It’s not far back to her house, and thank God for that. I’ve already been away from her for too long. I think of what we should do today. We have to work out some plan of action that suits both of us, but I’m not spoiling today with reality. Real life will have to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is when I’ll get it together. In all likelihood I’ll move to LA and start a business there. I’ve been wanting to leave my father’s business for a long time now and Taylor is the perfect excuse.

I’m whistling to myself as I jog up the front steps, then I remember at the last second that I locked the door behind me. I lean on the bell for a second and expect to hear her feet pounding down the stairs, starving for muffins. She’s a fiend when it comes to fried apple muffins.

I don’t hear her stomp down the stairs. I don’t hear anything.

Maybe she’s in the shower? I ring again, then knock a few times and call. Still nothing. I look around—the street’s empty. No sign of her.

I call, knock again, and press my ear to the door. I don’t hear a sound. It feels as if there is no one home.

“What the hell?” I mutter and move towards the window. It’s locked, with the curtains only half-drawn. It’s dark in there. There isn’t even any light in the upstairs hall.

I pull out my phone to see if she called. She hasn’t, and there aren’t any texts. Dread blooms in my chest. What the hell game is she playing? No, not a game. She doesn’t play games. There has to be a good reason. Thank God I had the presence of mind to exchange numbers with her last night. I call her number and wait, but there’s no answer.

“Taylor, what’s going on? I got here and you’re gone. Tell me you’re okay, please,” I say into the answering machine. I hang up and pace back and forth a few times in front of her door, replaying everything from this morning. No, nothing happened between us that would make her leave. There’s got to be something else.

I cup my hands around my eyes and lean in to peer through the window again. I have to wait a minute for my eyes to adjust to the almost nonexistent light. Slowly, the furniture starts to come into focus. I see the couch and the coffee table …

Wait. I squint to get a better look. There’s a pair of sunglasses sitting on the table. I’ve never seen Taylor wear a pair like that, with the interlocking C’s on the arms, up by the hinges. Chanel.

I do know somebody else who wears the exact same sunglasses.

I take a step back, away from the window. No. It’s not possible. Why would she come here? Yeah, they could be somebody else’s sunglasses, but there are very few women in this town who can afford to fly to New York for their sunglasses and it would be too big a coincidence for another Chanel-wearing woman to pay Taylor a visit while I was gone. Was she watching the house? Waiting for the moment when I was away? To do what?

“Are you looking for Taylor?”

I spin on my heel at the sound of the loud, almost angry voice. I recognize the old lady standing on the sidewalk, leaning on a walker with a Schnauzer on a leash in front of her. It’s a small town, after all. There are no strangers. Mrs. Davenport, who lives three doors away, at least she did eight years ago.

“Yes. Do you know where she went, Mrs. Davenport?” I give her a smile. A little charm never hurt. From the way her frown lines only deepen, I guess charm hasn’t worked on her since Roosevelt was President. The first one.

“She ran out of here and into the back of a long black car. They practically ran me down.” She sniffs like she was hurt when I bet she could kill a bull with that walker of hers.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where she was going, would you?”

“Nope,” she says and carries on her way. It’s not like I need her to tell me, anyway. There’s only one other place in town where Taylor would run to. Her hotel is fifteen minutes away, twenty if there’s traffic. I grab the muffins—why they matter, I have no idea—and rush back to the car. It’s about time for this thing to show me what it’s capable of.

I slam my foot on the gas, my hands are clenched around the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles are white. Hell, I don’t even have Victoria’s number anymore. If I did, I’d call that bitch and ask her what the hell she’s been smoking to make her think she had a right to go to Taylor. What the fuck did she tell her? What the hell could she possibly say? Whatever it was, it was enough to make Taylor run away.

When I left, she was laughing and happy and relieved when I told her I wasn’t going away for good. A girl didn’t turn on a dime like that without any reason. She wouldn’t do just the thing she was afraid I would do. If there was an emergency, like something back home, she wouldn’t have run away without saying a word. I would’ve gotten a phone call, a note on the door, something. Not radio silence. Not an empty house.

Victoria always hated Taylor. I can just imagine her going to the house once she knew I wasn’t around and telling Taylor all sorts of shit about me, about us being together years ago. I’ll never forget those days, when my mother tried everything she could think of to shove Victoria and me into a relationship. It didn’t work. I could never get past the fact that she hated Taylor. I couldn’t be with someone who bore such malice to the woman I loved.

Besides she wasn’t Taylor. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t even anybody I liked very much. Even if I couldn’t have Taylor, I didn’t want some pale copy of her without half the heart or kindness of the original.

I must look like a crazy person when I reach the front desk at the hotel, the car still idling in front of the entrance. The clerk looks at me with mournful eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Finley, but she’s checked out.”

My stomach drops like I’m taking the first drop on a roller coaster. “Excuse me?”

“Yes. You just missed her. She left more than half an hour ago.” A shrug, then back to business as usual. He has no idea I’m standing here with my heart somewhere around my ankles.

She has to be at the airport. If she thinks I’m letting her go without a fight, she’s out of her mind. I rush back to the car and floor it, tires squealing as I peel out onto the street.

I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m not letting her go again.