Page 140 of Hot Shot

“You didn’t.” I lean to kiss her temple and stand, my knees groaning. “Want to come sit with me while I cook dinner?”

She smiles up at me, exhausted and a little sad. “I’d love to.”

We spend a half hour in the kitchen while I work on the spaghetti sauce. The rain finally lets up, the sky still thick with dark and dangerous clouds, but they only bring a breeze now. Cass texts Patty and tells her about Trent, and she answers that they’ll look into it. I find that I feel raw and frayed myself, guilt eating at me. I’ve done everything wrong, from Cass to Cricket to this situation with her bully, and now it’s so fucked, I don’t know how to fix it.

But I know the first step is to talk to Cricket.

I leave Cass with a glass of wine in the kitchen, heading for Cricket’s room with my heart in a vise.

When I knock, she ignores me again.

“Cricket? Have you had enough spaces? Can we talk?”

Silence.

The corners of my lips tick down. I knock again.

“Cricket? Baby? You in there?”

Nothing.

“Okay, I’m coming in.” I pause in case she decides to answer, opening the door when she doesn’t.

Her empty bed is rumpled, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Frantic, I rip open her closet, calling her name, get on my hands and knees to look under her bed.

A crisp breeze brushes my cheeks, and my face whips to the open window. When I bolt to it and stick my head out to look down, I see two familiar little sneaker prints in the mud, trailing away to the fence, and it dawns on me.

She’s gone.

CHAPTER 51

LEAVE A PENNY

WILDER

“She’s gone.”

I rush past Cass in a frantic daze, my heart slamming against my sternum. She’s trailing me on my path to the side door, talking through where Cricket might have gone, but I can’t hear her past the static in my mind. I throw open the door to a gust of cool air, the rain gone but the sky churning and angry and dark.

The side door to the garage is open, the inside dark and musty and missing her bike.

With a swear, I turn on my heel, nearly crashing into Cass. “She’s on her bike,” I say as I pass her, sticking my head back inside the house to grab my keys.

It’s only seconds before we’re in the truck and I’m speeding out of the driveway while Cass texts everyone we know. The timeline clicks around in my head—a half hour had passed since we’d heard her, but how long ago did she leave? She couldn’t have gone far. She has to be close. Where would she go?Somebody would see her. They’d find her and keep her and call us. Right?

Unbidden, the thought of Trent finding her tears something open in me that I will not be able to put back together until I know she’s safe. I just can’t imagine what he’d do if he found her before us.

Cass is rambling. “The park maybe? We’re too far from the school. Maybe Main Street? Whose house does she know the way to? I…I can’t think…” She pauses. “Let’s drive through town and then go to the park. I’ll call the police station.” Her phone is already out, her fingers flying. “We’re going to find her. Everything’s fine. We’re going to find her,” she says to me and herself, and the universe too, I’m sure.

I haven’t spoken. Words do not exist in the space I’m in, only panic.

Main Street is apocalyptically empty. Cass is talking to the police about what Cricket is wearing, what her bike looks like. It’s the soundtrack of my nightmares. When I skid to a stop, double parked in front of the playground, we all but fly out of the truck, yelling her name. But she’s not there. No one is. It’s quiet and calm, the world vibrant from the remnants of rain and the heavy clouds. And then we’re back in the truck and driving again.

We go places we don’t think she even knows how to get to. The library. The school. Through the neighborhoods around Main Street where we live. Back to Main to stick our heads in every business in the hopes someone has seen her, or better yet, that they found her.

But she’s nowhere.

I don’t know what else to do, where to go. When the squad car pulls up, it’s a relief—maybe they’ll know. Maybe they can tell me what I’m supposed to do.

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