Page 44 of Not a Word

“I’ll try and get right back to you.” I ended the call and immediately brought up Holden’s number and tapped the screen. I let it ring seven times before giving up. I called Mom back and told her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

Without even thinking about where I would start, I said, “I’ll go looking for him.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“No. Let me see what I can do. Bye, Mom.”

As I slipped the phone into my pocket, Diana said, “You’re going out to look for Holden.” Not a question. A statement, not without a hint of judgment in it.

I nodded resignedly. “I’ll give it a shot.”

“Maybe you should just call the police.”

I knew what she was thinking. Maybe Holden had overdosed and was in a ditch someplace. Having every Yorkton Hill cop car on the lookout wasn’t a bad idea, but I wasn’t quite ready to go that far.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

She leaned up against the wall and crossed her arms. I knew this look. “They’re dragging you under,” she said.

I sighed.

“Your mother, Holden, they’re two anchors taking you to the bottom.”

“What would you have me do?” I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re already in a bad place. You don’t need this.”

“Who does? And I’m fine.”

I knew what she was referencing with the bad place comment. When WorldWide canned me, I went into a pretty deep spiral that lasted a couple of weeks. Lost my appetite, dropped ten pounds, drank a little too much. Took long, solitary walks, so long that Diana and Gage had gone hunting for me. Diana’d urged me to talk to someone but I refused. I’d come out of it, I said, and I did. I just needed some time.

“If they’d been there for you,” she said, “maybe I’d feel differently.”

And I knew what that meant too. I’d never asked my parents for money at the time, but Diana was appalled they didn’t at least offer. They knew WorldWide had given me a settlement, but it was only six months’ salary. We’d blown through most of that and were now going into our savings. I made excuses for my parents, telling Diana that it wasn’t their responsibility to rescue us.

“They’ve pulled Holden’s ass out of the fire—financially and otherwise—more times than I’ve had my hair done,” Diana had countered.

My comeback for that was, Holden didn’t have the wherewithal to put out the flames himself. In what was undoubtedly my weakest argument, my parents’ failure to come rushing over with a check was an acknowledgment that they knew I’d find my own way forward.

“Horseshit,” Diana had said.

Pretty much.

Don’t misunderstand. Diana liked my parents—I’d go so far as to say she loved my dad—but this was an issue that was always there under the surface.

So here we were, in the midst of the biggest crisis the extended Chartwell family had ever faced. How was I supposed to walk away from all this now?

Diana must have realized this, too, as she let out a long breath, uncrossed her arms, and closed the distance between us. “I’m sorry,” she said and hugged me. Holding on, she said, “I see what it does to you. It sucks the life out of you.”

I rested my head on her shoulder. “A little.”

She released me. “Go find your brother.”

“I know where he is,” Gage said, suddenly appearing in the hall.

Christ, how long had he been listening?