Page 54 of Summers at the Saint
“I did. Several times. She didn’t pick up.”
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll call Madelyn, and then I’ll head over to the house to see if she’s there.”
“I did that already,” Traci said, fighting back tears. “Nobody answered the doorbell.”
“Maybe she’s out back by the pool, listening to music on her earbuds. I’m sure you’re getting worked up over nothing.”
“This one time, I pray you’re right,” Traci said.
Her next call was to Ray Bierbower, the Saint’s head of security. She filled him in on Parrish’s disappearance.
“I’m on it,” Ray assured her. “I’ll go out there to the Shack myself and take a look around, and I’ll send a couple of my guys to do a thorough search of the grounds. Don’t you worry, Mrs. E. If that girl is here, we’ll find her.”
Traci paced around the hotel lobby, absent-mindedly greeting guests until she retreated to her office for more pacing. Finally,she called Charlie Burroughs at home. He answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey, Traci. Congratulations. Despite the rain, it was—”
She cut him off quickly. “Charlie? Parrish is missing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. Nobody has seen her. Not Ric, not the kids in the dorm. I’ve got Ray Bierbower and his men combing the property. I know it’s your day off, but—”
“I’m on my way,” he said.
She’d just disconnected the call when Ric burst through her office door. “Nobody’s seen her,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve talked to Madelyn, her friends, everyone I can think of.”
Her phone rang again.
She grabbed it up and glanced at the caller ID. Ray Bierbower.
“Ray?”
“Mrs. E?” His voice was low and mournful. She sensed what was coming.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”
CHAPTER 30
Wordlessly, Traci handed her phone to her brother-in-law.
Ric’s face was impassive as he listened and nodded, his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed the emotions he seemed unable to speak. Finally: “Yeah. I understand. You’re sure it’s her? Yeah. I’ll tell her.”
Ric disconnected the phone, threw it onto the desktop, and doubled over, burying his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving with each muffled sob.
Traci waited, her heart pounding in her chest, for the news she’d been dreading all day. Parrish was gone. She hadn’t known how or why, but the same black cloud that had descended after Hoke’s plane went down was back.
After his sobs seemed to have subsided, she spoke. “Ric?”
He raised his tearstained face and took a deep breath. “Ray says… he found her. My beautiful, my baby girl, is gone. Oh my God. Parrish is dead.”
“Where?” Traci whispered.
“She was behind the Shack all this time. Ray says…” He gulped and started over. “He said he spotted a woman’s shoe in the overgrown bushes behind the Shack, so he kept searching and it looks like she must have fallen down into a kind of ravine.”
He stood abruptly. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve gotta get to my little girl.”
“Ric, wait,” she called, but he was already out the door.
