mind was all too clear. And suddenly, I was stone-cold sober.
“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling simultaneously sick and numb. “Julia actually…did…” I couldn’t finish, but swallowed hard and sank into an over-stuffed leather chair. When I’d heard enough, my mind snapped into gear, making the decision. “Okay, okay. Don’t do anything else for now. I’m coming home.” I was speed-dialing Julia’s cell a split-second later. Voicemail. Like I feared.
Just as I ended the call, the library door flew open.
“There you are.” Henry’s voice boomed brightly across the room. He looked like heaven, pure heaven. All I wanted to do was run to him, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t bear to tell him the truth.
“I’ve been looking all—” His smile dropped and he stopping in place. “Are you…?”
I squeezed my stinging eyes shut but heard him rush forward, felt him take my hands.
“What’s wrong?” His voice was almost panicky. When I opened my eyes, he was kneeling in front of me.
“I need to go home,” I managed to say. “Right now.”
Henry’s eyes were large like black Frisbees.
“I need to go home right now,” I repeated. When I attempted to stand, he held me down.
“No.” His voice was gruff and his grip tightened. “You’re not leaving me now. What happened?”
I tried again to stand, but every limb in my body was weak. The next second, his arms were around me, pulling me to the floor beside him.
“Tell me,” he said in a low voice. “Let me help if I can. Please.”
“I just talked to Anabel,” I said, breathing hard.
“Anabel,” Henry repeated, staring into my eyes. “Your roommate?”
I nodded, trying to hold it together. “She told me, she…she flipped out and took off. She’s been depressed, I knew that. Maybe I shouldn’t have left her. And now she’s gone.”
“Anabel?”
“Not Anabel.” I sniffed, dropping my eyes, not able to look at him as I continued. “Julia,” I whispered. “She ran away…with Alex.”
All was silent; neither of us so much as breathed. Henry’s face was gray and still. His inscrutable eyes drifted from mine to the empty space beside me.
“Julia,” he said. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, briefly recapping the phone call.
“They left together last night, so it’s been hours,” I said. “She’s unstable; she hasn’t been herself for months. I thought she was getting better, but she actually mentioned something about Alex a while ago. I…” I put a hand over my mouth. “I thought she was kidding.”
Henry’s grip on me slackened. He stood up, leaving me on the floor, alone.
“You know Alex, what he’s done to other…” I couldn’t complete the sentence. “I have no idea where they went, but I have to try and find her, or at least be home when she comes back.”
Henry was standing in front of a large window, staring out at nothing. The morning sun was streaming through a slit in the drapes, shining on him like a spotlight piercing the dark room. It should’ve been a beautiful sight, but there was nothing beautiful about his face when he turned around. He wouldn’t even look at me.
“You understand why I have to go,” I said.
He fingered his chin. “Today?”
“As soon as possible.” Gripping the chair behind me, I pulled myself to my feet.
“Driving?” he asked.
I nodded then attempted to call for Mel, but the tall room seemed to swallow my voice.
“It’s twelve hundred miles,” he pointed out.
I shot him a glance, and his expression showed that he wished he hadn’t said anything. I made my way to the door with no other thought than getting on my way, no time to spare.
“Wait,” Henry said from behind. “You don’t need to drive. We have a plane.”
“No, I couldn’t—”
A phone was already at his ear.
Nothing specific was given as a reason for our hasty removal and there was no time for
Just as I was about to start up the metal stairs, Henry caught my wrist. “Yes, right, but just hold on a sec.” He was looking directly at me but I could tell he was talking on his phone, then he held it away from his ear. “Spring,” he said in a rush, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” He held my gaze for just a moment before he let go of my wrist and went back to his phone call. I didn’t even have time to reply before Mel was pushing me up the stairs to board the plane.
“What’s our plan?” she asked as we taxied down the runway.
Still a bit shaken and still feeling where Henry had been holding my wrist, I shut my eyes, my mind whirling too fast. “I don’t have one,” I admitted.
“Remind me,” Mel added. “What exactly did Henry’s letter say about where Alex took Cami. Maybe there’s something that can help.”
I opened my eyes to peer out the window. I could see Henry leaning against the Jeep, arms folded, talking to Cami as he stared toward the plane. Whatever he’d just told her sent both hands flying over her gaping mouth. Then she reached out and grabbed her brother’s arm, shaking him.
Chapter 35
Melanie and I didn’t speak much during our flight home. Henry arranged for a rental car to be waiting for us at the airport in San Francisco to keep for as long as required. I was grateful for this, because I wasn’t in the presence of mind to consider that detail. He also assured that my car would be returned to me as soon as possible.
“I’m going to your house,” Mel said as I was about to make the turn onto her street.
“You don’t have to,” I said wearily. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“I can sit there with you until she comes back,” she insisted. “So shut up.”
“Thanks,” I said, and hung a U-turn toward home.
Anabel was perched on a barstool in the kitchen when we walked in. She looked worried and tired, like I felt. My first impulse was to grab her by the shoulders and scold, knowing that—with her recent track record—this must somehow be her fault. But now wasn’t the time for blame.
“Tell us what we don’t know,” I requested as I sat beside her, Mel on her other side.
“I saw them leave together,” she answered, diving right in. “Alex was over here and—”
“Why was Alex in this house?” I interrupted.
Anabel stared down at her nails. “We’ve kind of been hanging out this summer.”
I glared at my roommate. “I told you to stay away from him.”
“I know.” She toyed with the ends of her hair. “But campus is a total ghost town and he’s cute—”
“Whatever. Why did Julia take off with him if he’s been hanging out with you?”
“Like I said, he was over here. It was weird. Julia was flirting with him, like, hardcore. When I left the room for a minute and came back, they were talking, he was
My blood turned ice-cold and I glanced at Mel. Her face was white.
“I’m pretty sure he’d been drinking a little.” Anabel bit her lip. “Well, maybe more than a little. And I know she’d been drinking a lot.”
“And?”
“Around midnight, he made a phone call. As soon as he left the room, Julia started bawling. She was hysterical, going on and on about needing to, ya know, get some. Have you ever heard her talk like that?”
