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“I am.”
“Has anyone seen Harmony?” she called out to her roommates.
A nervous looking Jillian came to the door. “I saw her earlier when she was leaving school, and she looked upset. But when I called to her, she ignored me.”
Well, that confirmed she had indeed been at the school when I would have been delivering Amber’s punishment.
“Thank you, ladies. If you see her, can you please let her know I’m looking for her?”
“Yes, Sir,” they said in unison.
I turned to leave and then thought to ask. “Any idea where she may have gone?”
From somewhere inside came Jillian’s voice again—there was no mistaking her thick New York accent. “Try the lake. We like to go there and think. It’s peaceful.”
“Then that is where I will go next. Thank you for your help.”
It was a beautiful afternoon with clear skies and bright sun shining its warmth on the land. You could feel the crispness in the air, a reminder that spring still ruled here in the country and despite the warm temperatures during the day, the evenings were cold. I had been to Rawhide before, but in the autumn months, and found the spring weather was proving to be very similar. I’d always wanted to come during the winter, but my breaks at school had never worked out with Rawhide’s weekend events. But being here now, I looked forward to a thick blanket of snow covering the earth in silence. Harmony and I strolling through the snow and stopping to throw snowballs. Tanning her backside, then cooling it off with a dip in the snow. The idyllic picture fled when my thoughts wandered back to the state of my apartment and the fact that she was now avoiding me. There was a full day of clean-up ahead of her, with a very sore bottom to contend with when I found her.
I passed a few students who were out enjoying the weather and asked if they had seen Harmony, but no one had. Harmony liked to be the center of attention, and for no one to have seen her told me she likely hadn’t come this direction. But I needed to be sure, so I continued walking the lake loop and explored spots with more foliage in case she was lying down and hidden from view on the pathway.
My worry rose as my search for Harmony turned up nothing. The sun was crossing the sky and sunset was getting close. Maybe we’d crossed paths and I’d missed her somehow.
My strides quickened as I headed to the cafeteria, where she would normally have dinner. No Harmony. I checked her dorm one more time, and again came up empty handed. It was time I admitted there was a problem, and I placed a call to Erika. I didn’t wish to disturb Derek at dinner time, but it was he who called me back a moment later.
“Gray. What’s going on?”
“I wish I knew. All I can tell you is Harmony is missing and seems to have been gone since after her last class today. Something set her off, Derek. My apartment was destroyed, and it was her. I’ve searched everywhere I can think of, but she’s nowhere to be found, and no one has seen her. It’s getting late and she is seriously afraid of the dark. I need help finding her.”
“I’m on it. Don’t worry; we will find her. Her cousin Jacob works on our security team; I’ll call and see if he’s seen her. If he hasn’t, I’ll call Lawson and have him assemble a small team. Don’t worry, Gray, we’ll find her.”
I knew we would, eventually, and when we did, she may wish we hadn’t! Before meeting the team, I returned to my apartment to grab a heavy sweater. If Harmony took off after class, she wouldn’t have one and the temperatures were dropping rapidly. I was sure her impetuousness meant she also had no water, or anything else she might need. That girl of mine was in need of a keeper and that keeper was me. My heart squeezed. Please let her be okay.
The sun had set, and the last remnants of color were gone from the sky. Harmony, wherever she was, would be afraid and in need of me, and I wasn’t there for her.
I was not the first to arrive at the meeting point. A man about my age dressed in a security uniform was on a walkie talkie with someone. It was almost comical, as those units had mostly been replaced by cell phones in the past decade, but out here there were a lot of dead spots without service.
“Roger that,” he answered, then turned the volume down.
“Hi, I’m Jacob, Harmony’s cousin.”
He was a good-looking man, blond like his cousin, but that is where the resemblance ended. He was tall, close to my height, and muscled. Harmony was tiny and slim in comparison to her cousin.
“Hello, I’m Gray.”
“The boyfriend?”
I laughed. “Is that what she’s calling me?”
Jacob chuckled. “That’s Harmony for you. I believe her exact words were, ‘my Daddy boyfriend man’.”
Now that sounded exactly like something she would say. “I’ve read her file, but maybe you could fill me in on her background from a personal perspective.”
Even in the limited lighting, I could see Jacob’s expression darken. “She is a highly misunderstood young woman, and her parents are the most negative people you can imagine. I’ve always believed she’s so over the top because of them. With the right conditions, she could flourish.”
“I completely agree, and plan on providing the right conditions.”
“Is that why she’s missing, because of the right conditions?”
