Page 71 of Run Away With Me

And now she was gone.

I couldn’t even find the energy to lay down, or move, or wipe the snot and tears from my face. I was a pathetic, sobbing mess. And I didn’t want to be alone. I really,reallydidn’t want to be on my own.

I forced myself to pick up the phone and call Brooke one more time, just in case, but she didn’t answer. The silence on the other end of the phone was almost enough to tip me over the edge, but I was determined not to start crying again. I got up and went to the bathroom to blow my nose and wash my face, though I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror.

What would Brooke do in this situation? Probably not sit around crying over it. She was more of aget shit donekind of person.

But I was feeling very Mouse, and not very Jessie, and I had no idea how to flip the switch back.

I wandered over to the window to stare out of it aimlessly, and to check that the Mustang was still where we’d left it. The keys were on the desk, so unless someone had hotwired it, the chances were it hadn’t moved.

And it hadn’t. Obviously.

Staring out the window, something felt off, a creeping fog ofwrongness. The parking lot was still a motel parking lot – that hadn’t changed. But something had.

I pressed my hands to the cool window, resisting thetemptation to press my nose against it and watch my breath fog the glass.

The parking lot was emptier than it had been earlier, which made sense – people had probably checked out and moved on. A few more family-type vehicles had replaced the big trucks and the utility vans.

The black van was gone.

My whole body went cold.

The black van.

I furiously scanned my memory, trying to figure out if the black van that had been parked two spaces over from the Mustang was the same black van from Salt Lake City.

‘Comeon, Jessie,’ I muttered.

I couldn’t be sure. Not 100 percent. Not even 20 percent sure. But there had definitely been a black van parked near the Mustang earlier, and now it was gone, and so was Brooke. I couldn’t discount that as coincidence.

I wanted to call the police, to report this new nugget of information, but that was still a stupid idea, even if I used a fake name so they wouldn’t know who I was. I couldn’t tell them about the van without telling them everything, and I didn’t have enough evidence to prove my point.

Oh, yes, officer, we ran away from home and drove halfway across the country, and there’s people following us, and now my runaway companion has disappeared. Can you check the database for the entire United States for a man named Chris who owns a black van? No, I don’t know the make, model or license plate number. Or his last name.

It sounded more ridiculous in my own head than it would to a police officer.

I couldn’t even call Meredith or Julianne because their numbers were in the call log of the phone Brooke had had with her when she disappeared, and I hadn’t thought it was necessary to add them to mine.

If I could get hold of the CCTV for the motel, I could check. Now I knew what I was looking for, I felt like I’d be able to tell for sure whether it was the same van. If they had a room for that kind of thing, I could sneak in and check the tapes.

I bounced my knee anxiously.

I couldn’t do it now, of course. There would be people wandering around for hours yet. I could maybe do it later, though. Or in the middle of the night. I could set an alarm, get up at, like, three in the morning and go downstairs to find the CCTV room.

So, that was the plan.

I didn’t sleep in the end.

I couldn’t sleep.

Panic-induced adrenaline was pumping through my body, and I curled up under the thin sheet, covering my head with a pillow to block out the noise of my own thoughts.

It had completely settled in that Brooke was gone – like, actually gone – and I was the only person who knew that. Part of me kept expecting her to knock on the door at any second and demand to be let in, but as the minutes stretched into hours, I was still alone. If I was going to find her, I hadto be more Jessie than Mouse and do whatever sketchy shit was necessary.

I’d never really been responsible for someone else before. Not like this. I’d always done what I could to help my mom, especially when I was old enough to earn some money and help out around the house, but I wasn’tresponsiblefor her.

I carefully and very purposefully didn’t think about where Brooke could be right now, or what might be happening to her. If I let my thoughts go in that direction, I knew I’d lose it again, and Brooke needed me to pull myself together long enough to figure this out.

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