Page 65 of Jacob

“Can you get me her number?”

“On it.” She lifts her phone off the table and within two minutes, I’m calling Kimmy.

On my feet now, I pace back and forth across the room.

Kimmy picks up. “Hello.” Her groggy voice greets me.

“Hi, it’s Jacob Baxter.”

“Urgh, morning.”

“Sorry to bother you, but we haven’t heard from Skye today. Is she sick?”

“I don’t think so. I was on the late shift last night and the house was dark when I came in.” She yawns down the phone. “Let me go check. What time is it?” she mumbles to herself.

“It’s quarter past nine.” Skye is usually the first one in here and the last one to leave.

A few shuffles and the opening of a door drifts down the earpiece of my phone.

“Her bed looks untouched.” With a hitch in her voice, Kimmy sounds concerned. “Let me check downstairs.”

Looking out the office window across the wild sea of the cove, I clench my fist.

Where are you, Butterfly?

I hear Kimmy running down the stairs. She’s silent for a few moments and I assume she’s searching the house.

“She’s not here.”

“Is her car outside?” My stomach begins tying itself in knots.

There’s a pause. “No.”

“Have you not heard from her at all?” My pulse is now racing.

“No. But I’ve been working late most nights. It’s normal for me not to see her. Did you try calling her?”

I grit my teeth together. “Of course I tried calling her, Kimmy, or I wouldn’t be calling you.”

“Geez, take a chill pill.”

I try a calmer approach. “I’ve called her. It goes to voicemail. She didn’t text me last night to tell me she was home safe after leaving the coffee shop. She hasn’t called in sick and she didn’t book a day off for today. So, where the fuck is she?” Unable to hold in my anguish, my voice raises as I speak. “This isn’t like her, Kimmy.”

“Oh…” She has a sudden thought. “We have the Find My Phone app. We have that on our phones to keep tabs on each other. She will have stayed at Owen’s or something, Jacob. Be cool.”

Her words are like a knife to my heart, even though I know she wouldn’t do that to me.

“Owen is in Barcelona. Check that app. Now,” I yell as I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Okay, okay. Calm your shit.”

Feeling hot, blood racing through my body at a million miles an hour, I tug off my tie and undo the top three buttons of my shirt.

“Not found,” she whispers. “Last location…” she reads from the app, “…the alleyway past the coffee shop.”

“What?” I cry. “So she never made it home?”

“Were you with her at the coffee shop?”

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