Page 62 of First Impressions
“Oh Bethy, what has your sister done?” He hugged her back with tears in his eyes.
“Beethhh!” Her mom cried her name. She let go of her dad and knelt down beside her mother. “Where is she, Beth? Where is my darling little girl? Where is she?”
She grabbed her mom’s hands and whispered, “Shh, we’re going to find her. Uncle Phil is here to help dad. We’re going to find her, mom. It’s going to be ok.” She felt a tear slip loose, and in spite of her thoughts only moments ago, she saw her mother’s completely genuine dismay.
Jane came over to see if her mom would drink a cup of tea, allowing Beth to stand and join her father, Phil, and Charles.
“Do you have any idea where they would have gone?” Phil asked.
“No. She didn’t say anything specific. She just said that they are running away.”
“Have you called the police?”
“Yes, but it hasn’t been forty-eight hours so they won’t file a ‘missing persons’ report yet.”
“Can’t you track her phone and see where it is?” Jane suggested, still sitting on the floor by her mom.
“The police already suggested that but she disabled the ‘Find My iPhone’ feature. We also tried using Kat’s phone to locate her through the ‘Find My Friends’, but she disabled that too,” her father replied defeated.
“Charles, you knew George; do you have any idea where they would go?” Beth asked him, grasping at straws.
“I don’t. I wish I did. He lived with Darcy and his father when I knew him but that was a long time ago. As far as I knew that was the only house he ever stayed at but after Robert passed away, everything went to Darcy and George left. I don’t even know where George was staying in the city because he certainly wasn’t staying with Darcy.”
“Would he try to go to one of Darcy’s other houses?” she continued.
“I don’t know. The only other one that they really stayed at sometimes when they were younger, aside from the Rockefeller house on the Hudson, was a house in Newport, Rhode Island,” Charles looked distressed and lowered his voice as he continued with his thought, “But I just don’t see him going there. He’d most likely stay with friends and if I had to be honest, I would look for places that Lydia might go because I can’t see George staying with her. He’s been in the country for almost two months now; the first month he spent trying to find Darcy and then when Darcy turned down his job request, he went looking for Georgiana to try to blackmail Darcy into giving him a job,” he said harshly, clearly disgusted by the lengths that man would go to get what he wanted.
“You don’t think he’ll hurt her, do you?” Beth asked him quietly, suddenly afraid that George might do something reckless to get rid of the problem.
“Oh no,” Charles said reassuringly. “I don’t think he’s capable of that. More likely he will just try to get her away from her family and friends and those who could pressure him into marrying her, which would mean losing his one potential tool for leverage against Darcy.”
“I don’t think it can hurt to check in Rhode Island, though,” Phil interjected.
“No, it can’t.”
“Who was the friend he was staying with in the city? We met him. Maybe Kat remembers. He could have taken her to his friend’s apartment or another residence that he owns.” Before anyone could respond, Beth turned toward Jane and asked, “Jane, can you go ask Kat if she remembers George’s friend’s name from the day we were at Saks?”
“Of course.” Jane got up and went to go find Kat who had been holed up in her room. She came back a minute later with the name:Ben Cole.
“I don’t know where he lives in the city, but I think his parents have a large house in the Hamptons,” Charles said.
“Why don’t I check there, John?” Phil asked. “You stay here with Irene in case she contacts you again or comes home.”
“No, I can’t. I have to go with you,” her father shook his head vigorously, insisting that he be a part of the search. “Beth and Jane can stay here with Irene and Kat. Right, Beth?”
“Of course Dad, whatever you need.”
Her father and Phil decided they would leave tomorrow morning, see if they could find Ben Cole in the city and if not head out to the Hamptons by noon. Beth and Jane chose to stay the night, too exhausted to think about going home.
In spite of everything that was going on, when Charles gave Jane a kiss before leaving for the night, it brought a smile to her face and Beth felt her heart clench, wishing she had Darcy to lean on and comfort her right now.
As she and Jane got into the guest bed that night, Beth noticed that her sister seemed unusually preoccupied.
“Is everything ok?” she asked. “I mean besides the Lydia stuff.”
“Yeah, I just…” she broke off as if she was debating whether to tell Beth or not. “You can’t say anything, which I know you won’t, but Charles asked me to marry him.”
“What?! Jane, that’s amazing!”
