Page 41 of Rock Bottom

Thank God I went off to officer school or I might never have learned I was worth something more than a hole for Harvey Halloway to put his dick in. The man was the worst kind of hypocrite, and ten years ago, my parents would’ve condemned him as they had me. Now that he was wealthy and powerful, we were suddenly a good match?

I gritted my teeth. “Dante! Answer me!”

There was no answer. Not even an irritated grunt or the sound of his guitar drowning me out.

“Dante, I’m coming up!” I gripped the ladder and stormed up, only to stop suddenly at the top. His bed was rumpled as usual, but he wasn’t in it, nor was he sitting next to it fiddling with his guitar or the amp. Maybe I’d missed him coming down, and he was in the shower.

With a sigh, I went back down the stairs to knock on the bathroom door. “Dante?”

Still no answer, and when I tried the door, it swung open to reveal he wasn’t there either.

I tore through the house, checking every closet, the hot tub, even the laundry room. I didn’t even think Dante knew the cabin had a laundry room since Oscar did all the laundry. He wasn’t anywhere, at least not anywhere I looked.

Shit, shit, shit! This can’t be happening! I tugged at my hair with one hand while I fumbled to get out my phone with the other. I thumbed the second number on speed dial and waited for Bowie to pick up.

“’Ello, Guvnuh!” he drawled in a horrible imitation of my accent. “Wot a great day, innit?”

“Cut the crap. We have a problem.”

“Oh, no. Did you lose your dick again? Need daddy to come help you find it?”

I gritted my teeth and seriously reconsidered my choice to call him instead of Boone. Getting fired might be worth not having to deal with Bowie. “Dante is missing.”

There was a small thud like his chair hitting the floor or a door closing. “Wait, are you serious?”

“As a heart attack. I looked everywhere. He’s not here.” I pushed open the back door and walked out into the evening twilight, studying the ground in hopes of spotting a footprint. It’d rained the day before and there was still mud, but would I even know Dante’s footprint if I saw it?

“Shit. And you’re calling me because if you call Boone, you’ll have to plug one hole to shit out of the new one he rips for you.”

“Not imagery I wanted, Bowie.” I squatted in the dirt for a closer look.

“Okay,” he said, clearly ignoring me. “Any idea where he went?”

I stood and walked a few more steps. “There are some fresh footprints leading to a gravel service road. I don’t know if they’re his, but I haven’t seen anyone out here.”

“Shit, if he got in a car…”

“He could be anywhere,” I finished, my heart sinking.

If anything happened to him, I’d never forgive myself. I’d also have to kill whoever was responsible. It’d been a long time since I’d hurt anyone, but the thought of someone hurting Dante brought back the familiar irrational rage and I found myself clenching my fists so tight the phone creaked in my palm.

“Okay,” Bowie said, blowing out a breath. “If there are no signs of forced entry, then we’ll assume for now that he went off on his own. I’ll get Leo to monitor his financials in case he tries to pull cash and run. Give me twenty minutes and then me and Wattson can be down there. You hit Google Maps and start checking the nearby bars. Start with the ones that play live music and filter it by lowest rating first.”

I forced my shoulders to relax. “What makes you think that’s where he’d go? For all you know, he just hitched a ride to go get a burger.”

There was a brief hesitation before Bowie answered, “I picked my dad up off enough barroom floors, Church. Trust me. That’s where he is. Call me with updates every fifteen.”

I lowered the phone, feeling sick. Dante wouldn’t…would he? He’d practically been bragging about being sober for ten days the other day. Why would he go back to it after insisting so hard that he wanted to be sober? It didn’t make any sense.

I grabbed my jacket and my keys and flew out the front door, climbing into my Tahoe. While I was still punching information into the GPS, my phone rang, the call coming from a number I didn’t know. A local number.

I fumbled to answer it, my voice going high as I did. “Dante?”

Garbled music came through the phone along with the din of many voices in a crowded space. “Church?”

Relief washed over me. He was alive. He was okay. And then I heard the strange tremor in his voice.

“Church, I don’t feel so good.”

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