She shuddered, then took three deep breaths and did what she did best. She compartmentalized. She shoved that horror show back into the deep, dark hole where it needed to stay. She’d just gotten her heart rate and breathing under control when the phone on her belt vibrated. Bree looked at the screen. She’d missed a call while she was chasing Ronnie. She read the voice mail notification, and her heart did a double tap.
Erin?
“What’s wrong?” Dana narrowed blue eyes at Bree.
Bree stared at her phone. “My sister called.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
“A couple of weeks ago. You know my family is . . .” Bree searched for the word. “Complicated.”
“Uh-huh.” Dana was more than a coworker. She was Bree’s closest friend.
“We talk on the phone, but I haven’t seen her since she brought the kids to Philly last summer.” The last time Bree had visited Grey’s Hollow had been for Erin’s wedding four years before.
“I remember.” Dana was a history geek. When Erin and the kids came to town, she’d played tour guide, walking them through the Constitution Center, Independence Hall, and other sites. “Did she leave a voice mail?”
“Yes.” Bree’s finger hesitated over the “Play” button. She should wait until she got home to listen to her sister’s message. Unexpected news from Grey’s Hollow was never good. Bree’s heart began to thud again, fresh sweat gathered on her palms, and all her careful compartmentalizing went to hell. “Could you give me a minute, Dana?”
“Sure. No problem.” She turned and walked back to the cluster of cops at the alley entrance.
Planting her feet firmly on the pavement, Bree stabbed the “Play” button. Her sister’s voice was breathless and hurried.
“Bree? I’m in trouble. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to give you the details in a message, but I need your help. Please call me back as soon as you get this.”
Worried, Bree pressed the “Call Back” button. Her sister’s line rang three times and connected to voice mail. Bree left a message. “It’s Bree. Sorry I missed you. Call me back.”
She lowered the phone and stared at it. She’d missed her sister’s call by only a few minutes. Where could Erin be? Bree played the message again. Her sister’s rushed words knotted in her belly.
Frowning, Dana walked over. “Everything OK?”
“She’s not answering her phone.” Bree called her brother, Adam, but the call went immediately to voice mail. She left him a message. Next, she dialed the salon where her sister worked, but the receptionist said Erin was off tonight.
“Try her later,” Dana suggested. “She could be in the shower.”
Bree drank some water and called Erin again. Still no answer. She replayed the message, tilting the phone so Dana could hear.
Dana’s blonde eyebrows lowered. “Your sister doesn’t seem like the type who gets in trouble.”
“She isn’t. Erin’s a head down, go to work, raise her kids kind of person. She doesn’t have time for trouble.” Bree rubbed the edge of her phone with her thumb. “But just her calling me for help means it’s something major. We’re not as close as I’d like.”
“Not your fault or hers that you weren’t raised together.”
Erin and Adam had been reared by their grandmother in Grey’s Hollow. Bree had been farmed out to a cousin in Philadelphia.
“My childhood isn’t my fault.” Bree tapped her phone screen and stared at the lack of notifications. “But the decisions I’ve made since reaching adulthood are one hundred percent my responsibility.”
“What are you going to do?”
As children, Bree and her siblings had survived a nightmare together. Despite the three hundred miles between them, they would always have a special connection. They were particularly tuned in to trouble, and Bree could sense from Erin’s voice that something was wrong. Really wrong. Erin’s tone wasn’t I’m late with the mortgage payment. She had sounded scared.
There was only one thing Bree could do.
She finished her water and stood. “I’m going home.”
CHAPTER THREE
With a flicker of apprehension, Matthew Flynn rang his friend’s doorbell a second time. Once again, chimes sounded inside the small ranch-style home. But no footsteps approached the door.
Justin should be home. He should be expecting Matt to pick him up for his Narcotics Anonymous meeting, as he had every Tuesday night for months.
At Matt’s side, his German shepherd, Brody, whined. Matt glanced down at the dog. Brody’s ears were up and his posture stiff.
“What is it, boy?”
Brody whined again and pawed at the concrete stoop. A former sheriff’s department K-9, Brody had sharp instincts honed by years of training and practice. The dog barked once. Normally, he was happy and excited to see Justin. His tail should be wagging. His posture should be relaxed.
Something was wrong.
Matt might not understand the signals, but he trusted his dog. Brody’s senses of smell and hearing were far superior to any human’s. And he always seemed to have a sixth sense as well. When they’d been a working K-9 team with the sheriff’s department, Brody had saved Matt’s ass more times than he could count. Matt had learned the hard way that he could trust the dog more than he could most people.
He swallowed a lump of pure bitterness. Three years ago, a shooting had ended both their careers. Matt wished the way his future had been ripped out from under him could be described as simply as it had been summed up in the press release. The reality had been anything but. He knew he had to let go of his anger. The sheriff had sent Matt and Brody through the wrong door of a warehouse, and they’d been caught in friendly fire when deputies exchanged shots with a drug dealer. Whether the former sheriff’s actions had been deliberate or accidental didn’t matter anymore. The man was dead. But letting go of his resentment was proving harder than Matt anticipated.
He opened the storm door and tried the wooden door, but it was locked. Backing away from the door, he scanned the front of the house. Justin’s Ford Escape sat in the driveway. A FOR SALE sign was displayed in the windshield. Justin would not be driving for a long time. Four months before, he’d been arrested for driving while ability impaired by drugs. As a second DWAI offense, the charge was a class E felony in New York State. Justin’s wife had asked him to move out. Since then, Justin said he was committed to staying sober and earning back her trust, but there were days when all he talked about were his failures. He battled depression along with his addiction.
Concerned, Matt backed away from the door, his breath fogging in the freezing January night. The exterior and interior lights were on. Justin was on a tight budget. If he wasn’t home, the house would be dark.
Matt pulled out his phone. Twenty minutes ago, he’d sent Justin a text, letting him know he was on the way. Matt had been running a few minutes late and hadn’t waited for an answer before leaving his house, but now the lack of one felt wrong. Justin usually sent back a thumbs-up. Matt sent a new message. I’M OUTSIDE.
A minute ticked away with no response.