It’s funny, hearing him speak of love. It’s not something he’s normally comfortable with, though that all changed once he had August.
“Right. My first love who fucked me over and got married without telling me.” I don’t tell him what she really did to me—coming over to my place naked, like some sort of offering that I didn’t hesitate to take. That’s our secret to keep, and none of his damn business.
“She didn’t tellanyoneshe was getting married, you know. Like I already said, that was some sort of weird plan concocted by her and our mother.”
“Well, maybe she concocted this plan with her mother as well,” I point out.
“No.” Whit shakes his head. “Our mother is freaking the fuck out. She called me and asked if I knew where she was. My father called too. No one knows where she ran off to.”
“She probably took a little vacation.”
“Sylvie’s been missing forweeks. Packed her shit, turned off her phone and we haven’t heard a word from her since. For all we know, she could be dead.”
“Weeks?” The alarm that threatens to choke me is sudden. Nearly debilitating. Thank Christ I’m sitting down. “You didn’t say she’s been gone for weeks.”
“Well, she has. Look, she’s run away before, but not like this. Never like this.” He leans forward, his expression earnest. “It’s fucking scary, Spence. And nothing scares me, unless it has to do with my family. Sylvie and I have had our struggles before, but things have been good between us. She’s been repairing her relationship with my wife, and she adores my son. She came to my wedding, which was the first family event she’s been to in a while. She avoids them because of our mother, but she wanted to be there for me and Summer. It was a breakthrough. Then she just up and disappears. It’s not normal. It’s not right.”
“This makes no damn sense.”
“I know. So help me make sense of it. Help me find her.” Whit swallows hard. “Please.”
Now there’s a word you don’t hear a Lancaster say often.
Silence fills the room, and while it probably lasts no longer than thirty seconds, it feels longer. Like minutes. Hours.
Whit is waiting me out. Waiting for me to give in. And like the sucker he knows I am…
I do.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say stiffly. “But I’m not making any promises.”
“Right now, I’ll take what I can get.”
* * *
It’s late,and I’m nursing a glass of scotch, scrolling on my laptop, bleary-eyed and exhausted. Still at the office, though everyone else is long gone.
I’m trying to think like Sylvie Lancaster, which is an odd headspace to be in. Where would she go, what would she do? What would make her run away like this? Did something happen?
Or is it more like someone?
The someone part rankles, but that’s just my jealousy rearing its ugly head. I mentally tell myself to forget about it and focus on the clues.
There aren’t many.
A vast amount of information pertaining to Sylvie is on the internet, but the majority of it is meaningless. Endless photos of her in the society pages, including a few of her with her old ass, dead husband. I scroll right past those, hating the anger that boils my blood when I see her smiling, standing next to an old man who she called her husband.
Did she actually have sex with that guy? How deep do her daddy issues go? Did I even really ever know her?
No, not really, is what I tell myself.
I do a little deeper digging. Pulling up her marriage license. Searching for other legal documents involving Earl Wainwright. There are plenty, including various lawsuits over the years, and the divorce with his first wife. He’s bought and sold a lot of properties in Manhattan the last thirty years or so. And a single purchase in…California?
That’s a one-off—and an odd purchase for him to make.
I open Google Maps and enter the address, startled to realize it’s nothing but acres and acres of thick forest with a house nestled deep in the trees. It sits right next to the Pacific Ocean and he paid ten million for it.
What the hell was he going to do with a house on the California coast?