Gunner didn’t go far. He didn’t want to leave the women behind, but hearing the story of Sam, yet again, was more than he could handle. The two of them had been something special, but they’d also been kids. Sam getting pregnant had been a mistake, and they’d followed through with it for all the right reasons and some of the wrong ones. There was never a single moment when he regretted Grace being in his life, but if Sam hadn’t died, he sometimes wondered. It was easy to imagine the three of them as some kind of perfect little family, but things had been tense between him and Samantha throughout her pregnancy, and it had gotten worse once the baby had arrived. She’d thought that once they had a child, she’d be able to tell him to walk away from everything he’d ever considered important. If she’d asked, maybe things would be different, but she’d just handed it down, without a single conversation.
He knew that she’d called Laurel, in tears, after that last fight. He’d never asked what Sam had said about him. He just knew that Laurel was already on the way when he called her to tell her that her sister was gone. He knew she blamed him. He could hardly be upset with her about that; he blamed himself as well.
But it had also been years now. While he still missed Samantha and wondered what their life might’ve been like together, he’d also moved on. He couldn’t shackle himself to a dead woman and spend his entire life trying to fulfill a promise that had been unacceptable when she was alive and was even less acceptable now. He’d never particularly bothered putting words to the sensation before. After all, he hadn’t met anyone he wanted to spend more than just occasional time with. Lola, however, was something entirely different. She made him want to work things out, and find a way to let go of the baggage of his past and move forward with a more settled mind.
So, he walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind him, and hoped that Laurel would somehow avoid poisoning Lola against him. She could do it, he was sure. After all, it wasn’t like he and Lola had some deep connection based on years of experience and understanding. They were barely even friends. But he knew he wanted more.
He circled the floor twice; it was as much as he could manage. He went back, ready to tear the door off its hinges. He forced himself to take a deep, slow breath before he twisted the handle. In front of him, as he opened the door, he saw a surprising tableau. Lola and Laurel were exactly where he’d left them, but both of them wore expressions that blended horror and fear.
“What? What’s happening?”
Both women had their phones in their hands, he noticed. Laurel was holding hers like it was about to bite her, and Lola was frantically typing before she saw him in the doorway. She put her phone down and gestured frantically at him. He blinked before walking in. He watched as Laurel tapped something on her phone screen and lowered it, with a shaking hand, towards the table.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Daddy?”
The small voice came out of the phone’s speaker, and he dropped down to his knees where he was. He tried to say the words, say her name, but his throat was closed so tight that all that came out was a small whistle. Tears were streaming down Laurel’s face as well, and she squeezed her eyes shut. It was Lola who saved both of them.
“He’s here, Gracie,” she said. Her voice was shaking, but it worked, which was more than he was able to say for himself. “I’m here, too — this is Ms. Sykes — and so is your mom. We’re all here. Where are you?”
“He says I can’t tell you, or he’ll take the phone away,” Grace said. Gunner felt the fury he’d managed to keep banked for the past few days beginning to surge. Some man had his baby girl, and maybe he hadn’t exactly been a model parent, he was still her father, and he was going to get his daughter back. He was going to figure it out.
“Okay, that’s fine,” Lola said, and he wanted to throw something at her, even as he understood what she was doing. “We want you to do what he says. We want you to stay safe. Understand? We’re going to find you, but you need to listen and stay safe. How’s your breathing?”
“He gave me my medicine,” Grace replied, and Gunner felt something start to loosen up inside of him. “It was bad before that, but it’s better now. Ms. Sykes, I wish you guys would come and get me soon,” she started to say, and then there was a shift. Another person on the line, a man. He didn’t recognize the voice, but when he glanced over at Lola, her eyes were wide, and her complexion was drained and ashy. It wasn’t too much of a leap to guess that it was the man who’d taken her from the park.
“So glad you could all be together,” the man said, and whatever had loosened tightened up again. Gunner’s hands clenched into such tight fists that he could feel his knuckles creaking. “Right now, I’m just letting you all know that the kid is okay. I’ll be in touch soon so that we can figure out the next steps.” And then Laurel’s screen went dark as the call ended.
***
Laurel screamed. Gunner punched the wall hard enough that he left knuckle prints in the plaster. Lola felt tempted to do something equally dramatic, but she couldn’t quite decide what the right move was. In her own house, she would’ve thrown something. Shattered a mug and left a nice coffee stain on the paint to always remind her of how much this moment hurt. That would be a good place to start. But with it not being her mug or her walls, she wasn’t sure how that would go over.
She’d never been a screamer, not like that, and the last time she punched a wall, she broke a knuckle and almost needed surgery. So, she settled on mostly sitting still and clenching her hands into fists until her nails threatened to split the skin on her palms. And she memorized the numbers she’d seen on the phone’s screen. She repeated them, over and over, until they were carved into her heart. She had a funny feeling about those numbers, and what they would mean. But if the man had meant to talk to all of them, really talk to all of them, he would have. She glanced out the window and wondered. Could he see us right now?
There was shouting, and she could just barely tune into it. Laurel wanted to go to the police; Gunner still thought that was a mistake. Every so often they would look at her like she was destined to be the tie-breaking vote. She couldn’t find a word to say. She loved Grace to pieces, but she was a teacher, they were her parents. This wasn’t her decision to make. She knew she’d be in trouble if they called the cops, but she also trusted Gunner to do everything he could to protect her. Even now.
She didn’t know what to do, not really. She just tried to stay still and quiet until the fighting was done. If it was done.
When Gunner snapped her name, she was pretty sure that it was not the first time. His face was lit up with fury, and his shoulders were a line of pure tension. She glanced at Laurel, who had retreated back into her blanket fort, and was clutching her phone as she hit redial again and again. No one picked up, but she just kept redialing and letting it ring.
“Lola,” he said, and this time his voice was softer. “We need to go. I need to find Horse.”
“Okay,” Lola replied and pushed herself to her feet. She recited the numbers one more time, making sure they were securely lodged in her mind, and then looked back at Laurel. “Sue will be back soon. She’ll take care of you, okay? We’re going to find Grace. Somehow, we’re going to get this figured out.”
Laurel nodded, and Lola followed Gunner out the door.