The minute I pull the truck onto the highway, she’s on her phone. First call—the local law enforcement for the beach town June’s supposed to be in.Yes, please, I’d like you to go talk to my ex-husband about why he hasn’t called you yet to report her missing. He’s Dean Spencer. Home Improvement Network star? Yes, feel free to alert the news that his daughter is missing because he’s a twatwaffle.
Mama bear is on a mission.
And all I can do to help is drive her to the airport.
I figure out when she’s rejecting calls from her ex. I figure out when she’s trying June’s cell again, which she does between every other call. It takes me a minute to realize who she’s called after we get out of a dead zone for cell signal about twenty minutes from the airport, and when she suddenly bursts into sobs, I wrench the truck over to the side of the road.
“Maisey—”
“Junie?” she gasps. “Junie, baby, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did you sleep? Have you had anything to eat? I’m almost to the airport. I’m on my way. I’m coming to get you. Oh, no. No no no, sweet Junie, don’t say sorry. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I suck in a breath I didn’t know I needed and press my palms into my eyeballs while I process what I’m hearing.
She found her.
Maisey found June.
“No, no, shh. Shh, sweetie. It’s okay. It’s okay,” she repeats, over and over.
There’s June’s voice on the other end of the phone, high pitched and upset, too, but it’s June.
June’s okay.
“Juniper.Do noteverapologize for standing up for yourself. You deservesomuch better than that. So much better than that. You hold tight, sweetheart. I’ll be there as fast as I can get a ticket.” Maisey turns a desperatePlease get me to the airport right nowlook to me, and I clear my throat, nod, and pull back onto the road.
Twenty minutes later, I drop her at the front door.
Twenty-three minutes later, I’ve parked and am walking in the door myself.
“No, please, I don’t care what it costs,” she’s saying to the clerk at the counter for the lone airline that flies out of Laramie. “I need to get to Tampatoday.”
“Ma’am, we don’t have any more flights out with space today that can get you—”
“I can drive you to Denver,” I interrupt quietly behind her.
The clerk looks at me.
Maisey does, too, but there’s anguish in her face that wasn’t there when she was talking to June. “Thank you, but you don’t—”
“I can get you on a direct flight out of Denver in three hours, but I don’t have anything leaving for Denver between now and then,” the clerk says.
“I’ll rent a car.”
“Maisey—” I start.
She cuts me off. “I can’t—”
“Take help from a friend when it’s the fastest and easiest way to get you to June?”
I know what she’s fighting.
I knowexactlywhat she’s fighting.
And it fuckingsucks.
The worst part?
I understand.
