Page 108 of Wright Together

Eve

No one knew where Bailey was.

I’d reached out to every person in her phone who might know where she was. Her volleyball coach said that she’d never shown up for tryouts. The girls on her team claimed that she’d gone off and gotten “weird again.” Trevor, the last person she’d contacted in her phone, said he hadn’t heard from her, but she owed him two hundred dollars.

Not promising.

I’d driven around every place I could think that she might frequent.

The high school claimed she hadn’t been at her last class on Friday. I didn’t inform them that the dentist note was definitely forged. The gym she went to said they hadn’t seen her in weeks. Ellen at Boose said the last time she’d seen her was when I was in town.

And each and every single place I’d tried, progressively getting more desperate, had the same story.

“She isn’t here.”

“We haven’t seen her.”

“Not in weeks.”

I sank into the front seat of my 4Runner and slammed my hands on the steering wheel. It was nearing evening, and I’d been in the car all day with no luck. I couldn’t call it quits. There had to be somewhere that I hadn’t looked. I couldn’t get the police involved…not yet.

My phone buzzed, and a text came in from my dad.

Any luck?

I blew out a breath. The best I could say for the man was that he’d gone out of his way to look for Bailey, too. I’d covered one half of town, and he’d driven to the other. He’d grumbled about it since he wanted to get the police involved. I’d vetoed that immediately, but I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. If Bailey was back to her ways—and everything indicated that she was—then we were going to need all the help we could get. The longer she was gone, the harder it would be to find her.

Not yet. You?

Nothing. We’re going to have to call it.

I closed my eyes and clenched the phone in my fist. No. I wasn’t ready to give up.

This was Dad’s fault. She was his responsibility. That had been the entire point of making her stay with him through her senior year. I’d wanted custody, and he’d insisted that we shouldn’t uproot her life any more than it had been due to rehab. But he should have been checking his accounts better. The fact that Bailey had been siphoning money without him even realizing or checking to see what was going on was bullshit. And he’d accused me of not giving him enough money when, in fact, Bailey had stolen it.

This was my fault. I should have been paying more attention. Instead, I had been so into my own life that I neglected what was right in front of me. If the money was missing, then there was a reason. I didn’t want to believe that the reason was Bailey. But I should have been more diligent. Not wrapped up in my own shit.

And the truth of it all, this was Bailey’s fault.

She’d chosen to steal from Dad.

She’d chosen to lie to us.

She’d chosen to disappear.

I loved her, but right now, I had never hated her more.

Let me check a few more places.

Eve, it’s a waste of time. We’re not going to find her.

I threw my phone to the side, ignoring the string of texts he’d sent. I didn’t care what he thought. That negativity was never going to help anything.

I was parked trying to plot my next move when the phone rang. Not mine, Bailey’s.

I lunged for it and saw Trevor’s name.

“Hello?”