AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lucy, what are you still doing there? I thought you were coming out here. We talked about this. I have a better storm shelter.”
All the Stones would be at the inn. It would be jam-packed now, since there were a lot of them. “I’ll come out to you.”
He was right: he had a better storm setup than she did at her house. She and Matt had planned on putting one in, providing a place where she would be safe from hurricanes. But they had never gotten around to it.
Her heart still hurt over Matt. It stung to know that he’d gone crawling back to his ex-wife.
“Lucy, are you there?”
She came back to the present. “Give me a sec to put the shutters down. I’ll be right out.” Lucy grabbed her remote and put her place on automatic lockdown. Steel shutters came flooding down.
She grabbed her purse and was headed out when her phone rang. She was going to ignore it; it was probably Raine, telling her to hurry. But she looked down and saw that it was from Matt. This caught her attention, and she pressed accept. “Hello?” Her heart raced, not from the impending hurricane, but because this was the first time he had called her.
“Luce, is Tatum with you?”
“Why would she be here?”
“We can’t find her. I’m worried.”
Lucy’s brain scrambled. She felt like she should do something. Try to get in contact with her. But Tatum didn’t have a phone. She had an iPod with Wi-Fi. If Lucy contacted her on FaceTime, they could talk, but if she wasn’t at home or using Wi-Fi, she had no way to get a hold of her. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“It’s been four hours. I was supposed to pick her up at Charlene’s house. Charlene was supposed to be there; I was working late. When I got there, she was gone. Charlene looked for her everywhere. We’ve reached out to everyone we know.”
The odd thing about a crisis was how all lines in the sand were erased. The life of sweet Tatum was in the balance, and Lucy would give up her pride for that. “I’ll text everyone here and call Tim. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Thank you.” He hung up.
Lucy immediately messaged everyone she knew. Then she called Tim.
“Hello.”
“Tim, I just got a call from Matt. They don’t know where Tatum is. It’s been four hours. She left Charlene’s place, and no one can find her.”
Tim didn’t respond for several seconds. “Usually, if we do a search, the child is in bed asleep. That’s honestly what happens most of the time. Has he checked?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call him back.”
Lucy hung up and called Matt. Maybe she was overstepping her bounds, but she wanted to be useful. “Tim said that with missing kids, they are usually somewhere in the house, like in a bed. Have you checked all the beds? Would she have fallen asleep somewhere?”
“My place isn’t that big, and I ransacked it. I also went through Charlene’s place pretty good.”
“Okay. I’ll keep calling people here.”
“Thanks.”
She pulled out a list of contacts, taking care to go through and text all of Tatum’s young friends. It might be ridiculous to search for Tatum, who should be two hours away from South Port, but she had to do something.
Fifteen minutes later, Raine walked in the door. “Lucy, come get in the truck. The storm is getting worse.”
Lucy felt paralyzed for a moment. Then she realized she had tears on her cheeks.
Raine hurried over and touched her shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“Tatum is missing. Matt called and asked if I knew anything, and now I’m sending out messages.”
His brows drew together, and he took her by the arm. “You can make calls in the truck.”
Lucy got in the truck, and Raine took off, the wind so fierce he had to grip the wheel tightly. There was no one around on Main Street. She worried about all of her friends. Mrs. Roxy. The Stones. Pastor Henry and Lily. But she had to focus on Tatum.
