“Do you have plans tonight?”
Amber tore her gaze from the dark upstairs of the mayoral house and focused on Kim. “Uhh … no?”
“I know you can be kind of a homebody and life has been kooky for you lately, so no pressure, okay?” Kim said, turning in her seat a little to face her. “But me and the rest of the committee are going to happy hour at the Sippin’ Siamese. Want to come? If not, I can drop you off at home first. It’s totally okay.”
Amber was growing increasingly aware of how aware everyone else was that she was a recluse. Some part of her had hoped people would think she was busy with Very Interesting Things and that was why she wasn’t often seen about town in the evenings or on weekends. Instead, they’d all been sensing the truth: she stayed home with her cats.
Rain still pelted the windshield, but the booms of thunder had become less frequent. The clock on Kim’s dash said it was just after 4:30.
“Oh gosh, that’s a long pause,” Kim said, laughing nervously. “You really don’t have to go. It would be great if—”
“Sure,” Amber said, nodding once.
Kim abruptly stopped talking, eyes wide. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh, yay!” Kim said. “Are you okay with heading over there right now?”
Amber looked down at herself. She wore dark jeans, a dark top, black boots, and a dark gray peacoat. Her choice in wardrobe colors was as bleak as the weather. She could only assume that her damp hair was windswept—and not in a sexy model way. But who cared, right? She was off the dating market as long as only non-witches resided in Edgehill; she had no one to impress. “Yep, I’m ready.”
Kim let out an excited squeak. “Oh, I’m so glad. Happy hour at the Siamese is so fun. And since it’s Thursday, there’s even a line dancing lesson at 5:30 if you want to try that! Ann Marie has got some serious moves.”
“Sounds fun,” Amber said, hoping her flat tone didn’t dampen Kim’s chipper mood.
But Kim was already chatting happily about the last time the whole committee met at the Siamese. Amber got the impression the group had started to hang out more since the dramatic departure of Whitney Sadler and Susie Paulson. Had Amber been invited—and didn’t remember—but had always turned them down? Or had no one asked, assuming she’d have said no anyway? Both possibilities were depressing in their own right.
The last time Amber had been to the Sippin’ Siamese had been the night she and her younger sister, Willow, had joined Connor Declan and his friends for Connor’s birthday celebration. Though Amber had originally been going to the Siamese to see Connor, she’d run into Jack Terrence, Purrcolate’s pastry chef. They’d had a nice chat that had solidified her crush on him, but the evening had been cut short when word spread through town that an older woman had been found dead at the Manx Hotel—the same hotel where Amber and Willow’s Aunt Gretchen had been staying.
Amber still got chills when she thought about how scared she’d been, sure the dead woman would turn out to be her aunt. That had started a series of events that eventually culminated in the terrifying night on Edgar’s property where the cursed Penhallow had nearly killed Amber. She’d lost her car and her budding relationship with Jack Terrence that night.
If Jack was there again tonight, Amber vowed to walk home in the storm. Getting struck by lightning would be far better than seeing the lack of memory in Jack’s eyes.
The drive to the Siamese took nearly twenty-five minutes, thanks to the ever-present rain. The bar was located on Korat Road. On one side of the street were a handful of shops and restaurants—only about half of them still in business—while the other side was lined with empty, fenced-off lots choked with overgrown grasses or copses of dense trees. At least Kim wasn’t prone to slamming on the brakes in slick conditions; she just drove like a grandma—which was more than okay with Amber.
Once they’d parked in the gravel lot a few doors down from the bar, positioned a little behind what had used to be a diner, Amber and Kim made a mad dash across the wet sidewalk, running past the boarded-up shop fronts. It was a testament to the Siamese’s great beer, food, and dancing that it was still open—and packed nearly every night—despite how many other businesses around it had folded.
Both the podium and the outdoor patio area were deserted. Kim pulled open the door and warm air, laughter, and loud music poured out. They stomped their feet on the already-soaked black mat just inside the door and shook out their coats. Dozens of sopping umbrellas rested against the entrance walls and were heaped on the floor, the bar’s warm yellow light reflecting dully off their slick surfaces.
Kim led the way through the crowd that was thankfully less robust than it had been the last time Amber was here, but she guessed the place would be packed as the hour grew later. They walked past the smaller front bar, all the stools occupied, with a row of people standing behind them, some with arms in the air, trying to catch the eye of one of the two busy male bartenders.
Pushing her way through the side door that led into the second room, which had an additional bar, a mechanical bull, pool tables, and a dance floor, Kim confidently strode ahead, quickly finding their party at a table with a perfect view of the mostly deserted dance floor. Ann Marie and Nathan were deep in conversation, Nathan’s arm around the waist of a petite blonde with a pixie cut. The pair’s backs faced the dance floor, while Ann Marie stood in front of them, her hands waving about as she talked.
Nathan noticed Amber and Kim first and he grinned, waving them over. “Blackwood! You made it!”
Amber stopped before the group and shrugged, smiling. “This must be your wife?” she said, holding a hand out to the blonde.
Her smile was wide and, as she shook Amber’s hand, said, “I’m Jolene. Nice to finally meet you. I work graveyard shifts in Belhaven a lot, so when I am in town, I’m passed out.”
“NICU nurse,” Nathan said, grinning down at her with nothing less than total admiration.
Jolene nodded. “I miraculously got the night off, so Nate dragged me out of the house. We have the babysitter for another three hours, and my challenge for the evening is to get so tipsy that my lovely husband has to carry me out of here over his shoulder like I’m a sack of drunken flour.”
“And since she only drinks once every three months and weighs one-ten soaking wet, that time will likely come sooner rather than later,” Nathan said. “First round is on me. What do you ladies want?”
After their orders were placed, Nathan wandered to the bar on the other side of the dance floor.
While the four women were making idle chitchat until their drinks arrived, Ann Marie suddenly gasped. Amber and Kim stood with their backs to most of the bar, while Ann Marie and Jolene had their backs to the DJ booth in the corner.
“Don’t look now,” Ann Marie said, “but is that Francine Robins?”
Amber wasn’t sure how literal “don’t look now” actually was, so she glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, Francine Robins was standing near the back wall, chatting up a very attractive guy wearing butt-hugging jeans, a black button-up, a black Stetson, and a huge belt buckle. He looked like he belonged in a sexy tractor commercial. Francine was a leggy black-haired woman who was at least five-eight. She wore a white sundress and an amazing pair of black-and-red strappy shoes. Amber was almost positive the woman couldn’t dance in those things, but Amber herself wouldn’t have even been able to walk in them.
“I haven’t seen her here … ever,” Ann Marie said. “I figured she and the mayor spent most nights snuggled up on the couch together but pretended in public that they were just colleagues.”
Just as Ann Marie finished that sentence, the gorgeous cowboy slipped his hand behind Francine’s head and brought his mouth to hers. Francine most definitely didn’t push him away. In fact, the make-out session went on for so long, Amber and Kim quickly turned back around, and Ann Marie and Jolene diverted their gazes.
“Welp, there goes that theory,” Ann Marie said.
“If it’s true the mayor hasn’t put the moves on Francine, that’s his loss,” Jolene said. “She’s a knockout. Did you see those shoes? Get it, girl! Giddy. Up.”
The four women erupted in laughter just as Nathan arrived with their drinks.
“What’d I miss?” he asked, smiling wide, gaze bouncing around the group. The question only made them laugh harder.
“Nothing, babe,” Jolene said, and got up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
Kim and Ann Marie shared a quick, quiet look that only Amber seemed to notice.
Nathan, content to ask no further questions, set about distributing the drinks.
Amber had said, “I’ll have whatever Kim is having,” seeing as Amber drank even less than the tiny Jolene. Kim’s drink of choice was vodka and Red Bull, neither of which were things Amber would even drink separately, but she needed to get out of her slump, and if this was what normal, well-adjusted people her age drank, then she would drink it, too.
It was decidedly horrible. She chugged the foul thing down anyway.
Before she knew it, Kim was dragging her by the hand onto the dance floor for the night’s first line dancing lesson—the beginner’s lesson. Even with the alcohol cruising through her system, Amber was so nervous, her knees were nearly knocking together. Luckily, the instructor was extremely easy to follow, and most of the people on the floor were just as clueless as Amber was.
When the lesson ended, Kim and Nathan on either side of her—Ann Marie already knew the dance, so she was holding their table—it was time to put her retention skills to the test. “Copperhead Road” started and Amber and Kim shared an excited squeak. Amber only screwed up twice, colliding with Nathan when she went the wrong way. But she was laughing and he was laughing and Kim beamed at her, clearly thrilled that she’d gotten Amber to come out tonight.
A bubbling sense of appreciation for the goofy chatterbox was suddenly so overwhelming, Amber felt a lump form in her throat. She wanted to shout her thanks at Kim, but the song ended and soon the floor was swarmed by more people, as the lesson for the advanced group was due to begin. Ann Marie hurried onto the floor, and Jolene stayed her ground, while Amber, Kim, and Nathan hurried off.
They had just reached their table when Amber’s phone started to vibrate in her back pocket.
Brow furrowed, she slipped it out, expecting to see Willow’s smiling face—hardly anyone else called her—but it was an unfamiliar number.
“Hey, you okay?” Kim asked, gently touching Amber’s elbow, seeing as Amber had just been staring down at her ringing phone for several moments as if she’d never seen it before.
Since so few people had her number, she automatically assumed most phone calls were from someone who was trying to reach her because of dire circumstances. Had something happened to Willow or Aunt Gretchen? “Sorry, one sec,” she said to Nathan and Kim, then hit accept and pressed the phone to her ear.
“Amber?” came a semi-frantic sounding male voice. “Is this Amber Blackwood?”
She pressed a couple of fingers to her free ear in an attempt to drown out the sound of people chatting, laughing, and the instructor calling out, “Five, six, seven, eight!” “Yes, this Amber.”
“This is Frank Deidrick.”
Amber blinked several times. Why was he calling her? “Hi, Frank,” she said loudly, brows pinched. “What can I help you with?”
“Have you seen Chloe?”
Her heart rate ticked up. Without saying anything to Kim and Nathan, Amber strode for the back door that would let her out onto the patio. She might get lashed with rain, but it would at least be quieter out there. She scanned the bar as she walked, mostly hoping not to see Jack Terrence. Francine and her hot cowboy were gone. Good for her.
Once the door was open and the biting air hit Amber’s flushed face, she realized that she’d left her jacket inside draped over the back of a chair. She shivered, but stepped outside anyway, letting the door clank shut behind her. The rain had mercifully stopped, but the temperature had dropped several degrees during the hour she’d been in the bar.
“Sorry, Frank,” she said. “Did you ask if I’d seen Chloe?”
His breath whooshed out. “Yeah. She and I had a long talk this afternoon and she agreed it would be best to have this Johnny kid come by the house tonight so I can meet him. She said she would call him and invite him over here for dinner at six. Ingrid and I had been prepping the meal for the last half hour while Chloe showered and got dressed. But around five forty-five, I realized she hadn’t come down yet or confirmed that he would be here by six. I went up to her room to make sure everything was okay, but her bedroom is empty. The window is open and her car is gone.”
Amber squeezed her eyes shut and leaned against the damp wall behind her. “Has she ever snuck out before?”
“Never,” he said. “And in this storm? What was she thinking? I’ve called her half a dozen times and she hasn’t picked up.”
Silence descended on them, and Amber listened to the dead air on Frank’s end of the line. Then something clinked on his side. The first image that came to mind was ice dropping into a glass.
“Um …” she finally said, “can I ask why you called me?” Some part of her already knew why.
“Because she confided in you about this boy first,” he said, the bitterness in his voice as biting as the wind ruffling the hem of her too-thin shirt. “Did she tell you where they were going? Or anything about Johnny?”
Amber wracked her brain to remember her conversation with Chloe. “Oh, maybe she’s sticking with her original plan. She said she and Bethany were going to meet him at the arcade. She said she was going to Bethany’s first, and then they were going to the arcade together. They may already be there by now if it’s after six.”
He heaved out a breath. “Okay, well that’s a start. Thanks.”
“I would never forgive myself if we didn’t tell your dad where you were planning to go and something happened to you.” That was what she’d said to Chloe, and yet, even after telling her dad, she’d slipped out her bedroom window anyway.
Amber could only wonder if Chloe would have described the conversation with her father as merely “a long talk.” Chloe Deidrick was one of the most levelheaded people Amber had ever met—even when the girl was very young. What had her father said to her that would make her lie to his face, then sneak out of the house in the middle of a thunderstorm?
“Have you called the Williamses?” Amber asked. “Maybe Bethany’s parents know where they are.”
“I tried calling both Bethany and her mother, but no one answered.”
“I’m over at the Sippin’ Siamese right now; I think the Williamses live pretty close to here. I’ll head that way,” Amber said, walking to the patio door. “What kind of car does she drive? I’ll keep an eye out for it; they may have headed somewhere other than the arcade.”
“It’s a black four-door Honda,” he said. “There’s a bobble doll of a purple cat on her dash—like a hula girl, but as a cat. It dances around as the car moves.” With a shaky sigh, he added, “I got it for her birthday last year.”
“It’ll be okay, Frank,” she said. “Let me know if you hear from her, okay? I’m sure she’s fine.”
The call abruptly ended.
Teenagers snuck out all the time, didn’t they? Sure, this was rare for Chloe, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t just a case of late-onset typical behavior. Chloe was fine. She was a lovesick girl who had likely been forbidden by her father to date unless he met and approved of the boy first, and Chloe decided not to subject the boy to it. So she snuck out. She was likely playing Ms. Pac-Man or laughing at one of the boy’s silly jokes or interrogating Bethany in the bathroom about what she thought of him.
When Amber reached the table where she’d left Nathan and Kim, Kim was still sitting there, watching the advanced lesson. Nathan was on the dance floor now, wedged between Jolene and Ann Marie, and looking completely baffled by what was happening around him.
Kim’s brows shot up as Amber approached. “Everything okay?”
“Not sure,” she said, and grabbed her coat, slipping it on. She buttoned up her peacoat. It was still damp, and a chill seeped into the fabric of her long-sleeved shirt. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll call a cab, okay? I don’t want to ruin your night.”
“Don’t be silly!” said Kim, popping out of her chair. “I’ll drive you.”
A song suddenly blasted out of the speakers and the instructor counted, “Five, six, seven, eight!” The dancers all surged to the right in unison. Poor Nathan surged left, his substantial weight almost knocking the guy next to him off his feet.
Amber turned her attention back to Kim. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, pulling on her coat, too. “You’re not going out into that nasty weather alone. Nuh uh! Don’t argue. Let’s go.” Turning to the dance floor, she waved her arms in the air enthusiastically, like she was guiding a plane onto the tarmac. Nathan spotted her first. With a series of elaborate hand gestures, Kim mimed that she was going to take Amber home.
Nathan frowned, then nodded and waved. Amber waved as well, then followed Kim back out of the bar.
By the time they emerged out the front doors, the rain was back to a light drizzle. It was so quiet and deserted out on Korat Road—the only sounds were the muted hum of music coming from the Siamese, and the light tap of their shoes on the wet sidewalk—that it made Amber’s ears ring.
“I’m sorry I’m making you leave early,” Amber said.
“Nonsense,” she said. “Now, what’s going on?”
Kim’s eyes widened a little more with every new detail Amber told her. They climbed into Kim’s car and she cranked up the heater. It smelled a little like a wet dog.
“And now he has no idea where she is,” Amber said, buckling her seat belt.
“That seems really unlike Chloe,” Kim said. “I don’t know her that well, but she’s always been so well-behaved and respectful. Her dad must be worried sick.”
“He is,” Amber said. “But this is new ground for them both. Chloe has never liked a boy as much as she likes this one. You remember how intense high school crushes were—”
“Oof, girl, you don’t even know …” Kim muttered.
Amber let out a surprised laugh. “Frank has never had to deal with her acting out before, so he’s especially worried. I’m sure she’s fine, though.”
Amber hoped that if she said that enough, it would be true.
“Okay, so where should we go? Bethany’s?”
“Yeah. They’re not far from here, right?” Amber asked.
Kim nodded and pulled out of the gravel lot. “Her mom and I are in a book club together. I’ll call her.”
The Williamses lived in a little tucked-away neighborhood off Korat Road. It wasn’t as isolated as Edgar’s house, but it was one of those places that was hard to find if you weren’t looking for it, and the unpaved road that branched off Korat was unlit and surrounded on both sides by a dense copse of red alder, Douglas fir, and western hemlock trees.
Kim used her hands-free settings to call Bethany’s mom as she turned left onto Blue Point Lane, her little car bumping along the semi-uneven ground. The thin gray trunks of the red alders stood out amongst the thicker fir trees. The alders’ branches had been stark and bare up until a few weeks ago, and now they hung with reddish catkins and small brown cones. In the dark, they looked like dangling, fat human fingers. It wasn’t full dark yet, but it was getting close, and Kim’s headlights shone brightly on the wall of trees on either side of the road.
“Hey, Kim!” came the crisp, clear voice of a woman through the speakers, and Amber jumped. “What’s up?”
“Oh, hi, Grace,” Kim said, sounding startled, too, as if she hadn’t expected her to pick up. “Have you seen Chloe Deidrick tonight by any chance?”
“Uh … no, I haven’t,” Grace said, likely confused as to why Kimberly Jones was asking about the mayor’s daughter. A bit of rustling followed. “Oh dear. Looks like I’ve got a couple of missed calls from her father. Bethany’s been sick all day with a stomach bug; she hasn’t had any visitors.”
“Hi, Grace, it’s Amber Blackwood,” Amber said, chiming in. “Do you know if the girls had any plans to go to the arcade?”
Now Grace sounded truly confused. “No, not that I know of. Is everything okay? Has something happened to Chloe?”
“We don’t know,” Amber said, gaze focused on the trees alongside the road. “She snuck out tonight and Frank has no idea where she is. She isn’t answering her phone.”
“Goodness!” Grace said. “That doesn’t sound like Chloe at all.”
Kim slammed on the brakes suddenly and Amber let out a grunt as the seat belt tightened across her chest. The grunt was more due to surprise than pain. When she focused out the windshield, she expected to see an animal of some kind in the road that had triggered Kim’s excitable brake foot, but instead she saw a parked car, its headlights illuminating the path before it. It was a dark four-door. The car’s hazard lights were on, throwing silent bursts of yellow light against wide leaves and hanging catkins.
“Is that …” Amber said.
“Hello?” Grace said. “What just happened? What’s going on?”
“I’ll call you back, Grace!” Kim said and hastily disconnected the call. Kim inched forward and stopped behind the dark sedan that was pulled off to the side of the road.
Now that they were closer, Amber could clearly see that it was a Honda and that a back tire was flat. It wasn’t hard to get a flat out here, what with the unpaved road riddled with potholes and rocks. Without saying anything to Kim, Amber threw her door open, pushing aside overgrown foliage, and climbed out. She hurried around the side of the car and toward the parked one, noting that the driver’s side door stood open.
Amber’s boots squelched in the thick mud. The drizzle had ramped up to a light rain now.
Slowly, Amber approached the open car door. “Chloe?”
No answer.
Heart in her throat, Amber worried she’d find the girl slumped over in the seat. That the airbag would be deployed, a dead deer lying by the car’s hood—which would be smashed in and smoking. She imagined Chloe thrown from the car, her body expelled through the windshield.
But then she remembered the flat tire. At seventeen, Amber wouldn’t have known how to change a flat, but perhaps Frank had better prepared his daughter for such things. Yet, the tire was still flat, and it didn’t look like she’d attempted to change it. Had Chloe tried to walk the rest of the way to Bethany’s house and something had happened on the way?
If Chloe had run into car trouble, why hadn’t she called her father? If the discussion with him had gone as poorly as Amber suspected, perhaps Chloe’s father had been the last person she’d wanted to talk to. She hadn’t called Amber either, though.
Chloe could have called a friend to come get her; the girl surely had several people who’d drop what they were doing to rescue her. Like the mystery boy, for example.
When Amber finally peeked into the car, she found it empty. The purple cat on the dash swayed lazily from its perch. Definitely Chloe’s car. The girl wasn’t in the front or back. Her purse still appeared to be on the passenger seat. Amber pulled her own phone out of her pocket and called Chloe. The call went directly to voicemail. No blue light from a cell phone’s screen lit up from inside the car.
Amber turned around at the sound of Kim’s approach, the mud sucking at her boots. “She’s not here.”
“Oh my God, Amber,” Kim said, eyes wide. “What do we do now?”
“You call the mayor and tell him we found her car,” she said, then she made a phone call, too.
The chief picked up on the first ring. “Hi, Amber. I’m a little scared to ask you how you are, given the hour. And considering how hectic your life has been lately.”
“Hey, chief. Can’t say things are much better today,” she said. “I think Chloe Deidrick is missing.”
“Deidrick? As in the mayor’s kid?” the chief asked, at full alert now. “Why are you calling me about this and not Frank himself?”
She could tell he’d been sitting when he answered her call and was on the move now. Something creaked. A door slammed shut. The click of heavy soles on a hard surface. Amber explained the events of the evening, ending with the fact that the girl had crept out of her window without telling anyone where she was going. “Frank went to the arcade and Kim and I headed for Bethany’s house. We found Chloe’s abandoned car on the side of Blue Point Lane. We called Bethany’s mom and she hasn’t heard from or seen Chloe; Bethany has been home sick all day.”
The chief cursed softly. “All right. Stay put. Garcia and I are on our way.”
Kim was waiting for Amber in her car, and once they were both closed inside, Kim cranked up the heater. The rain had picked up steam again and pattered against the windshield.
“Frank is on his way,” Kim said in a soft, faraway voice, gaze focused on Chloe’s abandoned car. “He sounds so worried.”
“The chief is on his way, too.”
They waited in silence for ten minutes. Amber knew then how worried Kim was based solely on the fact that she wasn’t speaking. Every couple of minutes, Amber would either send Chloe a text or call her. Texts went unanswered; calls went to voicemail.
Had Amber broken the girl’s trust by encouraging her to come clean to her dad? The thought that Chloe didn’t feel like she could call Amber when she was in trouble made her stomach churn.
The storm had already driven Amber’s magic haywire, but now, it itched to be used to help find Chloe. Could she use that dashboard cat to conduct a locator spell? Or something from the girl’s purse? Amber knew now that her Henbane half—her mother’s half—had been skilled in memory and time magic. Her magic was still a wild, unskilled thing, but maybe her cousin Edgar could help her figure something out.
The mayor arrived first. He was out of his car and hurrying toward Chloe’s with such speed, Amber wasn’t sure he’d even taken the time to turn off his car. Amber had scrambled out to warn the mayor not to touch anything in the vehicle until the chief and Garcia could examine its contents, but Frank came to an abrupt stop several feet away. He put his hands on his hips, staring at the car as if it specifically had done something to Chloe. By the time Amber reached him, his boots had sunk an inch into the thick mud. He didn’t seem to notice.
The rain came down harder now, plastering his short hair to his forehead. He didn’t seem to notice that either.
“Hi, Frank,” she said tentatively.
Slowly, his head swiveled until his flat-eyed gaze met hers. Amber involuntarily took a small step back, her boots squelching. After several intense moments of him staring at her, he finally said, “What did you say to her?” The question was simple enough, but his tone held nothing short of an accusation.
Her head reared back. “Excuse me?”
“You filled her head with romantic nonsense,” he said. “And now she’s gone.”
“I’m the one who told her to talk to you in the first place,” she snapped, magic zipping around under her skin. Amber had been having a rough couple of months and the mayor’s tone was making her far angrier than she should have been. “She wanted me to keep it quiet so she could sneak off and meet him in peace and I said she needed to include you in her plans for safety reasons, if nothing else. What did you say to her that made her sneak out? This isn’t normal behavior for her. If you’re looking for someone to blame, try yourself.”
The way he clenched his jaw implied he was weighing the consequences of decking a woman—one of his constituents, no less. He stalked toward her, invading her space. He peered down at her. “Don’t tell me about my own daughter. You haven’t spent a significant amount of time with her since she was twelve, Amber. You don’t know what’s normal for her. You just happened to show up when she was vulnerable so she confided in you. Anyone who showed up tonight could have filled that role. Don’t pretend you have some lasting relationship with my daughter just because you’re lonely.”
That one stung, but she refused to show it.
She and the mayor were practically nose to nose now, rain beating down on their heads.
“So even you admit that if given the chance to confide in a near stranger or her own father,” she gritted out, “she’d choose the stranger? What does that say about you?”
His jaw wobbled at that. One second ticked by, then two. And then the fight seemed to drain out of him entirely, his shoulders slumping. “You’re right,” he said softly, backing up. “She tried to talk to me. I …”
The fight drained out of Amber now, too. In a matter of seconds, suddenly the man appeared so much older. “What happened, Frank?”
He tipped his head back, eyes closed as rain ran over his face. He sighed and stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I gave her an ultimatum. I said the only way I would allow her to keep talking to him would be if I met him first. I threatened to turn off her phone and put parental restrictions on her internet use.”
“Oh, Frank …” she said.
“I know,” he said, gaze turned now toward the car and its blinking hazard lights. “I pushed her too hard. I always push too hard.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” came a familiar voice from behind her.
Amber turned to see the chief and Garcia approaching, both of them in black rain slickers and sporting wide-brimmed hats. They were far more prepared for this weather than she and the mayor were. Amber peered around the men to see Kim still in the driver’s seat, her phone pressed to her ear. She gave Amber a little wave to let her know she was still there, and for Amber to take her time.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Mayor Deidrick,” the chief said while Garcia moved on to the car alone.
Amber stood back a few feet, not sure if the chief still needed to talk to her too. She would likely catch pneumonia by the time the evening was over, but she couldn’t get herself to leave. Even though she knew most of what Frank had said to her had been fueled by fear—and anger at himself—Amber still couldn’t dispel the guilt that sat heavily on her shoulders. Had she said the wrong thing to Chloe? The what ifs were going to give her an ulcer.
“The reality is,” she heard the chief say after the mayor finished his version of the story, “teenagers this age do run away sometimes.”
“Not my teenager,” Frank said.
The chief held up his hands. “And that very well might be the case. I’ll file a missing person report tonight; we will treat this seriously.”
“I don’t have to wait twenty-four hours to report her as missing?” Frank asked.
The chief shook his head. “Nope. Common misconception. But, again, roughly ninety-eight percent of people who go missing are found within a week—alive and well. It’s only been two hours at most since you last heard from her. The best thing you can do right now is to go home in case she shows up there. I’ll get all my available officers on this tonight—paperwork will be filed, and what canvassing we can do will be done—but we’ll have a better idea of what we’re looking at by morning. If I have any more questions, I’ll give you a call. But also remember that we’re going to be limited in what we can do right now because of the weather.”
Frank looked peeved, but he eventually nodded. “Okay, yeah. But first thing tomorrow morning—”
“First thing,” the chief agreed.
“And you need to find out who this Johnny kid is,” Frank said. “I don’t know his last name. I just know he’s from Belhaven.”
“We’ll get on that, too,” the chief assured him. “But if she was primarily talking to him on Scuttle, well, we’ll have our work cut out for us.”
Frank nodded again, then turned for his car. His gaze snagged on Amber, still standing there waiting, shivering and soaked through. “I’m sorry, Amber. I … I’m sorry I said any of that. I didn’t mean it. Thank you for telling her to come to me.”
He walked away before she could respond.
When he was out of earshot, Amber asked, “Do you really think she just ran away?”
With a weary sigh, the chief said, “It’s really too soon to tell. I saw cases like this constantly in Portland. Most show up no worse for wear.”
“And what about the two percent of people who aren’t found in a week?” she asked, a pit forming in her stomach.
“My officers and I will do what we can tonight,” he said.
It wasn’t an answer.
“Get on home, Amber,” he said. “And get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death.” He paused, taking in her appearance which had to be somewhere in the vicinity of “drowned rat.” Water dripped steadily off his hat’s brim. “Could you hocus pocus the water away? Like a … magic dryer?”
He looked truly invested in the answer and she laughed softly. “I probably could, but that might be even more work than using an actual dryer.”
“Huh,” he said. “Well, try to have a better night. I’m sure Chloe will show up by morning.”
But as the sun crested the horizon the following day, chasing away the last remnants of the evening’s storm, the Edgehill rumor mill swung into full gear. And everyone was saying the same thing: Chloe Deidrick was still missing.