Chapter 12: Theo

Tuesday, May 5th

I was stopped by the sound of Kara’s voice calling my name. “Theo. Hey, Theo. Wait up.”

Slowing my pace, I reluctantly held the elevator for her. If only I’d left work a few minutes earlier. I liked Kara but had an inkling of what she might say, and it was a conversation I’d been dreading.

Once inside the elevator, she turned to me, her expression serious. “I haven’t seen Haley around lately, and she hasn’t returned my texts. What’s going on?”

“She took a temporary leave of absence for personal reasons,” I answered, quoting the standard response the guys and I agreed to for questions about Haley.

“Oh.” She paused, her brows pinching in apparent concern. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, don’t worry.” I tried to smile, but it felt forced.

Kara gave me a look that said she didn’t quite believe me. “Will you at least tell her to let me know if she needs anything?”

“Sure,” I fibbed.

“I hope she comes back soon,” she said as the doors opened to the parking garage.

“Me too,” I muttered, referring to more than Haley’s return to the office.

I drove toward campus, not even remotely excited about my favorite class. Ugh. I couldn’t wait for this quarter to end so I could capitalize on the brief window before classes restarted to find Haley. I thought being separated from her while living in LA was terrible, but that was nothing compared to this. At least then I knew she was safe at home with Knox.

Now, I hated wondering where she was, constantly worrying about what she was doing, and knowing she couldn’t possibly be happy. The two-and-a-half weeks she had been gone felt like a lifetime, and we were no closer to finding her. Shit. How could she just vanish?

Meanwhile, life marched on as usual—I still attended class, put in my hours at Zenith, and biked almost every day, but it all felt hollow. Though I always struggled with maintaining focus, since Haley left it was completely shot, like I had a one-track mind honed in on her. Even Ethan’s dismissal from the team, which was finalized yesterday, seemed like a minor blip on the radar. I knew rumors would circulate at the office, and it sucked that things turned out this way, but eventually the drama would settle and our team would regroup.

Sitting in class, I made no attempt to pay attention, and wondered for the millionth time what prompted Haley to leave. This wasn’t the first time that I faced abandonment, but I was determined not to let her go without a fight. I hated feeling helpless, and no matter how much I tried to escape it, the fact remained that she was gone.

Facial recognition software continually scanned cameras in San Francisco, starting with the bus station, and we had since expanded outward with our search. So far, we knew that she took a transfer bus to a smaller station and visited the bank. But San Francisco, like any large city, was ideal for hiding, thanks to the expansive geographic area and bustling population.

Technically, Patrick's visit to the safe deposit box was successful, considering he accessed the contents without any trouble. But we were still no closer to understanding Haley’s motives or ascertaining her current whereabouts. The only clues she left were a handwritten e-mail address and the driver's license Jackson made for her. As much as it saddened me to know she was forced to ditch what I thought of as her real name, at least we knew for certain not to hunt for “Haley Jones.”

As expected, the searches we ran on her dad’s new alias found in the safe deposit box yielded nothing. We were working under the assumption that it was an emergency identity that had yet to be used, but we set an alert on the name so we’d be aware of any future hits.

Thanks to Liam’s trip to Vegas, we hacked Jessica’s e-mail account and set up an alert to monitor for messages from the generic e-mail address Haley left in the safe deposit box. We had also combed Haley’s laptop and work computer, searching for clues without success. And, we were all holding our breaths for Chase to finally recover the data on her phone. Between her phone and e-mail address, we had to find something helpful. Had to.

I met Chase after class ended, hoping he would have an update on Haley. Before I could even ask, he simply shook his head, his silence telling me everything I needed to know.

“Have you figured out where you’re going to live next year?” I asked.

“No,” Chase sighed, “but I have until the fifteenth to give the leasing office an answer.”

“I don’t know if you’re interested, but Knox and I would be happy for you to move into the loft. You could take the spare room down the hall from mine, although we’d have to share the bathroom.”

“Really?” he asked, that one word giving away his hesitance and relief.

“Of course. We should have offered before, but you know . . .” I shrugged, trying to convey that it was an oversight rather than a slight.

“Yeah, I know. Too much change at once. I’m ready for things to calm down again.” I noticed the circles under his eyes and knew he had been running on little to no sleep lately, like most of us.

“I’m ready to find Haley,” I said wistfully.

He paused, as if unsure whether he should speak. “I know you say that, but do you really want her here if she doesn’t want to be?”

“It didn’t stop us the first time,” I snipped back.

“But maybe it should have,” he answered solemnly.

“The past doesn’t matter. She belongs with us. I’m sure she isn’t happy, and I know we aren’t,” I said almost angrily. I didn’t want to argue with Chase, but I couldn’t understand his reluctance to bring Haley home.

He nodded but didn’t speak as we walked across campus. We had faced stressful situations as a team in the past, but it seemed like our current issues were pushing us to the brink. I hoped there would be a break in the search for Haley soon, before the team ended up broken beyond repair.