Blankets pulled from the bed, mattress shoved to the side, the small safe hidden under the bed gone.
“Bitch,” I seethed.
I should have known.
I should have known better than to let her back into my damn house. Into our lives so she could just turn around and make another mess of it. But honestly, the only thing that mattered right then was the fact she was gone. I’d gladly accept the loss of the bit of cash in that safe if it meant Janel was eradicated from our lives.
A plague eliminated.
Extinguished.
“Rex!” Rynna’s scream flooded my ears. I pushed back out of my room and into the hall.
She was at Frankie’s door, her hand pressed to her mouth, the girl staring inside.
For a beat, I froze in terror.
Frankie.
I sprang into action. Rynna stumbled out of my way when I rounded the doorway. I jerked to a stop in my daughter’s room.
In a fleeting glance, you’d think nothing was out of order, her bed made and her stuffed animals still lined against her pillows.
But the closet—clothes were pulled from the hangers and some of her shoes were gone. Frantic, I rushed for Frankie’s dresser. The drawers . . . they were empty.
The worst kind of terror took hold of me.
All the fears I’d ever had of losing my child rose to the surface.
Rising above.
Pulling me under.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
My hands were shaking when I dug into my pocket for my phone. It was already ringing before I had the chance to dial, my mom’s name lit on the screen.
I answered it, and every part of me twisted in two.
My mother . . . she was screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming. “She’s gone. I don’t know where she is, Rex. She’s not here. Frankie’s gone.”
39
Rynna
Jenny Gunner’s cries poured through the phone. Begging and screaming and weeping.
And Rex? Oh God, Rex made an inhuman noise. Wailed this wail that came from his soul.
Agonized.
Devastated.
Crushed.
It reverberated from the walls and pummeled through my senses.
I wound my arm around my stomach as if it might staunch the pain that split me from the inside.
Frankie Leigh.
I could feel my heart shredding at the same second my spirit moaned.
I should have done something, said something earlier.
My fault. All of this was my fault.
Right from the beginning. I should have stayed that first night when Janel had cut me apart. I should have stood my ground and stood up for myself. Exposed Janel for who she really was.
But I’d let her get away with her sins as if they hadn’t been committed at all.
Rex spouted a bunch of incoherent words to his mother before he ended that call, quick to dial 9-1-1. I could hear the moment the operator came on.
Rex had made another switch, pulling himself from the spiral of torment. His shoulders rolled back and determination set on his face. Refusing to allow his worst fears to happen. His voice was gritted—direct and hard—as he quickly relayed the information to the operator. Her name. The make and model of her car. Description of both her and Frankie. The last time both of them had been seen.
Then he ended the call and came striding across the room and into the hall, all power and barely contained intensity. He grabbed me by the outside of my shoulders, his voice a plea. “Stay here, Rynna. In case they come back, stay here. Have your phone ready to call 9-1-1.” He gave a gentle shake. “Okay?”
“Of course,” I told him, but the words were barely a breath. He pressed his lips to my forehead and then he was gone, the only trace of him the sound of him gunning his truck and it roaring down the street.
Silence swooped in like a cold, steely drape. Clamoring against the walls and trembling across the floors.
Ominous and foreboding.
I wrung my fingers, and my feet took the hall. Back and forth. Back and forth. Desperate to do something. Intuition promised there was no chance Janel would come back here.
My mind rolled. I couldn’t quiet it, the way images flashed and blipped, the way voices murmured as if someone were right there, whispering them in my ear.
Jenny Gunner’s words when she’d come to Pepper’s Pies.
“Don’t really know a time she lived in this town when she didn’t work for your grandma. From what I know, she started out when she was in high school.”
My mind flashed to Aaron on the street, the way he’d been peeking in the window.
“Always in Janel’s way, aren’t you?”
All of it spun and spun. Winding to a sum.
That thread of awareness finally took hold.
It’d hadn’t been by chance that Aaron was outside the diner, peering in. It wasn’t out of curiosity or the interest of an old restaurant reopening.
He’d been spying. Wondering exactly what was going on inside.
A slow chill trickled down my spine.