Page 74 of Stay Away from Him

“Melissa, it’s Amelia.”

“Amelia? How did you get this number?”

“It was on Thomas’s phone. I have his passcode, for emergencies.”

She felt a surge of annoyance at Amelia and Thomas’scloseness—even Melissa didn’t yet know Thomas’s phone passcode. Until she remembered what was going on, the fact that she was supposed to be done with Thomas. After everything that had happened, Amelia could have him.

“I need your help.”

“What is it?”

“Rhiannon and Kendall. They’re missing.”

***

Melissa was at Thomas’s house thirty minutes later. She had to wake up Bradley earlier than she wanted to, rush him through breakfast, and wrestle his sleepy limbs into a shirt and pants. Then she packed him upstairs to Lawrence and Toby, who were still waking up themselves, fumbling through apologies to all three of them as she went out the door.

Now Amelia was opening the front door, a look of feverish panic on her face.

“You slept here last night?” Melissa asked, imagining her in Thomas’s bed—a bed she’d still not been in herself. Then she shook her head. She needed to stop this. There were more important things happening than her jealousy of Amelia and Thomas’s relationship.

“I was on the couch,” Amelia told her. “I know I’m only next door, but it didn’t feel right leaving them alone in the house. I was up at seven, and they didn’t come down. I figured that wasn’t a problem—they’re teenagers, they sleep in. But then they still weren’t down by nine-thirty, then ten, and I went to check on them. That’s when I saw that their beds were empty.”

“Where could they have gone?”

“Anywhere,” Amelia said.

“That can’t be true.”

“It is. Thomas’s car is gone. Rhiannon’s seventeen; she has her driver’s license.”

Melissa walked inside the house and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was quarter to eleven. “Did you hear anything last night? Engine starting, garage door opening and closing? If we know when they left, then we could figure out how far they might have gotten.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Amelia says. “I slept like the dead last night.”

“And when did you go to bed?”

“I don’t know,” Amelia said, lifting her fingers to her temples in a jerky motion. “Ten-thirty, maybe?”

More than twelve hours ago. They could have been in a different state by now.

Amelia looked genuinely worried, jittery and stricken, her lips pulling away from her teeth as she breathed through her mouth, heavy and panicked. Melissa felt a pang of sympathy as she realized how long Amelia had known Thomas’s girls—since they were babies. She must have felt like a surrogate mother to them, as much a part of their lives as Rose, and far more than Melissa was right then. Probably more than she’d ever be. On a sudden urge, Melissa grabbed for Amelia’s hand, gave it a squeeze, watched as the other woman’s eyes came to hers, wrinkled with anxiety.

“Hey,” Melissa said. “They’ll turn up. Okay? They’re going to be all right.”

Amelia breathed out. “You think so?”

Melissa nodded. “They probably just want to get away from all this for a while. Right? I mean, it’s pretty stressful. I don’t really want to be dealing with any of this right now. Do you?”

Amelia gave a hesitant laugh. “No,” she admitted. “No, I don’t.”

“They’re probably just… I don’t know, where do teenagers go when they want to be alone? The mall? A friend’s house? Have you thought about calling the police?”

Amelia gave her a grim look. “I did think about it. But…have you seen the news this morning?”

Melissa hadn’t—but she didn’t even need to ask. She knew what Amelia was going to say before she said it.

“They’ve discovered Rose’s body,” Amelia said. “Up north. And now the Ramsey County Attorney says he’s bringing back the charges against Thomas. With all that—I thought maybe it would be best not to get the police involved. If we can find them ourselves…”

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