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"Give it to me," she said. Her tone was angry. She spoke through gritted teeth.
My eyes filled with tears. "Mom."
"Why are you crying? Are you afraid of what I'll find? What are you doing? Just hand me the phone."
I handed her the phone because what else was I going to do, fight my mother?
She took it from me and instantly turned, walking to the back of the store like she was on a mission.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking care of it," she said.
I hesitated but then I followed her.
I was a few steps behind her, and by the time I got into the bathroom, my mom was standing in the middle of the open floor with her hands raised.
"What happened? Where's my phone? Did you throw it in the trash?" There was a nearby trashcan, and she was suspiciously close to it.
"Yes."
I leaned over and looked into the small trash can that was near the sink. There were some paper towels in it, but no phone. I considered that she might have buried it underneath the paper towels, and I reached down and gave them a shift. "Mom, what are you doing? Where is it?"
"It's not in there, Corey. We'll get you a new one. Stanley said yours needed updating, anyway. It's not good for someone to have your phone number. We'll get you a new one. I hope you did not tell that guy where we lived. I can't believe you were talking to a man. Stanley's worried sick, and so am I. That was a horrible decision, Corey. He could be a murderer. You could have gotten us all killed."
"Mom, I'm twenty-three years old. I'm a grown woman. Sometime, you're going to have to let me… where is my phone?" I asked, looking around. "It's at the bottom of the toilet where it belongs."
I went to the toilet instantly. The seat was up and I leaned in and looked into the empty bowl. I felt enraged, expecting to see it at the bottom, but there was nothing there.
"No, it's not. What's wrong with you? I’m your daughter."
"It's in the tank," my mom said.
She had never done anything like this before so I was shocked. Perhaps if I had moved faster I could've saved my phone, but I was so perplexed by the whole thing that I took my time taking off the cover of the tank and looking inside the back of the toilet. Sure enough, there was my phone, at the bottom of the tank, below all of those water-stained mechanisms.
"Why did you do this?" I said looking at her with a confused and disappointed expression.
"Why didyoudo it? You put yourself and us in a lot of danger, Corey."
Chapter 7
Owen Atkinson
Owen had never been ghosted by a woman. He had a few relationships over the years, but he had never tried to pursue a woman and had the feelings not reciprocated. It was a hard pill to swallow, especially because the woman who had blown him off was someone he liked so much. The time he spent with Corey had felt special to him. He listened to her and she listened to him, and he thought they had connected and built trust. He felt like they felt something for each other. She had shared a lot with him about her life.
And now this.
He made it clear that he wanted to see her again. He went out of his way to make himself available, and she had ghosted him. They were supposed to get together in the morning on Friday, and here it was Friday afternoon, and he hadn't heard a thing from her. He had tried to text her twice with no answer. Owen probably should have let it go, but he couldn't. He kept thinking about her. They had connected, and he knew it. He felt like he wanted to help her, to get her out of there and take her to travel the world.
Owen didn't tell Paul or any of the crew what he was doing. He said he was going for a drive and he borrowed a car and droveto Philipsburg that Friday afternoon to see if Corey was at the jewelry shop. He wanted it to be during normal opening hours, so he left the set as soon as the director was finished with him for the day. He borrowed one of the rented vehicles, a small SUV, and took off by himself to Philipsburg.
It was 3pm when he parked on the street and made his way into the jewelry store. He saw that the lights were on, and he walked inside.
"Hello? Corey?"
"Here," a voice called. It was a woman's voice, and he thought that it was Corey, but he started to doubt it as he walked into the store. He thought she would have come from around the corner by now.
"Corey?"
