Page 80 of To Belong Together
“Call me back.” He hung up and peered down the road. The sports car’s growl had faded into traffic. A multitude of brake lights glowed in the direction she’d gone, but he doubted any of them were Erin’s.
“Show’s over. Back inside.” Arms spread like a bodyguard, Gannon herded wedding guests away. Or tried to.
Addie stood next to him, also motioning people to move on.
Between his friends’ shoulders, raised phones and curious faces were aimed John’s direction.
So he’d commandeered another of Kate’s moments. Or rather, Kate had hurled this one at him. Were he and his sister even now? Probably not, because once he finally talked with Erin, she would understand his explanation. Erin would believe him.
Kate would be the one who came out looking bad.
Gannon let one person through as he moved everyone else back. A woman in a white dress, hair professionally pinned up, shoulders bare in the cold night air. Her expression somehow remained neutral, but anger stole John’s breath like a strong wind.
He sucked in enough air to unleash on her, but he wouldn’t berate his sister as she stood there in her wedding dress.
He leveled his voice. “Stacy says you lied to Erin.”
“You’ve hurt me too.”
“Never on purpose. Since when is this how we deal with problems?”
Kate looked away and crossed her arms. Tendons bunched at the corner of her jaw.
She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know her. Erin had told him not to lock people out, but he didn’t. Others held the keys, and even family refused to accept the love he was trying so hard to show.
All the years he’d been gone, he’d regularly checked in. He’d helped his sisters financially. He’d taken them on trips. He’d moved back to Wisconsin, happy because he could see family more. He’d tried to look out for Kate when he’d learned the truth about Tanner.
None of it had been enough.
Tanner had asked him to lie low. He’d do one better. He’d leave entirely.
“Congratulations, Kate.” He turned and started walking, following the trickle of pedestrians. He didn’t know where they were going, only that he’d never get far enough away.
Erin burst into her parents’living room. Mom sat primly on the gray couch. Susanna, her longtime friend, patted her hand. Their cell phones and the portable landline were on the coffee table.
“No word?”
Mom shook her head, her forehead crisscrossed with worry lines. Beneath her faded brown hair, her skin was ashen.
In contrast, Susanna looked composed and fashionable with her short manicured fingernails and carefully layered and dyed hair. She took to patting Mom’s hand again. “They’ll find him. They put it on the radio. The news. Social media. Usually, dementia patients don’t go far. So he’s in a populated area, and everyone’s looking. He’ll be found.”
Being found. That sounded so passive. Erin wouldn’t sit here and wait. “He went to the shop last time. Has someone checked there?”
Mom nodded.
“Okay.” Others would’ve searched the easy places. It was up to her, his daughter, who knew him like no one else, to use her special connection with him to think beyond the obvious and bring him home. “I’ll start searching. I’ll be in touch.”
Erin’s house was dark,the driveway empty. No garage stood on the property to hide a car, so she must not be there. In the passenger seat of Gannon’s SUV, John lit his phone screen. Still no call or text from her, and it’d been hours.
“Are you sure this is right?” Gannon asked.
Nothing about the night deserved to be labeled right, but according to the note in John’s phone, this was the place. Erin’s house. A small one-story with a burned-out streetlight in front.
“Erin Hirsh, right?” The glow from the backseat increased as Addie leaned forward. “I looked it up to double-check. It’s the right address.”
Gannon glanced at her phone screen, frowned, and studied the house again, dipping his head as if seeing the top of the house through the windshield would clarify matters.
“She’s not camped out on the roof.”
