“According to the note, she’s off to San Antonio to meet her mother and we shouldn’t worry about her.”
“San Antone? Lolly doesn’t know a damn soul in San Antonio. She’s only been there twice in her life—that seventh-grade tour of the Spanish missions, which she couldn’t care less about, and last summer, when we did the River Walk and the Alamo. Remember that creep of a bellhop who tried to chat her up?” He rubbed his forehead to relieve a sudden ache over his eyebrows. “Why does she think her mother is in San Antonio?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I’m leaving as soon as I can. Call me if there’s any news.” He stuck his laptop in its carry case, grabbed a jacket, and strode out of his office.
His administrative assistant looked up from her desktop computer. “Problem?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how long this will take. If there’s anything I haven’t seen yet, I’ll take it with me.”
“Lolly?”
“Yep.”
Connie slid a couple of pages into a folder and handed it to him. “Girl Child’s run away again?”
“You got it.” Opening his case, he stuffed the folder in on top of his laptop.
“Bosque Bend?”
“San Antone.” He clicked the case shut and looked at his assistant. “And when I find her, I’ll bring her home and lock her in her room till she turns forty or signs up to be a nun.”
Connie gave him a disbelieving look. “Sure you will.”
Damn Connie, but she was right. He’d never had it in him to discipline Lolly like he should have. Maybe if he’d been tougher on her, made her toe the line instead of being so fucking proud of her spirit, she’d be home whacking tennis balls against the side of the garage right now.
Bypassing the elevator, he headed for the stairs. His adrenaline was demanding action.
The Cadillac was parked right next to the door, a perk of being the head honcho. He opened the windows, turned the AC on high, made a few quick, futile calls to some of Lolly’s friends, and headed for I-35. Damn and double damn! He had six hours of hard driving ahead to reach San Antonio by dark. A lot could happen to two girls alone in a strange city in six hours.
As soon as he hit the highway, a semi roared up behind him, swerved to pass him on the right, swung back in front of him, then abruptly slowed down so that he had to slam on his brakes to avoid a rear-end collision.
Fucking son of a bitch! What if Chloe had to deal with a crazy driver like Mr. Big Rig? She hadn’t been driving very long. In fact, she’d just gotten her license a couple of months ago. Visions of Lolly’s bloody corpse being featured on San Antonio’s notoriously lurid news stations flashed through his brain.
He turned the radio up louder to drown out his imagination and raised his speed another five miles, which at least kept him up with that damn truck.
Shit! What the hell did he think he was accomplishing by driving to San Antonio? It had made sense for him to check out Bosque Bend last time because Reverend Ed’s house was a slam dunk—but where was Lolly headed in San Antonio? He was clueless about how to even begin looking. But he had to try. He had to be on the scene. No way he could sit on his hands and expect Girl Child to come home on her own. And Laurel couldn’t help him this time.
Laurel. Everything kept circling back to Laurel.
Maybe, if he found Lolly and chained her to the Cadillac doorframe, he could stop in to see Laurel on his way back to Dallas. But what would he say? I love you, but I don’t know how to handle it? I can’t separate the person you are from the person your father turned out to be?
Lolly and Laurel. His daughter kept running away from him, and—let’s face it—he’d run away from Laurel. Lolly’s situation was the more pressing right now, but after he found her, he’d see to Laurel. Maybe then he could get rid of this depression, this sense of unreality, of hovering in space, that had been with him since that evening in the Bosque Club.
Ignoring the exit to Bosque Bend, he hit Waco during five o’clock traffic, which slowed him down a little, but wasn’t too bad. He glanced at the cars on either side of him. Had he already passed Chloe on the highway? He had no idea of what her car looked like except that it was little and red, which meant it could be anything from a smart car to a BMW coupe.