The door is unlocked, so I push through it. As though he’s echoing my thoughts, I hear Aidan shouting.
“She can’t just leave! She can’t even drive longer than fifteen minutes. There’s no way she just vanishes into thin fucking air without help. Find out where she is!” Aidan yells through the phone at whoever he’s talking to this time. He’s been making phone calls since she went missing.
Mika withdrew a large sum of cash, but no one knows where it went. However, it was definitely enough to buy a small home.
Hunter is hunched over with his head in his hands. I’ve already destroyed all the shit in my house, throwing my own version of a tantrum, and there’s nothing even wrong with my head. Nothing besides Mika missing.
I’ve spent a lot of time asking everyone if they’ve seen her, practically hounding everyone I’ve seen in town. Everyone gives me a look like I’ve done something to her to make her run. I’m a James, after all.
“Whit said she’s been trying to reach you guys,” I tell Hunter.
“Unless she knows where Mika is, I’m not in the mood to talk to her,” Aidan growls. “Or anyone else for that matter.”
“Whit really doesn’t know anything?” Hunter asks me, looking up with pained eyes.
“She said Mika got with her about a bowling alley issue while she was in the hospital, but nothing more than that,” I say through clenched teeth.
Aidan looks like he’s on the verge of destroying something or someone as he tosses his phone down to a table, and runs his hands through his hair.
Blake is already here, sitting by as the chaos unfolds. He looks just as exhausted as we all feel.
“I was stupid to think she’d drop it. I just thought if I didn’t help her, then she had no one else help her disappear,” Hunter says like a scolded kid.
“Dr. Stein won’t tell me shit,” Aidan groans. “Nothing other than Mika is fine and in contact with her. Fucking confidentiality policies. Mika can’t pay electric bills or anything else. She can’t do that without help. And she can’t just trust anyone with her account numbers. It has to be Dr. Stein helping her. There’s no way around it.”
“At least we know she’s fine,” Blake says, then immediately flinches when three murderous glares turn his way. “I’ll go see if I can find anyone who might have seen her leave town. Small towns talk.”
Maybe they’ll actually tell him something.
He walks out while I drop to Mika’s couch and try to think of anyone else who might have taken her out of town. Whit doesn’t know. Chuck doesn’t know. Half the other employees never even knew Mika. Three fucking days she’s been missing, and no one seems to know anything.
A man can fart in a store downtown, and everyone knows about it within the hour. But Mika can go missing, and no one fucking knows a damn thing.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out, reading the message from Chuck in disbelief.
“What?” Aidan asks me.
Shaking my head, I peer up at him and blow out a breath. “I’m supposed to go meet with Mika’s lawyer. Apparently she signed over the bowling alley to me at some point.”
“The fuck?!” Aidan roars, kicking a basket across the room.
Mika doesn’t plan on coming back. It’s like getting punched and broken all over again.
“I want to see Dr. Stein,” I tell them, hearing it go eerily silent.
I look up to see both of them staring at me, as Aidan pants for air, still half crazed.
“She was supposed to be with Mika here after her release, but she’s back in New York,” Aidan tells me, glaring at me. “You going to fly all the way to New York just to have her tell you in person she can’t tell you where Mika is? She wouldn’t tell me. She’s not going to tell—”
“I’m not going to New York for information on where she is. I’m going to get educated on how to be. Hunter said he had to see her before fitting into Mika’s life.”
Aidan turns around and grabs his phone, and he angrily jabs it into his pocket before snatching his keys.
“My sister signed over her fucking bowling alley to you; she’s gone because she thinks she’s a burden to me; and you’re going to find out how to play house? She’s not going to be around to play house with if she’s tying up all loose ends, you stupid fuck. I’m going to go find her and save her before she does something she can’t be saved from.”
He storms out and slams the door, and Hunter scrubs his face with his hands.
“He’s not giving her enough credit,” I tell Hunter, who stares at me like I’m stupid. “Mika isn’t tying up loose ends. She’s just cutting ties to everything. She’s isolating herself, but she’s still a fighter. I need to see Dr. Stein, because I need to give her a reason to come back.”
Hunter groans while pulling out his phone. “I agree that she’s not going to fucking kill herself, but she could get hurt. Finding her should be our priority. Not you—”
“You search for her. Let me do this so that she has a reason to come back,” I tell him.
“She has a reason. She has two of them. Me and Aidan.”