“We don’t open for another hour,” she informs me.
“I’m Reed Royal, Ella’s…” What am I? Her boyfriend? Her stepbrother? What? “Friend.” Hell, I’m not even that. “Is she here? There’s a family emergency.”
“No, she never showed up.” Lucy’s brow creases with worry. “I called her and she didn’t answer. She’s such a good employee, I thought maybe she was sick and couldn’t call in.”
My heart sinks. Ella’s never missed a day at the bakery even though it requires her to get up at the ass-crack of dawn and work nearly three hours before classes start.
“Oh, okay, she must be home in bed,” I mumble, backing away.
“Wait a minute,” Lucy calls after me. “What’s going on? Does your father know Ella is missing?”
“She’s not missing, ma’am,” I call back, already halfway to my car. “She’s at home. Like you said, sick. In bed.”
I peel out of the parking lot and call Coach. “I’m not gonna make it to practice. Family emergency,” I repeat.
I shut out the shouted expletives from Coach Lewis. He winds down after a few minutes. “All right, son. But I expect your ass to be in uniform bright and early tomorrow.”
“Yessir.”
Back home once again, I find our housekeeper, Sandra, has arrived to make breakfast.
“You see Ella?” I ask the plump brunette.
“Can’t say that I have.” Sandra checks the clock. “She’s usually gone by now. So are you, for that matter. What’s going on? Don’t you have practice?”
“Coach had a family emergency,” I lie. I’m so damn good at lying. It becomes almost second nature when you hide the truth every hour of every day.
Sandra tsks. “Hope it’s nothing too serious.”
“Me, too,” I answer. “Me, too.”
Upstairs, I enter the room I should have checked before racing off. Maybe she crept in while I was trying to find her. But Ella’s bedroom is dead silent. Her bed is still made. The desk is spotless.
I check her bathroom, which also looks untouched. Ditto with the closet. All her stuff is hanging on matching wooden hangers. Her shoes are lined up in a neat row on the floor. There are unopened boxes and bags still stuffed with clothes that Brooke probably picked out for her.
Forcing myself not to feel bad about invading her privacy, I dig through her nightstand—empty. I flipped her room once, back when I still didn’t trust her, and she always kept a book of poetry and a man’s watch in the nightstand. The watch was an exact replica of my dad’s. Hers had belonged to Dad’s best friend Steve, Ella’s bio-dad.
I pause in the middle of the room and look around. There’s nothing here to indicate her presence. Not her phone. Not her book. Not her…oh hell no, her backpack is gone.
I tear out of the room and down the hall to Easton’s.
“East, wake up. East!” I say sharply.
“What?” He groans. “Is it time to get up?” His eyes flicker open and he squints. “Oh shit. I’m late for practice. Why aren’t you there already?”
He shoots out of bed, but I grab his arm before he can dart off. “We’re not going to practice. Coach knows.”
“What? Why—”
“Forget that right now. How much was your debt?”
“My what?”
“How much did you owe the bookie?”
He blinks at me. “Eight grand. Why?”
I do some quick math. “That means Ella’s got about two G’s left, right?”
“Ella?” He frowns. “What about her?”
“I think she ran.”
“Ran where?”
“Ran away. Ran off,” I growl. I shove away from the bed and stalk to the window. “Dad paid her to stay here. Gave her ten grand. Think about it, East. He had to pay this orphan who was stripping for a living ten grand to come live with us. And he was probably gonna pay that to her every month.”
“Why’d she leave?” he asks in confusion, still half asleep.
I continue to stare out the window. Once his grogginess wears off, he’ll put it together.
“What did you do?”
Yep, here we go.
The floor creaks as he whips around the room. Behind me I can hear him muttering curses under his breath while he dresses.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say impatiently. Turning back, I give him the rundown of the places I’ve been. “Where do you think she is?”
“She’s got enough for a plane ticket.”
“But she’s careful with her money. She hasn’t spent hardly any of it while she’s been here.”
Easton nods thoughtfully. Then we lock eyes and speak in unison, almost as if we’re the twins of the Royal household, instead of our brothers, Sawyer and Sebastian. “GPS.”
We call the GPS service Atlantic Aviation owns and that my dad installs in every car he’s ever bought. The helpful assistant tells us that the new Audi S5 is parked at the bus station.
We’re out the door before she even starts to recite the address.