“Something’s wrong.” A statement, not a question.

“Not necessarily. She’s officially done with my program, and I couldn’t get in touch with her. I thought maybe she’d talked to you recently.”

“Something’s wrong.”

“No, no. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I’m, uh, getting another call, so I have to go. Hope you’re well. Take care.” She punched the button, switching over to Lorna.

“Did you find her?” Lorna demanded.

“Not yet.”

“Call the police. We need to report this.”

“Lorna, she’s only been gone for four hours. You can’t report her missing. Let’s give her some space,” Olivia said, even though she felt very much like Lorna. She didn’t like the way Chase had disappeared. And deep down inside, she felt much the way she had when it came to Marley—unable to control the situation.

She was scared for Chase.

“So what do you want me to do?” Lorna asked.

“Wait. I think we have to wait and trust Chase.”

“Oh God.”

Exactly.

Olivia hung up after reassuring Lorna several times that there was nothing more that could be done, and she ignored Zeke’s calls, texting him that everything was okay. Even though it wasn’t. But she didn’t need two people blowing up her phone all night long.

She went downstairs to wait for Chase’s situation to be resolved. As she sat, sipping some hot tea, she discovered what it felt like to be a parent waiting up for a teen, wondering if she were okay, hoping and praying that she would come through the door, but as the hours ticked by too slowly, her prayers were not answered.

Eventually she nodded off, so when her phone buzzed with a text, she yipped. Lifting the phone to read the text, she made a confused face.

Neve.

Guess who just showed up on my front porch.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

The first thing that registered with Chase as she padded down the stairs of the cabin at Cotter’s Creek was that Olivia looked terrible.

The second thing was . . . Olivia was here.

“What are you doing here?” she asked the woman sitting in the old green tweed chair sipping coffee from a chipped mug. Olivia’s hair was half-up, half-down, her face pale, her shirt buttoned wrong. Total mess.

“I should be the one asking that question. What the hell, Chase?”

Chase took the last two steps, trying to figure out how to say what she’d planned to say. The rational conversation she’d played over and over in her head as she’d sunk against the window of the Greyhound bus heading north (utilizing a sanitizing wipe on the window, of course) had sounded well thought out. But now, after waking up and seeing all the frantic texts from her mother, Olivia, Spencer, and even Zeke, Chase had nothing.