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This trip was feeling more and more like a mistake. The incident with Holly had shifted things. What was going to happen next with that situation? What if she needed more support? What if her friends abandoned her? What if Chloe’s crazy boyfriend came after her?
She looked back at her phone and shot Holly a text. How are you doing?
Okay, came her answer. Still with Granger. He’s awesome.
Is Jason back yet?
No.
That was strange. The jam session had to be over by now.
It occurred to her that she hadn’t heard anything back from her father since she’d sent him that flurry of text messages. The last thing he’d texted was “do what’s in your heart,” about three hours ago. It was after midnight, and Alvin liked to get to bed by eleven, midnight at the latest on the nights he went to Braddock.
She sent him a text, but got no answer. It didn’t even read as “delivered.” Maybe his phone was dead. Should she call the home phone and risk waking him up? Logic told her that his phone had probably run out of battery, and he’d driven home without realizing it, then gone straight to bed.
But it bothered her that he hadn’t texted again, or called. That wasn’t like him. If he knew she was about to get on a plane, he’d call her and make sure he’d told her he loved her. It was a superstition he had. Never let someone get on a plane without telling them you love them. He applied that to all trips, in fact. Under normal circumstances, he certainly would have reached out.
So maybe she’d upset him by taking off so suddenly. No, that didn’t make sense. He would have told her so. He would have said something like, “it’s your choice, but princess, you’re rushing this.” Or, “I know you’re not leaving me with an entire restaurant to run by myself.” Or, “Sweet pea, let me get some rest and we’ll talk this through tomorrow. What’s in London that you can’t get here in the U.S. of A.?”
Her stomach tightened. Something was wrong, she just knew it. This wasn’t about logic, this was her spidey sense—based on a lifetime of knowing Alvin Carter.
Ahmad hurried back to the car and jumped into the driver’s seat. Dominic rolled down the window and leaned his head out. “Get back in, Kendra. We have to go.”
“I think I need to go back,” she said in a low voice, almost to herself.
“Excuse me?” Frowning, Dominic pushed open the door and climbed out.
“I haven’t heard from my dad.”
“It’s late. I’m sure he’s asleep.” He checked his phone. “We’ll miss the flight if we turn back now.”
“You already changed the tickets once. Why not again?” That nagging feeling was growing stronger. She didn’t think of herself as someone with much intuition. She liked to base decisions on concrete evidence. Maybe she was just imagining things, but she couldn’t ignore this feeling.
“Kendra, this is our chance to cash in on our hard work. Can’t you have a neighbor check on him?”
“It’s too late.” She couldn’t possibly wake up Nellie and her kids next door, or old Elmira, who loved to flirt with her dad. “I’ll call one of his music buddies. They might still be awake.”
She flipped through her contacts looking for names of jam session members. She could call Jason, of course. But she didn’t want to do that. Hey, I’m in a car with my ex on the way to London, would you mind hauling ass over to my dad’s house to check on him?
Obviously he would do it, but just as obviously, she couldn’t ask him to.
She found the number of the keyboardist. He answered right away. Relief flooded through her.
“Hi, it’s Kendra, Redfish’s daughter.” All his musician friends called him by his stage name. “I haven’t heard from my dad. Is he okay?”
“He rocked it at the session tonight. Seemed fine.”
“When did the session break up?”
“About an hour ago. We went a little later than usual.”
An hour ago? And he still hadn’t texted? “Did you see him leave?”
“I was one of the first out the door because I had a babysitter at home. I said goodbye, I know that. He might have been heading to the bathroom. He looked normal, maybe a little…hm…unbalanced?”
“Unbalanced?”
“Unsteady. That’s a better word. Like he’d had too much to drink. But I didn’t see him drink. He usually doesn’t because of the drive back to Lake Bittersweet.”
