Page 166 of Voices

I turn to mirror his position. “Yeah, it is strange for her to miss this.”

I watch a few girls stumble out of the house, giggling like crazy while hanging off each other.

“Hi Shaaaane,” they say in unison as they pass us, wiggling their fingers in a wave.

Ash snorts.

I wack him in the stomach with the back of my hand. “Shut up,” I chuckle.

We stand there in silence as we watch the party rage on inside, but my mind is still on Charlie.

Always Charlie.

“What if he needed help and called Lily instead of me?” I think out loud. “I know he thinks he’s bothering me when he calls.”

Pulling out my phone, I see that I have four missed calls and two texts. I don’t recognize one of the numbers, but the other three calls are from Lily along with the texts.

I show my phone to Ash. “I think I might have the answer as to where she’s at.”

He nods, not taking his eyes off someone inside.

Opening the texts, I see that the first one was from about an hour ago.

Feisty Pants: Do you know where Charlie is? I stopped by with food on my way to the DIK party, but no one’s home.

He should have been back by then.

The next text was sent less than thirty minutes ago.

Feisty Pants: Answer your fucking phone Shane! Something is seriously wrong!

I grab Asher’s attention as I click over to my voicemail. My hands shake as I click on her first voicemail and hit the speaker button.

“Oh. My. Fucking. God! Why do you have a phone if you aren’t going to answer texts or phone calls? Seriously?” She hangs up.

I quickly clicked on her next voicemail which came a minute later.

“Shane,” she’s crying now, “I can’t find him and he’s not answering. He never ignores my calls. He hates the ringtone I picked. I used it on purpose, so he has to answer for it to stop.” She lets out a shuttering breath. “I’ve known him for over seven years, and I know,I know, that something isn’t right. I can feel it. Please call me back. I need to find him.”

Asher stands up taller as the trembling in my hand intensifies. He reaches for my phone and steadies it, hitting the last voicemail from her.

She doesn’t say anything but she’s crying harder this time. My heart drops into my stomach as I imagine the worst. Then her broken whisper has me seeing red.

“Benji. He knows where Charlie is. He just called me and said,” a choked cry breaks her voice, “said that Charlie has been taken care of and for me to tell you to…to throw away his things. Because…oh God Shane. I think he’s d-dead.” She starts sobbing before the voicemail cuts off.

Dead? Benji? This doesn’t make any sense. I swear I saw Benji hanging out with a group of guys a little while ago.

I look over at Asher as my vision swims. “He’s here, right? Benji? We saw him when we first got here.”

“No.” It’s a deep, rough sound that I’ve only heard twice before.

“Fuck!” I scrub my hands over my face roughly.

I swipe over to Charlie’s number and hit call. It rings three times before I’m sent to voicemail.

“Charlie. Baby. What’s going on? Call me back.”

I quickly hang up and redial, but it goes directly to voicemail this time.

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