“Dusty! I don’t care if this house is rubble. I wantOlive!”
He squeezed her harder. “Look, I can take back roads to Morgan’s apartment. I’ll go look and come right back here. You stay and wait for her. Then we’ll come up with a backup plan.”
She inched back and looked up at him through tears. “Bring my girl home,” she begged.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I will try, I promise.”
Tessa paced,cried, checked her phone six thousand times, and made deals with a God she didn’t believe in. Time ticked by at a snail’s pace, the wind picked up at least a few knots, and Dusty, bless his heart, texted every ten minutes.
Morgan didn’t show.
Dusty called from her apartment and the minute she heard his voice, her heart dropped down to the pit of her churning stomach.
“She’s gone, Tess. No car. No answer. No sign of her or Olive. No neighbors, either—everyone’s evacuated or not answering the door for fear it’s the cops ordering them out.”
She dropped onto the sofa and groaned. “She might be on her way here.”
“I’m coming back. If she isn’t there in an hour, we have to hunt her down.”
“Where? How?”
“I have some ideas,” he said. “You’ll have to trust me.”
“I do,” she assured him. “Maybe she’ll show in the next hour.”
But she didn’t. Dusty was back in far less time than it took him to get to Morgan’s house, and the two of them waited, watched out the sliver of glass to the driveway, and barely spoke except for a few calls to Lynda.
He made the last one to inform her of what they were doing.
Tessa rushed to get her bag—and Olive’s, because Tessa had a streak of her mother’s optimism—while she listened to the one-sided conversation.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Dusty said to Lynda. “She has a few safe places, except they are all outside and none of them are safe.”
She wouldn’t take Olive outside in this, would she? Tessa glanced out at the furious winds bending every tree and the dark, dark bands of clouds bearing down on them.
What kind of mother was Morgan?
One who was so crippled by grief and the bad hand of cards that life had dealt her that she needed rehab therapy, probably struggled with addiction, and was voluntarily giving up her daughter for adoption to save the child. That’s what kind.
Tessa had such mixed feelings about Morgan. A lot of pity, a little respect, plenty of questions, and a well of gratitude for her decision to give Olive a better life. But right now? She could strangle the woman.
“She’s right here,” Dusty said, tapping the phone to put it on speaker. “Lynda wants to talk to you.”
“Hello, Lynda,” Tessa said, hating that her voice sounded so strained and tense. A good mother would be calm in a crisis, right?
“Honey, take a deep breath.”
Tessa could imagine the woman saying the words on the other end. Tall, competent, trustworthy, and deeply concerned for Olive.
“I’m trying,” Tessa said.
“Listen to me. The window for Morgan to report here is now closed. We’ve notified the police on Olive’s behalf, and they’re putting a soft notice out on Morgan’s vehicle. When they have her, they will call me. Then I will call you. Then we’ll decide what is best for everyone’s safety.”
“Can we look for her?” Tessa asked.
“Of course,” she said quickly. “Just keep your phones nearby because the police will call me, not you. And depending on where they are, we’ll make a game-time decision about where Olive will stay during the storm.”
“And if you don’t find her?”
