Page 64 of Pick Me This Time

29

STERLING

“Do you know where Jake is?” Eric asked from the other end of the line, his voice high and stressed. “He’s not still at the bakery, is he?”

“No,” I replied immediately, my senses tingling. Something was wrong. “I saw him earlier and he said he had a job to finish a few towns over before it started raining.”

As I said it, my gaze turned to the window. It was storming outside, pitch black except for the lightning that ripped through the sky every so often. The wind was howling and it was pouring buckets. “What’s going on?”

“Rachel is in labor,” he said quickly. “I need to get hold of Jake. Daphne’s with her at the hospital in town, but the baby is coming and I promised them I’d find him.”

“I’ll help,” I volunteered without hesitating, getting up out of my bed and yanking on the first clothes I came across. “He’s got to be finished at that job by now. It’s late, and if he had to be done before the rain started, it means he finished at least a couple hours ago. I’ll find him.”

“Let me know when you do,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll keep looking too. Do you know which town the job was in?”

“No idea, but I’ll find out. You focus locally and I’ll head out.”

“You got it. Thanks, bro.”

“Of course,” I said as I strode across my bedroom to the door, hanging up with him and shouting to my dad that I was going out to look for Jake.

He didn’t respond, but he also hadn’t spoken to me much at the pumpkin patch either. As I ran out to Eric’s old truck, I kept calling Jake over and over again, but there was no answer. By the time I’d made it through the deluge to the main road, I called Dan.

Jake had texted me his number after I’d left the bakery, in case my dad wanted to talk to him about what had been going on with the electricity. Dad hadn’t bothered even responding to the offer, but at least it’d given me a way of reaching one of Jake’s crew.

Hitting dial on his number, I slowed down, squinting into the headlights of the truck on the dark road and not really seeing anything except the light reflecting off the rain. Thankfully, Dan picked up just a few seconds later.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Dan. This is Sterling North,” I said, speaking fast. “Do you know where Jake is right now?”

“No.” He sounded puzzled. “Why?”

“We need to reach him. His wife has gone into labor. Have you spoken to him at all since he left the bakery?”

“Fuck. Okay.” At least it sounded like I had his attention now. “Last I heard, he’d left the client’s house in Codswald and he was waiting for a tow truck. That was a couple hours ago, though. He should be home by now.”

Worry gnawed at my gut. “Thanks, Dan. Codswald. At least that gives me a direction to go in. Do me a favor and call some of your guys? See if anyone has a location on him? Do you know what happened to his truck?”

“Nope, but I’ll make some calls and get back to you if one of the others knows something,” he promised. “Do you want us to help you look?”

I shook my head. “The fewer people are on the roads right now, the better. It’s not safe driving in this. Stay put for now. I’ll let you know if I need you.”

After I ended the call with him, I turned around, making a U-turn to go in the opposite direction. Codswald was on the other side of Allisburg, with the small town of Benson sitting between us and them.

If he’d left Codswald that long ago, it was a good bet he’d at least made it to Benson before the rain had started. I wracked my brain, but it’d been years since I’d last been there. I didn’t know anyone who lived there and I doubted Jake did either, which meant he might’ve pulled over on the side of the road somewhere to wait for the tow truck.

If I was lucky, he was sitting on the main drag. If not, then I’d just have to keep going. The wind kept fighting me for control of the truck, the sheets of rain not letting up. The worry that had been gnawing at me turned into fear.

Jake wasn’t answering any calls and no one knew where he was. He’d been waiting for a tow, which meant something had gone wrong with his truck. There was no telling if he’d had an accident or broken down, or what had happened to him since.

Driving as fast I could without risking wrecking Eric’s truck, I kept an eye on the clock on the dash. It took me longer than it should have to reach Benson, but when I did, almost as soon as I drove into town, I saw Jake’s truck.

It was at a diner on the corner right at the edge of the main street. Dizzying relief swept through me as I drove right up to the front door. I left the truck running as I jumped out and raced inside.

Jake was the only patron there, sitting at the counter and sipping a cup of coffee. When he heard the door opening, he glanced at me, but then he did a double take, instantly on his feet. “Sterling? What are you doing here?”

“I came to get you,” I said, holding the door open despite the rain. “Rachel’s in labor. Let’s go.”