“Thank fuck! Have you seen Rose?”
“What?” Just like with Janine, I destroy another person’s evening and turn them from relaxed to alert. “What’s going on?”
“Rose isn’t at my house, and she hasn’t been there all fucking day. Mrs. Gunderson said she went for a walk hours before lunchtime, and she hasn’t come back since.”
“But it’s dinnertime. It’s dark.”
“No fucking shit, Clifford! And even if, by some miracle, she’s not dead, frozen, or picked up by a stranger who likes to collect women on the side of the road, she’s gonna be starving. And it’s dark out, so she’s probably lost and scared.”
“I’ll help you look.” His breath bursts out on a gusty exhale, the groan of his couch telling me exactly where he is. “Where have you looked? Did you call Eliza?”
“Yeah. Eliza’s not answering her phone. Tommy didn’t answer either.”
“They’re probably at the gym then. Maybe they’re sparring, and that’s why they didn’t answer. You go to the gym yet?”
“No. I haven’t checked there yet.”
“I’ll head that way. You call Chris? He’s more likely to answer the phone.”
“No, but I’ll call him in a sec.” My phone vibrates, Tommy’s name flashing on the screen. “Hang on. Tommy’s calling me back. You go to the gym. And for the love of God, if you find her, don’t scare her. She doesn’t handle the dark very well.”
“You can count on me. Let me know if you find her, okay?”
“Yeah.” I end one call and accept the other. “Tommy! Rose is missing. Have you?—”
“Come to my house.” He breathes out a sigh. Worry, maybe? Pain? “She’s here.”
“What?” I flatten my foot to the gas and ignore the tree-lined road now that I have a destination. I don’t bother looking between the houses. I don’t need to drive slow and search for an afraid woman curled up on the side of the road. “What the hell do you mean she’s at your house? Is she okay?”
“Just come. I’ll see you in a minute.”
He hangs up. No explanation. No fucking comfort. He cuts me off and leaves me reeling, panting in the cab of my truck, and damn near hyperventilating.
Fortunately, this town is small, and even when I’m not speeding, it takes mere minutes to get from my place to his. My windshield turns foggy from my racing breath. My head turns woozy from the lack of fresh oxygen. The world’s ugliest fucking rooster dashes across Tommy’s driveway, cock-a-doodle-doo-ing and running for his life as I tear my truck off the road and onto his property. And then I’m faced with a home alight front and back. Every light is on. Smoke puffs from the chimney. And fuck, the lake glistens behind his house, the moon glittering off the semi-solid surface.
Oh God. Did she fall in? Did she drown?
I speed along his driveway and drift into the corner where cars tend to park at the side. Then I rip the keys from the ignition and almost tear the door clear off its hinges. Bounding out of the truck and onto icy grass, I make a beeline for the back porch.
Franky steps out of the house, solemn and sad. He hunches into hissweater and shivers, rubbing his hands together to create warmth. “Doctor Darling.” He steps in front of me, barring my way as his lips change color from pink to purple. “Hey.”
“What happened, Franky?” I swallow the ache bubbling in my throat. The nausea, begging to come up. “Say it quick.”
“It’s bad.” Gulping, he gestures toward the door. “It’s really, really bad.”
I brush past the kid and swing Tommy’s door open, crossing the threshold from dark to light. From cold to toasty warm. I’m hit with the sound of a woman’s squeal somewhere else in the house, and Tommy’s solemn expression while he rocks the baby in his arms.
“What happened?” The counter is littered with empty bottles of wine. A broken glass, lying toppled on the side. A packet of wipes—for the baby—and a pile of used wipes, soaked red. “Tommy?”
He gestures into the next room, much like Franky did. So with the boom of my heart pounding in my ears, I approach the doorway with shaking knees. Shaking hands. A shaken fucking soul.
Only to be met with giggling women and countless limbs. Alana. Fox. Eliza. Raquel.
Raquel?
And Rose.
“Then he picked it up again—off the ground—and ate it!” Eliza howls, falling back on the couch. “It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
