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I put the noodles in a bowl and add butter. She can have whatever else she wants. “Daphne.”
No answer.
“Come here or I’ll carry you myself.”
No footsteps.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
“Little painter. Answer me.”
I abandon the bowl and the noodles and my plan to play a game with her and stride across to the living room.
Not here.
Up to the studio.
Not here, either.
I take the stairs back down at a run. My phone. I need it. I don’t know why, don’t know what it is that I saw, only that I saw something there—
Fuck me.
Alert: Motion detected side door
The doors and locks in the house are connected to wifi, but they’re not special otherwise. They can be unlocked by hand in case of emergency.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Daphne didn’t go for the front door. She didn’t try to leave with the team. There was no scene. No conversation. No confusion.
Which means.
I practically throw myself into the mudroom. The one where I keep my wetsuits. The one where I keep my boards. The one with the fucking side door.
One of the wetsuits is missing.
“No.”
The sun is taking its last gasps for today, but it’s prematurely dusk because of the clouds. A storm coming in.
Faint shadows of her footprints in the snow, down beyond the retaining wall, lead to the shore.
Daphne is not a swimmer. I know that about her. She doesn’t look at the water with longing except to paint it. She doesn’t need to punish herself like I do.
She fled to the ocean, and she won’t survive.
I strip off my shirt and my pants and jump into the nearest wetsuit like my life depends on it. But it’s not my life that matters. My life can only be made shorter by this stress. This damn fool thing I’m about to do. Daphne’s life is all that counts, and I’m running out of time. Every second in water this cold is another moment closer to death.
A survival kit hangs on a hook near the wetsuits. It’s been there for years. I’ve never planned to go far enough to need it. The straps are loose and I spend three heartbeats tightening it.
Paddle board, not surfboard. The paddle board is wider and steadier. If she’s already gone by the time I get out there—
My mind pours paint artlessly over the thought and presses it into an opaque frame. Suffocates the life out of it.
I take the board and run for the waves.
