Page 105 of Creed

I take a deep breath to calm myself, then relay the little I know—Sophie’s text, the weird messages about a girl running with maybe some guys behind her, the motorcycle guy. They all stiffen when I relay what Zac said about Theo claiming he saw the guy on the bike pull a gun.

Distress etches Antonio’s face as he nearly collapses to sit on the coffee table across from me. “Is there anything else that you can think of, Ollie?”

“Even something little can help,” Nexin encourages.

“I’m sorry.” I wipe away a tear that runs down my cheek. Suddenly, Antonio’s distress registers and hits me like a bucket of cold water. “Oh my god… I just realized that maybe I didn’t tell you earlier about the biker guy. I don’t remember. I should’ve told you right away about the gun.” My head swims with panic, worry, and exhaustion, and I choke out, “I’m sorry.”

Antonio grips my hand. “Ollie… no one is blaming you. You’ve been dealing with this on your own since it began. Take a deep breath.” He takes one, and it cues my overwhelmed brain to follow suit. “Better,cariño?”

Miguel crouches beside me, and I know it’s because he wants to stay close to Antonio. My heart squeezes at their love.

“What about whatever happened before Christmas?” he asks me. “Sophie wasn’t herself when she came home for the holidays. Do you know what happened? Maybe that plays into this.”

I chew on my lip, not wanting to out Sophie on something she wouldn’t want her uncle to know, but decide to tell everything I know, which isn’t much.

“A few months ago, at Halloween, Sophie met someone at a business industry mixer.” I glance at Antonio. “She didn’t come home that night but refused to say who she’d been with.”

“How did she seem?” Ryn asks.

“Happy. Um…” My face warms, and I avoid looking at Antonio. I could tell my girl had gotten laid and gotten laidgood. “Like she had a really good time.”

Ryn’s mouth pulls slightly, like she’s suppressing a small smile, and I know she understands what I mean.

“About two weeks later, there was a week when she didn’t sleep in our room. She was at school every day, and we met up for lunch. She was on cloud nine. However, she still wouldn’t say anything about who the mystery person was.”

“Any thoughts on if that person was someone from school?” Nexin asks.

“Maybe a professor?” Tag adds.

Antonio’s face turns slightly blotchy, and Ryn leans toward him and says something. He huffs a breath, shoves his hand through his hair, and grumbles, “Damn kids.”

“I don’t know,” I answer both Nexin and Tag’s questions. “Maybe? That could be why she kept it hush-hush.”

“Do you think you could recall the date of that week?” Ryn asks.

I nod, and Nexin says, “I can get Genius Man to see what he might find out from any CCTV or campus footage from that timeframe.”

“That was four months ago.” Tag shakes his head. “Footage is likely wiped by now.”

Nexin shrugs. “It’s worth a shot.”

I’m not exactly sure who Genius Man is, but I don’t care as long as this team helps find Sophie.

“Anything after that?” Ryn asks and squeezes my hand. “Anything you can think of may be helpful.”

“After that week of happiness and bliss, Sophie was… devastated.” I think back to that time and Sophie’s obvious pain. I had pleaded with her to open up and get it off her chest, but she just said things didn’t work out, and it was for the best because her family came first. “Withdrawn and in pain, like you’d be after a really tough breakup. But she wouldn’t talk to me about it.”

“She was like that at Christmas, too.” Antonio runs his palms over his suit pants. “BothAbuelaand I tried to get her to talk, but she wouldn’t say anything except that she was fine.”

“Two months ago… something changed.” I pause and frown as I try to voice my thoughts. “It’s not like she was happy or anything, but things were… better. Again, she wouldn’t say anything, but my read was that she and her mystery love were maybe trying to work things out for whatever had wrecked that insane happiness at the start.”

Rolf shifts his weight between his feet and crosses his arms. “And never any slip-ups on a name or details?” he asks, finallybreaking his silence and I get the sense he’s the quiet, analytical type. “You never overheard anything accidentally?”

“No.” I look between them all. “I would tell you if there were. I’m not trying to hide anything.”

“It’s okay, Ollie.” Antonio reaches forward and squeezes my shoulder. “No one is implying you are. We’re just dotting ‘I’s and crossing ‘T’s.”

I nod, swallowing down my panic. “We have her phone. I know she at least texted with the guy.”

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