Elisabeth Naughton - Hold On To Me

“Sure thing. I’ll see you then. Just text me the time.”

Simone watched the teen climb in her car and drive off, then closed the door. Turning, she looked down the dark hall.

A tension headache kicked up behind her eyes. She pressed shaky fingers to her temples and told herself to stay calm. Focus on the most important things. Like where the hell she and Shannon were going to go. Maybe they should head north, to Washington, or perhaps northeast, toward Montana. Shannon probably wouldn’t mind seeing snow again.

God, Simone hated snow.

Thoughts spun out of control as she forced her feet up the stairs. She wasn’t going to sleep again tonight, she could already tell. Every second she stayed here was one more second they were closer to finding her. And she wasn’t about to let that happen.

She stopped at Shannon’s bedroom door, cracked it open an inch, and gently pushed. The heavy wood creaked, and she peaked inside. Her daughter lay curled under a pile of blankets, so many Simone couldn’t even see that telltale red hair that was just like her father’s.

A sigh escaped her lips. Shannon was still so mad at her. They hadn’t talked much since she’d picked Shannon up from Ryan and Kate’s, and she knew her daughter was hurting over the fact Mitch had cut and run, but Simone couldn’t do anything about that now. Someday, though, hopefully, Shannon would understand why she’d done everything. Someday maybe Mitch would too.

She pushed thoughts of the man who’d distracted her way too much over the last few months from her mind and crossed soundlessly to Shannon’s queen-size bed. The mattress sagged when she sat, and love for a daughter she’d never even wanted warmed the cold space in her chest.

“I love you, Nannon,” she said softly, using the nickname Steve had given Shannon because she hadn’t been able to say her own name until she was three. “Even if you don’t think I do. We have to stick together, baby. Everything always turns out okay when we do.”

She ran her hand over the lump beneath the covers. But instead of the hard shoulder she expected to touch, her hand sank into softness.

“What the…?” She tugged the blanket back and stared down at a lump of pillows.

A gasp ripped from her chest, and Simone pushed to her feet. Scenarios—mostly bad—filled her mind.

They'd been here. They'd taken her daughter. Panic dragged the air from her chest. She'd wasted valuable time at the office when she should have just grabbed Shannon and run.

A shimmer of white on the floor caught her attention, and she stopped feet from the door. Leaning forward, she picked up the folded sheet of paper and opened it.

Her daughter’s curvy handwriting was scrawled across the page. A sixteen-digit number was separated into four groups. A credit card number, she realized. Followed by an expiration date. And below that, times. One next to the word “out.” The other beside “fairy.”

Her chest rose and fell with her quick breaths while she tried to make sense of what she was reading. Fairy…fairy… Shannon was a terrible speller. Had she meant to write ferry?

Oh holy God…

She was running away? Because she was so miserable? Because Simone was such a horrible mother? No, that couldn’t be. Simone stared at the number again. She didn’t recognize it, which meant it wasn’t hers. And Shannon didn’t even know how to use a credit card. Besides, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to run off by herself right now when they were packing to move, not without…

Everything inside Simone went cold. And in her mind, links clicked into place.

Not without help.

* * *

“Did you hear that?” Kate lifted her head from the pillow and looked toward the door.

Beside her, Ryan tossed a leg over her thigh and wrapped his hand around her waist. “I don’t hear anything. But since you woke me at this hour…”

He nuzzled her neck and pressed his rapidly growing erection against her hip. Tingles spread through Kate’s entire body, but the banging from somewhere downstairs overrode her simmering desire. She pushed against his shoulder. “That. You heard it that time, didn’t you?”

He stilled, lifted his head. When it happened again, his handsome features tightened. “That time I did.”

He tossed back the covers and tugged on the pajama bottoms she’d yanked off him only hours ago. “Stay here.”

Like that was happening.

Kate glanced toward the bedside clock as he jerked their bedroom door open and disappeared down the stairs—2:35 a.m. Pulling on her own T-shirt and pajama bottoms, she followed.

Cool air spilled into the entry hall. Ryan’s concerned voice floated up the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

A flustered and windblown Simone swept into the house. “I called several times, but you didn’t answer. Is Shannon here?”

“Shannon?” Kate moved from carpet on the stairs to tile in the foyer. Light from the chandelier cascaded over her friend’s messy dark hair. Simone's jacket hung off one shoulder, her eyes were red and bloodshot, and Kate was pretty sure the usually calm and collected attorney was wearing two different colored shoes. “No. Is she supposed to be? We haven’t seen her all day. What’s happened?”

“I don’t know.” Simone lifted her arms, then dropped them on a huff. “I think she might have run off. We had an argument last night, and today I’ve been at the office getting everything finalized. Melody—our babysitter—was with her. I already talked to her, and she said Shannon was in her room at eight.” She pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. “But that was like six hours ago. She could be anywhere by now. I have to find her.”

“Okay, calm down.” Ryan reached for Simone's shoulders and turned her to face him. He was so good in a crisis. Kate loved that about him. Loved that when she felt ready to flip out, he was the calm to her crazy. “Where would Shannon go besides our house?”

“I don’t know. But I found this on the floor in her room.” Simone held out a slip of paper. “It was just lying there like she dropped it. I don’t know whose credit card number that is—”

“I do.” Ryan looked up from the note in his hand and frowned.

He handed the note to Kate, exasperation reflecting clearly in his features. “Wait here, both of you. I have a feeling I know what’s going on.”

He disappeared up the steps. Kate turned Simone for the living room. “Do you want coffee? Something to drink?”

“A lobotomy, if you have it.” Simone dropped onto the couch and pressed her hands against her head. “She’s never run off before. I don’t understand. I know she’s mad at me but…”

Simone’s voice trailed off, and sensing her friend was at the end of her rope—and knowing what that was like because she’d been there herself—Kate sat next to her and wrapped an arm around Simone’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Shannon’s a smart kid. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably staying at another friend’s house. We’ll find her.”

“You don’t understand.” Simone dropped her hands and looked Kate’s way. And in her brown eyes, Kate saw heartache and anger and fear—true fear. The kind that can change a person in drastic ways. “There’s so much you don’t know.”

“About what?” Kate whispered.

Simone stared at her. Seemed to want to say something. Didn’t. Long seconds passed, then Simone’s eyes fell closed, and she lowered her head back into her hands. “You wouldn’t understand.”

There was more going on here than Simone's breakup with Mitch. Kate rubbed a hand down Simone’s back, hoping to soothe her friend, but knew instinctively that she couldn’t. Footsteps from the direction of the stairs brought both their heads up.

Ryan and a very sleepy Julia stopped in the archway to the living room. “Katie? The note?”

Kate pushed from the couch, handed him the paper, and glanced at their daughter. Julia’s long hair was a mess of curls around her face, and her pajamas were wrinkled and pushed up one leg. She scrubbed at her eyes, but guilt was already slithering over her features.

Ryan handed the paper to Julia. “You wanna explain what this is?”

Hesitantly, Julia took the folded page, turned it over in her hands, and looked down. “It’s paper.”

“Don’t get smart with me, missy.” He opened the note and pointed at the writing. “Explain why Shannon had my credit card number.”

Julia’s eyes shifted back and forth. She looked everywhere but at the paper in her hands. Silence settled over the room, and Kate could all but feel the tension crackling higher with every passing second.

Finally, Julia looked up at her dad. “Okay, don’t get mad.”

Ryan wrapped one arm around his waist and pinched the bridge of his nose with his other hand. “Why do I cringe whenever you use that phrase?”

“I don't know.” Julia shrugged. “Maybe because I deliver it so well?”

“Julia,” Kate cut in, sensing Ryan’s waning patience. “Focus, and maybe we’ll reconsider grounding you for the rest of your life. Where is Shannon? Her mom’s worried sick.”

Julia’s guilty eyes darted to Simone, still seated on the couch, then shifted back to Kate.

“You’re already busted, so you might as well fess up.” Ryan crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her. “At this point, your only hope is to throw yourself on the mercy of the court.”

Julia cringed. “You're not gonna like the answer.”

“Talk,” Ryan snapped.

Julia sighed. “In Washington. She’s probably already on Whidbey Island by now. She went to find Uncle Mitch.”

Tate Kendrick leaned back in his chair and looked across the mom-and-pop bar. “That, my friend, is exactly what you need to take your mind off things.”

Mitch turned to watch the leggy blonde in the short skirt and apron Tate had been eyeing most of the night head across the room. She turned and sent Tate a wicked smile, licking her lips to draw attention to her plump mouth.

“Not interested.” Mitch looked back at their table and poured another inch of Jamison into the tumbler in his hand. He swirled the golden liquid in the glass, then downed it in one swallow that burned a path of heat straight to his gut. “I’m done with women.”

Music from a jukebox across the room echoed classic eighties music. Pool balls clacked in the adjacent room. Dragging his attention from the blonde at the bar, Tate grinned Mitch’s way. “Done with women? Fine. But don’t get any ideas. You’re not sleeping in my bed tonight.”

Mitch rolled his eyes. “I know this might come as a shock, Kendrick, but not everyone on the planet thinks you’re a rock god.”

Tate chuckled and went back to watching the blonde. “Only the ones who matter, old man.”

Sighing, Mitch leaned back in his seat and looked down at the empty glass. A little voice in the back of his head told him he should really stop drinking, but at the moment, he couldn’t find a legitimate reason to listen. He was supposed to be heading to British Columbia and the work site, but he’d gotten off the plane in Seattle instead and hopped a ferry out to Whidbey Island. He and Tate had been friends since college, when the freshman upstart had joined the baseball team and he and Ryan had decided to take Tate under their wing during their senior year. He was a few years younger, a whole lot cockier, and ever since his band, Kendrick, had taken off the last few years, a hell of a lot more obnoxious. But if there was one person Mitch knew he could get drunk with and not have to spill his guts to about everything that had happened with Simone, it was Tate.

Not that Tate wouldn’t understand. But thankfully—at least for Mitch—the guy didn’t do emotions. In fact, in all the years Mitch had known him, he couldn’t remember a single time he’d heard Tate talk about anything deeper than how much he loved his stupid band.

“You look like shit, you know,” Tate said, lifting the Corona bottle to his lips while he continued to flirt with the blonde. “You go up to BC looking like that and every one of your big-oil coworkers is gonna know you got your ass handed to you by a girl.”

Mitch frowned and reached for the bottle again. It wobbled in his vision, but he wrapped his hand around the cool glass and slowly lifted it so he could pour again. “Thanks for the advice. You’re not so hot either, music man. That soul patch looks like something died on your face.”

Tate chuckled and rubbed his thumb over the patch of hair on his chin. “The chicks dig it.

“The chicks dig your money and celebrity status. Trust me, they hate the pubes on your chin. They’re just too starstruck to tell you.”