Chapter Seven
I wake up startled, as if I had been falling in my dream, arms jerking back to catch my fall. The bed where I land is warm and soft—and very, very big. It’s not clear for two minutes, three, that I’m alone in it. The piles of pillows don’t hold anyone but me.
Sheets cling to my damp skin as I sit up in bed, blinking at the wide empty space. My room is the size of an ordinary dorm room, and I like that about it. It’s small. And it’s mine.
This room belongs to Avery James, who is basically modern-day royalty. Antique furniture and artwork tastefully decorate the large space. On the far coffee table I see the half-empty popcorn bowl we left and a couple of green glass water bottles. The teal scales on my phone case glitter in the morning light. Pushing away the heavy down comforter, I get out of bed and stumble across the room.
The phone blinks low battery at me, having sat here all night without charging.
The time is ten o’clock, way later than I usually wake up. I got used to rising early working at the diner back home. Sleeping until eight when I get up for class still feels like a luxury.
“Avery?” I ask out loud. My voice seems to echo back at me.
I glance at the bathroom, where the door sits half-open, the claw-foot bathtub dark and dry. Maybe she went downstairs to talk to the staff for some reason. She does own the hotel, even if she doesn’t usually get involved in operations.
Or maybe Gabriel came home early and surprised her.
Then why didn’t I wake up and hear him? And where did they go? It would be just like Avery to not want to wake me. They could have found an empty hotel room on a lower floor and left me to sleep.
The more I think about it, that must be what happened. I certainly hope that’s what happened. Because Avery has been so worried about him. I can’t imagine her relief to have him safely home.
Something buzzes faintly in the room, and I turn back toward the bed. It’s coming from the mountain of white sheets and blankets. I pull aside pillows, letting them fall to the floor like I’m excavating something. And the results of my dig are a phone, this one with a pink and black Kate Spade phone case that I recognize as being Avery’s. Why would she leave her suite without her phone?
On the screen I can see Gabriel Miller, his stern expression and golden eyes startling.
For a brief moment relief lightens my chest. I can imagine how it played out—a middle-of-the-night text from Gabriel, Avery taking the elevator down to meet him, both of them so giddy to be together they found the first empty room to be alone.
And then in the morning, wondering where her phone went. Gabriel calling it to see if it rings in their temporary room. It makes perfect sense in my head, so sweet it makes me smile.
That’s how I answer the phone—smiling.
“This is Avery’s phone speaking.”
Static bounces back at me. “Hello? Avery?”
I recognize Gabriel Miller’s growl of a voice even with the bad connection. And his concern comes through loud and clear. My skin prickles. Someone walking on your grave. That’s what Mama would say. But I’m more concerned with Avery than me. “Gabriel? This is Penny.”
A crackle, more interference than sound. “Where are you? Is Avery with you?”
There’s a touch of relief in his voice, as if he’s glad to have reached me, as if he’s sure that I’ll answer, yes, she’s right here. As sure as I’d been that everyone was okay when I picked up the phone.
“No,” I say, my voice almost hushed. The situation seems that serious. The luxe penthouse suite suddenly seems that sinister. “I’m in her suite. I spent the night, but when I woke up, she was gone.”
He curses in a long and foul string, punctuated by crackles and snaps of the phone line. “Are there any calls last night on her phone?”
Putting the call on speaker, I flip through her iPhone until I get to the recent calls. “Looks like something came in at 1:35 a.m. last night. Or this morning, I guess. A missed call.”
“That was me at the airport.” Gabriel mutters. “What’s after that?”
“There’s nothing else.”
So where did she go? And why didn’t I wake up when she did? I was only a foot away from her in bed, but probably too exhausted from a full course load and working in the kitchen to hear her leave. Guilt eats at my throat like acid.
He swears again. “I’ll call Professor Wilson. Can you look around the Emerald?”
Professor Anna Wilson is her graduate advisor and close friend, after they went to a Greek excavation together this past summer. I can’t imagine why Avery would have gone to campus on a random Saturday morning, without her phone, leaving me sleeping in her room. There aren’t really mythology research emergencies. But if she went anywhere near Smith College, Professor Wilson would know about it.
“I’ll ask my manager,” I promise. “We’ll find her.”
My mind is still a little sluggish from sleep. I might have thought I drank too much alcohol if we’d had any at all. Waking up in a new place, finding my friend mysteriously gone—it’s all leaving me disoriented. I struggle for good reasons she might have left and come up empty.
“Gabriel,” I say slowly. “Why did you know to call this morning?”
It filters in, the flick of a lightbulb, that he had been worried when he first called. That he has a terrible connection, but he still knew to find her. He knew she might be missing.
He’s silent for one beat, two.
Long enough for horrible possibilities to fill the empty space in my mind.
“We talked yesterday,” he says, which doesn’t answer the question. “She told me about your father.”
It’s that feeling I have when I’m on the right track with a proof, more instinct than logic. I know there are intellectual cogs working in the background, connecting clues before I can formulate the numbers on paper. Or say the words out loud. But right in this moment it feels more like intuition.
Two people missing. “Do you think they’re connected?”
“No,” he says, but I’m not sure I believe him.
The slap of muscle against bone, my heart pumping in wild expansion. “I don’t understand how they could be connected. I talked to her last night before we went to sleep. She even told me I should stay here and wait it out. That I shouldn’t leave.”
“She’s right,” he says. “You should stay there.”
But it doesn’t sound like agreement. It’s more like a warning.
I press my palm to my forehead, feeling like the penthouse is spinning. Or maybe it’s just me. “Tell me what happened. You must have found something. Something to make you worry about her. What was it?”
“Ask everyone at the hotel if they’ve seen her. Pull them out of bed if you have to. And call me the second you hear anything, understand? I’ll be on the first flight there, but still call me. I’ll make it work.”
“Gabriel.”
He makes a hoarse sound. “I always worry. Ever since…”
Ever since we found out that her biological father had stalked her and hurt her. The same man who assaulted me. Except Jonathan Scott is dead, isn’t he? He’s not a threat anymore. So why do I still feel afraid?
There are bands around my chest. One for memory and one for fear. And another for watching my future crumble. There’s no pretending nothing is wrong. No Dr. Stanhope and the impossible dream of a different life. The roots of the city run way too deep to really let me go.