“And now?” Jordan asked me. The guy had been a walking corpse all week. He was staring into the void like he was half-dead. “Now that we know? I took her phone back to her the next day. Handed it over to one of her sorority sisters. I don’t even know if she got it.”

Bren frowned at him. “I went to the house, too. They turned me away.”

He looked at her, staring. He didn’t respond.

Zellman rolled his eyes. “Fuck this.” He shoved his chair back, grabbing his own phone out of his pocket. A number was dialed, and he put it on speaker as a female’s voice came over the other end.

“Zellman?”

We all paused.

Then Zellman said, “Sunday, where’s Tabatha?”

“What?”

It was Sunday. Zellman’s ex on-again, off-again, and one of those times when they were off-again, she hooked up with Bren’s ex and was now pregnant with his kid. That ex. Tabatha was high school friends with both Tasmin and Sunday, and that had me wondering if my own sister had heard from Tabatha?

Sunday chose to remain in Roussou to have her kid, while my sister and her boyfriend went to Grant West, a college four hours away.

Zellman was standing like a statue, listening to his ex, but at her ‘what?’ he snapped into action. He whisked his phone in the air, almost punching it with words, “You know where she is! Where is she? Is she there? Is she hiding?”

“What? What are you talking about?” But her voice was straining. She was obviously nervous.

“You’re lying to me. I can tell because you’re being nice. Normal Sunday would be pissed that I’m calling. You would’ve already bitched about two things by now, and you haven’t bitched about anything. Where is she?!” Zellman was yelling into the phone.

There was silence. Then a ruffling sound. Footsteps. A door opened.

A second later, a quieter and much more subdued voice spoke, “Is Jordan there?”

A pin could’ve dropped.

I didn’t think anyone expected Tabatha to come on the line.

Another beat passed.

“Jordan?”

Suddenly, he shoved back his chair. Two long strides around the table, he plucked the phone out of Zellman’s hand and he shoved his way outside. All three of us shared one look, then our chairs were pushed out of the way. We went to the window, and we weren’t trying to look pressed against it, eyes bugging out, but we were. We couldn’t help it.

Jordan didn’t spare us a look.

His hand was in his hair, like he wanted to rip it out and he was barking into the phone. He was pacing.

He was pissed. Tense.

Then he stopped.