“Not Dylan’s doing,” she said softly, tears in her voice.
Which meant that Dylan’s dad had been here and there’d been another fight. Tilly froze, remembering what Dylan had promised the last time—that he’d kill the guy if he laid another finger on his mom.
Panic nearly choked her.
Ten minutes later she was on a bus heading toward Dylan’s dad’s house, the address written on a piece of paper clutched in her hand. Half an hour later, she stood in front of a small ranch house. It was run-down, but there was a lot of acreage. She could smell cattle and heard mooing off in the distance.
The house wasn’t close to any others, which didn’t feel like a good thing. She could hear yelling from inside, and then the sounds of something crashing and breaking, and she ran to the front door.
It was locked.
Heart racing, she pounded on it. “Dylan!”
No answer. But she could still hear shouting inside, so she hurried around the side of the house to the back. There was a patio and a slider, which slid right open under her hand. She stepped into a living room, lit only by the spill of lights from a bedroom down the hall, from which the sounds of a fight drew her.
Heart lodged in her throat, she looked around for something to protect herself with. Nothing. She glanced down at her hands and realized she was still clutching the soda bottle she’d bought while waiting for her bus.
The hallway ended all too fast and then she stood in the doorway of a bedroom. Dylan was in the corner, down like he’d just fallen, blood coming from his nose and mouth, one eye swollen nearly shut, shirt ripped, watching a man twice his size come at him.
Chapter 19
Having plans sounds like a good idea—until you have to put on clothes and leave your house.
—from “The Mixed-Up Files of Tilly Adams’s Journal”
It was midnight by the time Quinn arrived in Wildstone. The café was closed, but by some miracle, Greta and Trinee were inside, planning menus for the following week. They were relieved to see her. Cliff had called them looking for Tilly, and unable to sleep, they’d come here.
“Neither of us has seen her for several days,” Greta said worriedly.
Not good.
Quinn tried Chuck’s house next. He took a while to answer the door and when he did, he looked sheepish and upset.
“I have no idea where she went,” he said. “She told me she wanted to go to the movies and I said no way. I feel asleep on the couch and when I woke up, she was gone.”
“And she wasn’t at the movies?”
“No,” he said. “When I woke up and found her gone, I went to the movie theater. She wasn’t there.”
“Where else would she go?” she asked.
He shrugged. “She’s a good kid. She’s never done anything like this.”
“She was staying with you by choice,” Quinn said. “Why would she leave?”
His gaze skittered away. “I don’t know.”
Quinn didn’t believe him, but there was nothing she could do about that. She left and went to Cliff’s office, somehow not surprised to see him through the window, at his desk, head bent to his laptop, thick-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose as he pecked at the keyboard. When she knocked at the locked door, he pushed his glasses back high on his nose and came to the door.
“Quinn,” he said in his usual unflappable manner. “You drove up. And quickly.” He gestured her in. “Can I get you anything?”
“An arrest warrant for Chuck.”
Okay, that flapped him. “For what?”
“For being a dumbass who didn’t keep track of my sister.”
They stared at each other, Cliff thinking God knew what, Quinn a little shocked at the emotions barreling through her. “What are my rights when it comes to Tilly?” she asked.
“None,” Cliff said. “Unless you were to take guardianship. Which, honestly, I think Chuck would be fine with.”
Was she ready for that step? Hell no, but that wasn’t what stopped her. What did was Tilly and her wishes.
The kid had lived fifteen years without knowing of Quinn’s existence. Her dad had long ago walked, she’d lost her mom, she’d had to move in with a neighbor and in the process had lost a good part of her childhood to circumstances. Quinn refused to force her into a guardianship she wouldn’t want. “I can’t,” she said quietly.
Cliff looked at her for a long beat and then turned to his drawer, pulling out a sealed envelope. “It’s a letter from Carolyn.”
“To me?”
“Yes.”
“Why now?” Quinn asked, taking the envelope but not opening it.
“It was your mom’s instructions to give this to you if you showed no interest in staying here in Wildstone to form a relationship with Tilly.”
Quinn stared down at the envelope, irritation overcoming her. This felt an awful lot like manipulation, and she’d had just about enough of that for a lifetime, thank you very much. She shoved the envelope in her purse for later. “We need to call the police.”
“Already done,” Cliff said. “Our local sheriff knows the situation and he’s got an eye out. But at the moment, it appears that she told her caretaker she was going to the movies, and being that she’s fifteen, probably ended up at a party she wasn’t supposed to attend. Teens are prone to meltdowns, Tilly included, so as hard as it is to hear this, no one is especially alarmed. Especially since she’s only been missing a matter of hours.”
Quinn drove to the B & B and checked in. She could’ve stayed at Carolyn’s house, but she didn’t feel right about doing that without Tilly’s permission, as it was far more her house than Quinn’s.
By this time it was one in the morning and, stick a fork in her, she was done. A few hours of sleep, she told herself, and then she’d get back out there and retrace Tilly’s steps.
But instead of undressing and climbing in bed, she stood in the middle of the room feeling helpless. Feeling horribly out of her depth and out of her comfort zone. Hell, she thought, thinking about how she was still stinging from discovering her parents owned half the restaurant where she worked, she didn’t even know what her comfort zone was anymore.
“It’s me,” Beth said. Clear as day. “I’m your comfort zone.” She was back on the TV, this time in Quinn’s favorite sandals, eating a bowl of ice cream.
“Where’ve you been?” Quinn demanded. “I kept waiting for you to come visit when I was home in L.A.”
Beth just smiled and ate her ice cream.
“The least you could’ve done was bring some for me.”
“Maybe next time.” Beth’s mouth was curved, but her eyes were serious. “You’re okay, you know.”
“Am I? Because I’m talking to my dead sister in the middle of the night.”
There was a knock at her door and Quinn nearly jumped out of her own skin. She glanced back at Beth, but she was gone. Shaking her head at herself, she looked through the peephole.
Mick held up a brown bag that smelled amazing. “Food,” he said. “And—”