“She ran home to get me dry clothes,” Austin said.
“But she’s not answering her phone.She should have been back by now.”Gabrielle shoved her sunglasses up into her hair.“The Find My Friend app has her phone traveling.”
“That’s good, right?”Raina said.
Danica, with her arm around a sick-looking Honor, joined us.“You guys seen Nay?”
“No.Her phone has stopped moving,” Gabrielle said.“But it’s on a stretch of road with nothing.What the hell?”
My phone vibrated in my palm.
“It’s Naomi,” I said.That serpent, with its body squeezing tighter around my insides, relaxed a bit.
Ican’t do this.We can’t be together.I don’t love you.I never have.It’s over.We’re over.
“What the f—”
Gabrielle snatched my phone from my hand and read the text.“What the fuck?”
She tried calling her again from my phone.Once again, it went to voicemail.
Gabrielle handed me back my phone, and I shot off a reply.
What are you talking about?Are you okay?Please call me.Where are you?
“Her location is gone,” Gabrielle said, staring at the screen of her phone.“She just … disappeared.”
“Do you think her phone died?”Danica asked.“Or she turned it off?”
Now that creature slithering through me squeezed tighter than ever.Crushing and cutting off circulation.
Then, the answer that we were looking for, but also dreading, came to us via phone call.
My phone rang, and Dawn’s smiling face appeared on the screen.I already knew the answer before I even connected the call.
“Honey,” Dawn said, not even letting me say hello.I put it on speaker.“Kyla failed to check in with her PO.Her sister hasn’t seen her in four days.”
Naomi’s cousins and kids all gasped.
“I’ll book the soonest flight I can.You and Mabel shouldn’t be alone until she’s caught.They have a nationwide warrant out for her arrest because they know she is probably on her way to find you and Mabel.”
I swallowed past the spiky lump in my throat.“I think she might already be here.”
“What?”
“We can’t find or get ahold of Naomi.”
“Oh, honey—”
“I can’t talk right now, Dawn.I have to find Naomi.I have to get to Mabel.”I disconnected the call, but spots clouded my vision.We’d grown complacent here on this little slice of paradise.But evil always finds you, no matter what, no matter where.Especially when people like Jolene Dandy lend it a helping hand.
Gabrielle must have rallied the troops because within seconds Maverick, Jagger, Tom, and the McEvoy fathers came running up to us.
I struggled to form a complete sentence, so Gabrielle gave them the rundown.I had already dialed Mabel’s phone and stepped away.
It rang twice.
“Hey, Dad.”
