“I’m here, Stella. Just go to sleep now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SEBASTIAN
AS THE NEXTweek comes and goes, I harness my self-control and do my best to avoid Stella. After spending the night in her room and leaving her asleep the next day, we have not exchanged a single word. She comes to class, and I dutifully ignore her while Louisa and her minions shoot daggers into the back of my head.
The headmistress called me into her office to discuss the situation, as I knew she would. She made a point to say that perhaps I was too hard on Louisa, but what she really meant was she didn’t want to lose her father’s funding for the school year. I contended that Louisa is a senior, and the money will dry up eventually, regardless. After that blunt statement, I was dismissed without further argument.
In an attempt to take the edge off my frustrations, I’ve been logging extra time at soccer practice and taking longer runs than I typically would. If I’m not fucking my pent-up energy into Stella, I need to find other ways to manage it. And right now, she needs to come to terms with her family situation. But when the weekend comes and I discover she isn’t on campus, her casual disappearance sends me over the edge.
“She isn’t here,” Sybil informs me when she catches me lurking around outside of Lawrence Hall.
Her face confirms everything I already suspected, and if I were a smart or even a rational man, I would deny her unspoken accusation. But I’ve never been smart or rational when it comes to Stella, and right now, I can’t be bothered to give a fuck that Sybil knows.
“Where is she?” I demand.
“She left me a note that said she was going into the city.” Sybil explains. “That’s all I know.”
My jaw clenches, and I’m forced to temper the hostility in my tone before I give myself away. “The city as in… New York?”
“I’m assuming so.” Sybil shrugs. “If I had to guess, I’d bet she was looking for her mom.”
It occurs to me that I don’t have Stella’s contact information, and why the fuck didn’t I think to get that? When I ask Sybil for the phone number, she gives me a puzzled look.
“She doesn’t have a phone anymore. At least not one that works. Her service was cut off, and I offered to pay for it, but she said no.”
“Of course, she did.” Blackness seeps into the edges of my vision as I consider Stella’s current circumstances. “So she’s gone to New York City without a phone and no way to contact anyone.”
“It would appear that way.” Sybil blinks at the sudden darkness in my expression. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”
Ignoring any possibility that she won’t, I move on to what’s important. “Do you have any idea where her mother might be?”
Sybil considers it for a moment before she nods. “She mentioned something once about her mother having an affair with their driver, Luis. Maybe if you could find him, you’d find Stella.”
Thanking her for her help, I leave Sybil behind as I dial an old friend from Harvard. At one point in time, he was my roommate, but now he runs a multi-billion-dollar security corporation. He helped me with my investigation into Katie’s death, and I’m hoping he’ll do the same for my current situation.
THREE HOURS LATER, I’m banging on Luis Furtados’s door like the SWAT team. When Stella’s mother answers, she appears stunned as I push my way inside.
“Is she here?” I demand.
“Who?” Lila barks, staring at me as if I’m a peasant beneath her shoe. All while she’s living in a shoebox of an apartment with little more than a single suitcase to call her own. I take in the sad state of her affairs and realize this is a lost cause. The entire apartment can be seen from where I’m standing, and there’s no sign that Stella was ever here.
“Have you spoken to your daughter?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“No, I haven’t.” Her lips pucker as if she’s sucked on a lemon. “Are you from the school?”
She tilts her head to the side, examining me in a new light, and I realize my fuck up about the same time she does. It isn’t normal behavior for teachers to chase their students into the city, even if the tuition at Loyola costs a small fortune. Lila certainly knows that, and I’ve sparked her curiosity. I have a feeling this isn’t going bode well for me.
“Sorry for the intrusion.” I turn on my heel and leave before she can ask any more probing questions, but in my gut, I’m certain this won’t be the last I hear from Lila Monroe.
With my only lead crumbling in my hands, a thousand different scenarios play through my mind. Stella could be injured, alone, hungry, lost, or any number of the above things, and I can’t get to her. Why didn’t I think of something so goddamned simple as getting her a cell phone? And why didn’t she stop to think how this would affect me?
Because she doesn’t know.Stella has no idea why something like this would make me worry. When she looks at me, she thinks I’m her savior, but she’s blissfully unaware that I’ve already failed to protect someone else I cared about. Now I feel like I’m failing her too.
Without any other leads to fall back on, I drive to the only other place I can think of, hoping the address will be worth something. The apartment doesn’t belong to Stella’s father anymore, but maybe she went looking for him. It’s a long shot, but when I walk up to the sixth floor and find her sitting outside the door, I can finally fucking breathe again.
“Goddammit, Stella.” She blinks up at me through tear-filled eyes before I drag her up into my arms and examine her. “Are you okay?”