Rain starts to patter on the window, light but ominous, not loud enough to drown out my heavy breaths in the bedroom. Where is she? Where the hell did she go?
On the way back downstairs, I dial Ricky, who answers on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Please tell me Addison is with you.”
An uncomfortable silence passes. “Sorry, Captain Du Pont. We checked in at the house after seeing her on the news. She wasn’t supposed to go anywhere today and I don’t mind telling you, we lectured her a little. But she assured us she had no plans to go out until tomorrow.” He clears his throat. “She didn’t listen, did she?”
“No.” My head is splitting in half. “Can you please go check her old apartment? It’s empty, but she could be there.” Avoiding you. “And I need Kyle down at the market. Maybe she had to cover a shift, or…”
I trail off when I notice her shoe rack is gone from its place of honor beside the front door. There are tiny, almost imperceptible holes where it used to be drilled into the plaster. After finding her clothes and craft supplies gone, I’m not sure why this final blow almost pitches me forward off the stairs, but it does. She really left. She left me.
“Captain?”
I swallow hard and open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. What if I can’t find her? She covered all her bases in less than a day. Was she planning this? Did she always believe it would end this way? She would force me to get my post-jilted shit together and move into my rightful house, furnish it, then hand a better version of me off to another woman?
Jesus, that’s exactly what she was doing. This morning’s revelation might have been a last-ditch effort, but she always thought I’d move on.
“Addison, goddammit. No.” My legs finally give up the battle and drop me to the steps, just as another call beeps in on the other line. A frantic check of the screen beats down my hopes of Addison calling. “Ricky, I have to go. Please. Please let me know immediately if you find her.” Without waiting for his answer, I click over. “Hello?”
“Elijah.”
I’ve known Chris long enough to gather—in three syllables—that something is wrong.
Slowly, I come to my feet, every inch of me bracing for impact. “What is it?”
In the background, there’s shouting, a door slamming, an engine starting. “We just got a call in from the boat launch at Remley’s Point. They rented out a kayak about an hour ago and the person hasn’t returned. Name on the ID is Addison Potts.”
Like something out of a horror film, a crack of lightning streaks across the front window, rain pelting the glass. Or is that hail? My pulse begins slamming against my eardrums. “Chris, don’t tell me she’s out on the river in this goddamn storm.”
“There’s a possibility she didn’t risk it and went ashore somewhere closer, instead of crossing back the way she came. But the rental manager didn’t want to take any chances, since she’s pretty much a beginner.” A crackle comes over the radio, but I can’t make it out. “We’ll find her, all right? She’s a certified bad ass. If she got caught somewhere, she’ll be fine until we reach her.”
He’s trying to calm me down, but I’ll never be calm again. Not until I have her in my arms. “She’s…it’s her grandmother’s ashes. She’s spreading them before she leaves.” Was she so frantic to get away from me, she’s risking her life to tie up loose ends? No. Please. If I’m responsible for her being hurt or worse, I won’t make it to tomorrow’s sunrise. Addison, I’m sorry. Needing to take action even though I’m battling the urge to vomit, I throw open the door and run outside into the rain, ignoring the photographers that snap a dozen pictures of me from various vehicles. “Where are you?” I shout into the phone, praying Chris can hear me over the thunder. He repeats the address twice and I start running toward my truck. “I’m on my way, but don’t wait. Get out there as soon as you can. Find her.”
“We will.”
His grim tone turns my blood turns to ice, but urgency and adrenaline have me starting the truck, peeling out of my space. “I’ll call the chief of police as soon as I hang up and get you more support. All of it.” I take a hard right and merge onto 5th Avenue, gunning the engine and trying not to panic over the rough state of the river alongside me. “Chris, please. I can’t fucking lose her. She’s…”
I’m hit with a deluge of moving pictures. Only I’m seeing them now through a totally different lens. Addison pulling up outside the church and holding up a bottle of Grey Goose. I thought she was such a cowgirl that day. Spontaneous. but knowing what I know now…that she’s loved me since day one…I see the hope in her eyes as she idles at the curb. The shock. The fear she was embarking on something she shouldn’t.