Page 146 of Fourth Point Of Contact

I rolled my eyes. “The fucking spider? It was just a?—”

“It wasn’t the spider,” Mom groaned. “Patti, honestly, you can be so dense sometimes. She was terrified. You ran out of here and we got a notification to go on lockdown. Don’t you understand? All of this—she’s scared of loving you when you might not come home.”

My jaw dropped at her words, but they couldn’t be right. “No, she…she’s not scared of anything. We slept outside with bugs crawling all over us and?—”

“And she wasn’t scared of spiders then, was she?”

Realization dawned on me at her words. “This makes so much more sense,” I murmured.

“Well, it took you long enough to realize you weren’t fighting over a spider,” she sighed.

I shoved a hand through my hair, completely baffled as to how I missed that. “She isn’t leaving because of the sheets.”

“No, honey. She’s not.”

I chuckled, remembering the way she got all riled up. She was so fucking cute.

“She left you this.”

She held a brown package out to me, and I took it, tearing at the wrappings. The moment I saw the book in the picture frame, I started laughing.

“She wanted to give you this the day we decorated, but it didn’t arrive in time.”

“I Survived The Attack Of The Grizzlies.That’s so Piper.”

“Patti?”

“Yeah?” I said, still smiling down at the picture.

“Are you going to stand here or are you going to get her back?”

“Get her back,” I said without a second thought. I grasped Mom and pulled her into my arms for a hug. “Thank you.”

She chuckled, patting my back. “Go get her. I still want grandkids.”

I went as fast as I could on crutches, but it wasn’t enough. I needed someone to drive me and some fucking idea of where she was. I pulled out my phone to dial Dash, waving down Edu as he drove to work.

“Hey!” I shouted, letting out a loud whistle.

He pulled over just as Dash picked up. I tossed my crutches in the back. “Dash, I need to find Piper!”

“Isn’t she with you?”

“If she was with me, I wouldn’t be asking!” I snapped, hauling my ass into the passenger seat.

“Sure, get in. I have nothing better to do,” Edu muttered.

“Alright, alright,” Dash grumbled. “I’m pulling up the footage. Uh…it looks like she got in Chase’s truck.”

“What?”

“Yep, had a bag in her hand. Dude, what the fuck did you do to make her flee on foot?”

“We got into an argument over a spider. Where is she going?”

“Over a spider? Who fights over a spider?” Dash asked.

I put it on speakerphone and hooked into the truck’s GPS while he yammered on. “It wasn’t about the spider. It was about me being in security.”

---