as I burst through the library door. It hadn’t been locked. “Quinn?”
I didn’t wait for an answer before heading straight for the back—toward our nook, the stacks in the study. My shoes pounded against the old wooden floors as I rounded the row of shelves.
She wasn’t there.
The small table was empty. The chair slightly askew.
My heart slammed painfully against my rib cage.
“Quinn?” I bellowed, louder into the silence.
No response.
I turned, scanning every corner of the library, like she might’ve stepped behind a shelf or moved upstairs.
But I knew.
I fucking knew.
Everything inside me was screaming that something was wrong.
I strode back through the stacks and toward the circulation desk. Mara sat behind it, legs crossed, sipping from a mug. She looked up at me when she heard my footsteps and smiled.
“Hey, Graham,” she said warmly.
But as I got closer and she took in the state of me—my breathing, my expression—her smile slipped.
“What’s wrong?”
I swallowed hard, trying to keep the panic tamped down. “Do you know where Quinn is?”
Her brows knitted. “Quinn?” She blinked, almost like the name took her a moment to place. “She left.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Mara nodded slowly. “She said goodbye to me. I asked if she was going to wait for you, but…you were taking a little longer than she thought. She said she was going to walk back to the B&B.”
She hesitated, lowering the mug. “She looked exhausted.”
“When did she leave?” I asked, my voice thinner than I wanted, betraying the fear sliding down my spine.
Mara tilted her head, thinking. “Fifteen minutes ago? Maybe a little less.”
Fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes, where anything could have happened.
Someone could disappear forever in fifteen minutes.
My jaw locked so tightly it hurt.
Mara’s eyes narrowed with concern. “Graham, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head, keeping my expression tight. The last thing I needed was to spook her, not when the panic was already rising in my throat like smoke. Mara had been through a lot in her life; she was so strong in many ways, but she was also fragile. I’d seen flashes of it from time to time.
