Page 92 of Hiss and Make Up
Marc laughed and got in the car. “She’s always in a hurry, and she’s always forgetting things. All that phone explains is that she was here and now she’s not. I have no idea how to find her.”
Chloe backed the car out of the gravel and drove toward the campground exit, avoiding the campers setting up for the night. “I already know where she went.”
“How?”
“She was looking for her boss, right?”
“Yeah, Dale.”
“We find Dale, we find Sierra.”
“Right.” Marc looked at Chloe, grateful she was there with him, even though he still had no idea why she was helping him. He’d never exactly been nice to her, and he sure as hell hadn’t ever helped her with anything. Facts he didn’t have time to feel guilty about but made a mental note to make right later. “Thanks. You don’t have to come with me. I can—”
“Yes, I do.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t get why. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
Marc stopped talking as he remembered her running into her mom’s house a few minutes ago. Then he remembered telling Sierra that he suspected Chloe’s mom and how Sierra said she already knew.
He looked at Chloe again, confusion and guilt making room in his brain for suspicion. “Or does it have something to do with you after all?”
Chloe kept her eyes focused on the road ahead.
“Let’s just find Sierra,” she said. “And we can hope I don’t have to explain the rest.”
* * *
Sierra rubbed her face and sat on Dale’s front step, holding Puck’s leash while he fertilized Dale’s azalea bushes. She felt desperate and defeated with no idea what to do next.
Dale was missing.
He wasn’t at his house. He wasn’t at the station. And it was too late for him to still be giving a lecture, if that’s what he’d actually left work for.
For half a second, she cursed herself for not checking the trails before leaving the park. What if he’d been lying in the middle of the woods with a broken leg or a snake bite or some other wound, bleeding to death alone in the dark. She’d never forgive herself for being so rash and stupid.
But she knew in her gut that wasn’t the case.
She rubbed her face and reminded herself that Kurt saw Dale leave after he got that call. If Dale had returned, he would have checked in with Kurt before hitting the trails, and his truck would be outside.
Why did he leave? Who had called him?
She knew exactly who had called him.
It wasn’t enough that she’d burned a house and had tried to blow up Marc and Sierra.
Now she’d taken Dale. Or hurt him. Or worse.
A shiver ran up Sierra’s back as she tried not to think of all the things that Lynette Guidry could have done to Dale.
Part of her wanted to drive to the other side of campus where her dad lived and curl up on his couch while he made jasmine green tea and asked if she’d been meditating and charting her dreams. He might even chant or light a candle for Dale. She’d sip her tea, wrap herself in a blanket, and maybe even say a prayer.
But none of that would solve anything.
Sierra pushed herself up from the step and stomped to her car. Whatever happened to Dale, she wouldn’t get answers sitting on his porch or lying on her dad’s couch.
Lynette Guidry might have emptied out of her house, but Sierra had a feeling she wasn’t done in that neighborhood yet. She’d tried to get Marc and Sierra out of there for a reason. She must have unfinished business on that family’s property.
“Come on, Puck.” She led him back to the car. “We’re going to get a few answers. And if she doesn’t give us any? You get to bite some ankles.”
