Page 79 of Tight Ends & Tiaras
BEN
When I reachthe end of the room, I turn around and head the other way. Back and forth until I’ve practically worn a path through the old carpet of the cabin. I snap the rubber bands on my wrist so hard, they welt the skin beneath. The only other thing that seems to help is pacing. It’s better than sitting here, feeling helpless.
Johnny is right. Janelle might be jerking me around right now. She could be sitting somewhere with her ex or some friend, laughing her ass off. But what if she’s in trouble? What if she needs someone to care enough to pick up the damn phone and call for help?
“Are you still on hold?” Olly asks from the couch where my friends are camped out.
I nod as the tinny voice on the other end of the phone line returns.
“We can send a cruiser over this afternoon,” the dispatcher says, sending a hot flood of relief through me. “I’ll connect you to an officer. One moment, please.”
I hold my hand over the phone and talk to Olly, Johnny, and Sienna. Amelia took off after Lily threw up on her and never returned. “She said I don’t need to wait twenty-four hours to report a missing person.”
Thank God Sienna told me not to postpone calling the cops. All those TV shows that say someone needs to be missing twenty-four hours before you contact the authorities are wrong, apparently.
After repeating the pertinent information to the officer, I hang up with a ragged sigh. My stomach lurches, and I take a deep breath to calm the hell down. This shit reminds me too much of when my mom died and officers came to our house. The last thing I want to do right now is talk to the cops, but I don’t want to take a chance. Janelle and I might not be on the best of terms, but that doesn’t mean I want anything bad to happen to her.
Sienna comes up to me, and without any words or discussion, we wrap our arms around each other.
She fits perfectly against me, standing between my parted legs. I close my eyes and breathe in her sweet, calming scent.
“We’ll find her,” she whispers as she squeezes me tight. “You’re doing the right thing. It’s better to call the police now while there might be clues where she went.”
A knock on the front door has us all jumping at the sound, but it’s only the landlord, a sweet older lady named Fern.
“Kids, I hate to kick you out, but I’ve got another group of students who are supposed to stay here tonight.”
Fuck.
Sienna wanders over to her and ushers her outside where they talk quietly for a while. A few minutes later, she returns with some good news. “She said the cabin is ours.”
“Jesus, you’re the best. How’d you talk her into that?”
She smiles awkwardly. “I might’ve rented the cabin for a few more days. I needed to offset her loss, you know?”
“I’ll pay you back.”
She waves me off. “I don’t care about that. Let’s just make sure Janelle’s okay.”
But hours later, after we’ve answered all of the cops’ questions and waited while Officer Rivera and his partner looked around the cabin and campgrounds, we’re still no closer to finding out what happened to Janelle.
After Rivera calls Amelia and confirms she hasn’t heard from my ex either, he says we can go home and that he’ll be in touch.
“That’s it?” Sienna asks, astonishment on her face. “The only thing we can do is sit around and wait?”
Officer Rivera shrugs. “There’s not much more we can do. As you said yourself, it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that she went willingly. You’re not going to want to hear this, ma’am, but she has the right to disappear. A person is entitled to get away.”
“That’s fucking insane,” I mutter before I remember who I’m talking to. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I’m just frustrated.”
Internally I wince, hating that not only did I curse at a cop, I keep doing that around my kid, who’s sprawled out across a blanket, playing blocks with Johnny.
I rub my temple. “The whole reason she came to see me in the first place was because this guy was violent and she said she feared for her safety and the safety of our baby. I didn’t feel right leaving without knowing where she went and if she was okay.”
He nods patiently. “Understandable. And you did the right thing by filing a missing persons report. The first few hours are the most important. You and your friends have been really helpful in letting us search the premises and providing me with a timeline. We’ll attempt to locate her. We’ll call her parents and try to contact her ex-boyfriend. I’m happy to say that most of the time, the person in question turns up fine.”
Sienna nods as she laces her fingers through mine. “That’s good to hear.”
“However...” He pauses to glance at Lily. “It is unusual to have a mother leave her child. But perhaps that was the best move considering the three of you kept arguing. Trust me when I say it’s better to deescalate these situations.” He taps his pen on his clipboard. “Although, depending on how long she’s gone, if it is deemed she voluntarily abandoned her daughter, you’ll need to contact social services. It’ll be considered abandonment after six months. That is, if you’re trying to get sole custody of the baby.”
