Chapter 31

  

After filming wrapped for the day, Penelope and Joey sat at the bar of the inn having a drink and deciding what to do with their evening. Penelope had let Ava know about her decision to step back at Festa and offered to help interview the candidates for the new chef. She’d maxed out her energy level, and she was missing too much time with Joey, which was really the deciding factor.

Joey and Penelope clinked their wineglasses and kissed as the fire crackled behind them.

“Get a room already,” Sam Cavanaugh said behind them.

Penelope laughed. “Sam! I’ve hardly seen you at all since you got here. How are you?”

“I’m great,” he said, shaking Joey’s hand. “I’m glad I found you guys. Arlena’s still getting ready for dinner. We’re heading,” he waved in a general way out the window, “somewhere. Listen, did you still want to do something for her birthday? I know things are weird here right now.”

Penelope thought about it for a minute. “I think she’d like to do something with the family. Just you guys, you know? The mood on the set is subdued, to say the least.”

Sam nodded, agreeing with Penelope. “I’ve got something in mind,” he said, winking at her. “I’ll keep you in the loop.”

After he left, Penelope took out her phone and searched the nearby towns for what they could do without going too far. “I don’t have to be on set early. We’re just doing lunch. Jennifer’s scheduled a half day of shooting due to some special visitors. We could get dinner somewhere, come back and watch a movie?”

“Perfect,” Joey said, looking down at her phone also.

Ava came through the front doors and into the bar and headed straight for Penelope and Joey. Penelope’s heart sank, but she resolved to hold fast to her decision not to work that night.

“Something’s happened,” Ava said, her eyes wide.

Penelope sighed. “What now? Ava, I’m off work and we’re heading out—”

“Regina is gone,” Ava said, holding her palms in the air in a helpless shrug.

“Yeah, she probably thinks she was fired,” Penelope said. “By me, last night.”

Ava shook her head. “No, gone. Like really gone. Her mom just filed a missing persons report.”

“Slow down,” Joey said. “Tell us what happened.”

Ava took a breath before speaking again. “Regina’s mom came into the restaurant asking about what happened during the dinner shift. The girl has run off. She’s not answering her phone and her car is gone. No one knows where she is. She’s underage, only seventeen. When she didn’t come home last night her mother called Sheriff Bryson.”

“Christine might know where she is. They’re close.”

“No, she’s saying she doesn’t,” Ava insisted.

“Look, she was upset when we talked, and she left angry. She’s probably just blowing off steam somewhere,” Penelope said.

“You were the last person we know she talked to,” Ava said.

Penelope thought about the young girls on the missing persons posters at the post office and an alarm went off in her mind.

“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” Penelope said. “What else should we do?”

“I don’t know,” Ava said, defeated. “I guess pray that you’re right and she just took off in anger. I don’t want to think about it being something worse.”