Emancipating Andie (32 page)

He should have expected as much. He wouldn’t want to talk to himself either if he were her. Still, he hit the button to try again, already walking toward the closet for his shoes. And when he heard her voice, asking him to leave a message, he hung up and grabbed his keys before heading out the door.

She could ignore his calls all night, but she wouldn’t leave him standing outside her door for very long. He was sure of that.

Chase jogged down the steps and through the lobby, stopping short as soon as his feet hit the pavement outside.

Her car was still parked in front of his building.

He pulled his brow together and turned, looking as far down the block as he could before he turned and looked the other way. There was nowhere for her to go here, no restaurants or stores or anything within reasonable walking distance. Where could she have gone without her car? His neighborhood certainly wasn’t the type of place someone would want to take a walk around to blow off steam.

Chase decided to make a lap around the block anyway, in case she had taken off in her frustration without really thinking about her surroundings.

But after about ten minutes, he was back in front of his apartment building with no sign of her. Andie’s car was still where it had been when he left, and Chase eyed the surrounding area one more time before he turned to walk down the block toward his car.

He had only taken two steps before his foot came down on something that skidded beneath his weight, causing him to stumble forward.

“What the hell?” he mumbled, turning to look behind him.

His eye immediately landed on the small silver ring of keys attached to a purple swirl in the shape of a heart.

He’d recognize those keys anywhere. He’d helped her when she had locked those keys inside her apartment. He’d
used
those keys when driving her car.

Chase bent down and scooped them up before eyeing the block again, this time with something like panic in his chest. With the keys clutched in his fist, he dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed her number again.

It went straight to voicemail.

“
Shit
,” he hissed as he walked briskly to his car and jumped inside.

There had to be a reasonable explanation for this. She must have dropped her keys. She must have walked home. She was probably curled up on the couch right now, eating ice cream and lamenting her douchebag of a boyfriend.

Chase held on to those thoughts as he sped to her apartment. He called her number again and again as he drove, keeping one eye on the road and the other scanning the sidewalks and surrounding areas. Every time her voicemail picked up and Andie’s lilting voice asked him to leave a message, his heart beat a bit faster in his chest.

When he pulled into the parking space in front of her building, he already knew she wasn’t home. He could see the window of her bedroom and her living room, both inky black and still, but he ran up the steps to her front door anyway, knocking loudly as he tried to catch his breath.

“Andie?” he called, knocking again. “Andie, I swear, I’ll leave if you want me to, but if you’re in there, just let me know that you’re safe.”

Chase stood there for a minute, listening to the silence before he knocked once more. “Andie? Please just let me know you’re in there. You don’t even have to open the door.”

Again, nothing.

He whirled around, fisting his hand in his hair as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

Where the hell could she possibly be?

“Damn it,” he said before squeezing his eyes shut. He didn’t know any of her friends’ phone numbers. He didn’t even know the number to her restaurant.

He could go there, he thought, but he didn’t want to freak her parents out. They didn’t know about him yet, so how could he just burst into their restaurant and introduce himself by asking if they’d seen their daughter, who he just happened to send running off in the night because he was a thoughtless asshole?

He kept his eyes on his phone as he scrolled mindlessly through his contacts.

And then he saw it.

Tate, Colin
.

Would she have called Colin?

Would she have
gone there
?

She had been feeling so guilty about everything that happened earlier that Chase could see her doing something like that. He could picture her going to him, trying to make things right between everyone again, even though Chase knew it was a lost cause at this point.

“Fuck,” he sighed to himself, taking a deep breath before hitting the button to call Colin.

It rang five times before going to voicemail.

Chase dropped his head back and brought both fists to his eyes before he began pacing the hallway in front of her door. He hated the feeling he had right now, this helplessness. He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do, but he needed to find her. That much was clear.

Chase hit the button to dial Colin again, and this time it went to voicemail after one ring.

“
Son of a bitch!
” he yelled, ending the call and heading toward the stairs.

He had to go there. It was his only option. He couldn’t go back home until he figured out where she was and knew she was okay.

He made it to Colin’s in half the time it would have normally taken him, so he didn’t really have time to focus on the stupidity of what he was about to do. Chase knocked on Colin’s door, and when it swung open, his friend’s face went from shocked to blank in the span of a second.

“Is she here?” Chase asked.

Colin stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I don’t know where she is,” Chase said desperately. “Is she here?”

Colin’s jaw flexed as he continued to stare Chase down. “Unbelievable,” he muttered before he went to close the door on him.

Without thinking Chase threw his hand out, stopping the door, and Colin’s eyes glinted with rage.

“Move your hand. Now.”

“We had a fight.”

A moment of disbelief overshadowed Colin’s anger. “And what, you’re coming here for sympathy? You really are a piece of work.”

Colin went to shut the door again, and this time Chase slammed his hand against it with such force that it swung out of Colin’s hand and hit the wall.

“She might be hurt
!” Chase shouted, and Colin froze. “Please,” he said, his voice softening significantly and bordering on desperate. “Please…just help me.”

Chase couldn’t decipher the expression on Colin’s face, but when he spoke, his voice was firm but controlled. “What do you mean she might be hurt? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Chase said. He explained what had happened in a rush, and Colin listened, his expression unchanging.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of silence, Colin turned and walked into his apartment, leaving the door open.

“Colin?”

“I’m gonna make a call,” he said curtly.

Chase took two tentative steps into his friend’s home, watching as Colin grabbed his phone and hit a few buttons before bringing it to his ear.

“Tracey?” he said. “It’s Colin. Is Andie with you?” There was a silence before he said, “No that’s okay. If you hear from her, can you just have her give me a call? Thanks.”

“Shit,” Chase said under his breath, running both hands up through his hair. “Where the hell is she?”

Colin looked down at his phone for a second before he hit a few buttons again.

“Hey, Danielle. It’s Colin. Is Andie working tonight?” A pause. “Oh. Well did she stop by the restaurant at all?” Another pause as Chase listened to the sound of his own heartbeat thrumming in his ears. “Alright. If she comes by the restaurant, can you ask her to give me a call? Thanks.”

As Colin ended the call, Chase began pacing in front of the door with both hands fisted in his hair. There was nowhere else she could be that made sense. With her car still at his place. And her keys on the floor.

He heard a strange rasping sound and realized it was his own breathing.

Chase forced himself to stop walking as he bent at the waist, bringing is hands to his knees as he tried to calm himself down, and he noticed Colin staring at him with the oddest expression on his face. There was something else behind the anger in his eyes. Disbelief? Scrutiny? Shock?

Whatever it was, he didn’t have time to analyze it. He grabbed his phone and started dialing.

“What are you doing?” Colin asked.

“Calling the cops.”

“Chase, they’re not gonna do anything. She’d have to be gone for twenty-four hours.”

“I don’t care!” he yelled. “I’m not just gonna sit here!”

Colin stood, running his hand through his hair as Chase explained the situation to the dispatcher. Fifteen minutes later, there were two officers at Colin’s door: a middle-aged woman, and a man who looked to be in his twenties.

Chase explained everything to them, about Andie leaving his apartment, about her car and her keys on the street, and how no one knew where she was.

As the young man jotted a few things down on a notepad, the middle-aged woman quirked her brow at Chase. “What happened to your eye?”

Chase licked his lips and glanced at Colin before he said, “It’s a long story.”

“Mm-hm,” she said, turning toward the other officer and motioning with her head.

“At this point there really isn’t anything we can do for you guys,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be anything suspicious going on. People lose their keys all the time.” He glanced up as he closed the pad. “Give us a call if she doesn’t turn up within twenty-four hours.”

Chase shook his head in disbelief. “So I’m just supposed to sit here?”

“Can I ask what your relation is to the girl in question?” the middle-aged woman asked.

He glanced back at Colin before he said, “I’m her boyfriend.”

The woman nodded before she said, “And you?”

Colin stared at her for a moment before he said coolly, “I’m her ex.”

The corner of the woman’s mouth twisted up before she looked back at her partner. “And if you still want to report her missing in twenty-four hours, I would suggest you call someone who is of blood-relation to her and have
them
file the report.”

Chase looked back and forth between them in shock, and the young guy said, “Unless you’re married, live together, or have a child together, we can’t accept the report from you. Besides,” he said, smirking at his partner, “this whole thing seems a bit off to me. Like maybe a couple of ex-boyfriends are trying to find a girl that doesn’t want to be found.”

Chase opened his mouth to protest, but the woman held her hand up. “Have her family give us a call if she doesn’t turn up. Have a good night gentlemen,” she said, and the two officers turned and walked out the door, closing it firmly behind them.

Chase stood there staring at the door with panic and helplessness battling for control in his chest. After a stunned minute he reached forward and yanked the door open.

“Where are you going?” he heard Colin ask.

“I’m gonna drive around until I find her,” he said, but before he could finish the sentence, he heard Colin’s phone ring behind him.

He whirled around in the doorway, watching as Colin answered the phone.

“Yeah,” he said. “What’s going on?” Colin glanced up before he said, “She’s there?”

“Jesus,” Chase breathed, collapsing against the doorframe and closing his eyes.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

Chase whipped his head up. “What happened?”

Colin held his hand up before he said, “Alright, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He ended the call before he said. “That was Tyler. He stopped by Ripley’s to pay his tab from this weekend. She’s there. He said I needed to get down there.”

Chase turned before Colin had finished his sentence, running down the steps and out to his car, starting it before he had even closed the door. He was vaguely aware of Colin getting into his own car as he drove down the street and made a sharp left, but the only thing he could concentrate on was getting to Ripley’s so he could see with his own two eyes that she was okay.

He pulled into an empty space at the end of the street that wasn’t meant for parking before he jumped out and walked swiftly down the sidewalk toward the bar.

As soon as he opened the door, relief flooded through him like cool water through his overheated veins.

She sat with her elbow on the bar, her chin resting heavily in her palm, and Chase was pretty sure her hand was the only thing keeping her head up at that moment. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused as her free hand sloppily played with the mess on the bar in front of her.

The pile of discarded lemon rinds.

Under any other circumstances, he would have smiled over her falling victim to his Lemon Drops once again, but the expression on her face was ripping his heart out. She had that little crease between her brow, and all he wanted to do was scoop her up in his arms and kiss her there until it smoothed away.

“Are you gonna take care of her?”

Chase hadn’t even heard Colin come up behind him. He glanced back at him before he looked at Andie again, her eyes falling closed for a beat too long before she opened them lethargically.

“Yeah. I’ll handle this,” he said, taking a step toward her. He felt a hand come down on his arm as Colin gripped him forcefully, spinning Chase back around to face him.

“
No
,” he said firmly, his eyes intense as they locked with Chase’s. He took a tiny breath before he said again, “Are you gonna take care of her?”

Only this time, his meaning was clear.

Chase felt the tension drop from his shoulders, and for the first time in a long time, he was able to look his friend square in the eye before speaking to him.

“Yes.”

Colin stared at him for a moment, the muscle of his jaw flexing as his grip on Chase’s arm loosened. With one firm nod, he released him fully before he turned and walked out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

Chase stood there for a moment, staring at the dark wood and the brass handle without really seeing. He heard the sound of Colin’s car door slamming followed by the sound of his car accelerating as he took off down the street, and Chase closed his eyes and lowered his head, taking a deep breath before he turned back toward Andie. She was licking the sugar granules off an old lemon rind as she stared blankly into space.