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My phone rang, cutting him off. I glanced down and frowned. It was the county police. That couldn’t be good. It couldn’t have been about Graves and Angel. They had taken the club to the cleaners.
“Hold on,” I muttered to Jonah as I brought my phone to my ear. Cherry was my baby, but she was too old school for Bluetooth technology. Angel had tried to talk me into putting in a tiny Bluetooth transmitter, but I didn’t need it. It would just fuck with my aesthetic.
“Hello?”
“Mr. White?” A nasally voice dripped down the line.
“This is he…” This really wasn’t good.
“This is detective Whitaker at the Silver Ranch police department. Are you in a place where you can talk? This is about your mother, Rosemary White.”
“I’m driving right now, so this is fine.” I started to speed up, then I realized what I was doing and took my foot off the pedal.
“I think it would probably be best if you pulled over.” His voice was kind even as it grated.
“That’s probably a good idea.” My heart was already starting to race, and I had already tried to speed once without realizing what I was doing.
Jonah shot me a questioning look as I pulled over into the abandoned parking lot of a deserted Big Lots. We’d just entered the old part of town, and this was my only option unless I wanted to park on the shoulder.
This was better, otherwise someone might stop to see if we needed help.
“I’m parked.” I put my phone on speaker so Jonah could hear too.
The man’s breath was audible over the line before he started speaking as if he was psyching himself up. “Have you spoken to your mother lately?”
I blinked. I had an idea of where I thought this was going, and I was ashamed to say that after watching her suffer from drug abuse most of my life, I thought he was going tell me she’d OD’d. Maybe even found in a ditch or something equally as tragic.
“No, I haven’t spoken to her since she checked herself out of rehab.” I’d looked for her. Not hard. If she didn’t want to be found, I didn’t stand a chance. But I had gone to all of her normal haunts to see if she was there. She wasn’t and no one had seen her.
"I’m sorry to tell you, she’s missing.”
As bad as it sounded, I wanted to correct him. Tell Detective Whitaker that she’d been missing most of my life, but I didn’t. “How do you know?” I swallowed.
I did care about her, even knowing I shouldn’t, I couldn’t turn the feelings off. Being snarky to the detective wouldn’t change anything.
“She’d been staying with a small-time drug dealer out in Frederick. It’s about two hours east of here.”
I knew where it was. I’d only lived here all my life.
“She left three days ago. Walked away from his house with no phone, no purse, and no shoes. She didn’t have a car. The,” he coughed, “gentleman reported her missing today, now that he’s sure she isn’t coming back.”
My vision went black as thoughts stuttered inside my head.
Was she okay? Was she warm? Fed? Homeless?
Or worse, dead?
“I’m tracking down all possible leads, and I had hoped you would be the key to finding her.” He sounded regretful. I got it. How sad that a young man didn’t have contact with his mother. “If you hear from her, please let us know so we can close out the missing person’s report.”
“I will,” I croaked.
He hung up first, and the line went dead.
I expected tears. I expected…something.
But instead, I was left with this blanket of numbness hitting all the corners of my body. It must have been shock. It had to have been, right?
She’d OD’d before. She’d gone missing for days, not giving me any indication of when she’d come or when she’d go. Hell, half the time when she showed up, I hadn’t talked to her in weeks and then she’d wear out her welcome by sleeping and throwing up on my couch.
