“I keep expecting her to walk through the doors for her shift,” Pick murmured, watching the waitresses set up tables for opening.
I nodded sadly. She’d been scheduled to work tonight, but I was filling in for her. For some reason, I thought it’d earn me a couple brownie points with Colton, but I don’t think he’d even noticed. I opened my mouth to ask what the chances were that she was still alive when the nightclub’s landline phone rang. We weren’t open yet and normally I’d let it ring through to voice mail, but I’d been answering every call coming in from every phone around me these last few days.
“Forbidden Nightclub. This is Brandt.”
At first, there was nothing, just some static, and then I thought I heard a faint sound.
“Hello?” I asked, my heart rate jerking with hope. Pick straightened, alerted to my reaction. His gaze pinned me with question. “Hello?” I said again.
The scratchy noise came again, but this time I swear it said my name.
It didn’t sound like her at all, but I still had to ask. “Julianna?”
Pick leaped over the counter to stand anxiously next to me.
Straining to hear, I pressed the phone harder against my ear. There was a hiccupping kind of sob, and then the person on the other end of the line began to cry.
“Julianna?” I said a little more urgently. “Is that you?”
“I…this was the only number I could remember,” the hoarse, faltering voice told me. “Should’ve called 911. Why didn’t I call 911? I can’t think. I should call nine…”
“Julianna.” Affecting my voice with a calm clarity I didn’t feel, I asked, “Where are you?”
“I don’t know.” The voice broke with either a bad connection, her inability to talk, or both. “Orchard,” I finally heard. “Country.”
“Okay.” I nodded, eager hope blooming inside me as I nodded. “That’s good. You’re at an orchard in the country.” I met Pick’s gaze meaningfully. “I think I know exactly where you are. We can find you. Are you okay?”
When she said, “No,” I shuddered, worried how Colton was going to deal with this.
“Just hang tight,” I told her, not sure what else to say. “I’m going to come get you.”
She began to cry again, and the only word I understood after that was, “Colton…”
“Yes, we’ll get Colton. You’ll see him soon. I swear. I’ll be right there.” Not wanting to hang up with her but ready to get where I needed to go, I tossed the phone to Pick.
He caught it easily and pressed it to his ear while I jumped over the bar and ran for the exit. I logged on to my phone as I jogged, typing Seymour, orchard, and Illinois into my map search as I went. Though it’d been closed for two years, I found that a Seymour Valley Apple Farm, located exactly eighteen miles outside Ellamore, was still registered as a place of business. I plugged in the driving directions and hopped into my truck.
Since my phone was busy with helping me find Juli, I didn’t call my brother. I trusted that Pick would contact everyone who needed to know, and besides, I kind of wanted to be the first one who found her so Colton would stop hating me, and of course because I wanted to help my favorite coworker, but the Colton aspect made it even more urgent.
It should’ve been a half-hour drive, but I made it in twenty minutes. I pulled into the weed-covered driveway that didn’t look as if it’d been maintained in two years and drove to the end of the lane until I was in front of the house and a couple outbuildings. One of them hosted a whole side of the building with the words Seymour Valley Apple Farm painted on the side in chipping red block letters.
I killed the engine and climbed out.
The place seemed deserted and rundown, except for a single older model truck parked in front of my ride. Evening had fallen and I squinted through the dusk, not sure where to even begin looking. So I cupped my hand around my mouth and yelled, “Juli!”
No one answered.
I began to panic, thinking I’d come to the wrong place. Maybe she was at a different orchard. But the name fit and the place looked as if it’d been foreclosed for a good two years. I jogged toward the abandoned two-story farmhouse with no curtains or shades in the windows, revealing the interior was bare of everything. But when I tried the front door, it was locked. I went around to the back and tried the back door next. Also locked.
I rubbed my face, thinking.