Page 103 of Culinary Chaos

Angelica hummed, flipping through the cameras. Still, Hope didn’t see Eva on them. “How long do you want to wait until you get the entire crew on the search for her?”

“I don’t know.” Hope glanced at her phone and the text thread between the nanny and Rex. Neither one of them had found her yet. “Maybe another ten minutes?”

Angelica nodded. “Sooner the better. Maybe it’ll help Eva realize just how terrifying this situation is. Stay here.”

Angelica got up and walked away. Hope kept her eyes glued to the screens in front of her. People came and went, they moved around the lobby, the hallways, everything. But not one of them was Eva. The panic she felt built, and she trembled as she moved cameras around to try and view the whole room instead of just the small area where there was most traffic.

Eva liked to hide. And she’d often crawl into tiny spaces just to get away from everything and everyone else. Hope had no idea how long Angelica had been gone, but she came back in and put a hand on Hope’s shoulder.

“Let’s hope she’s still in the building,” Angelica said.

“Uh-huh,” Hope answered, biting her lip and continuing to stare at the cameras.

“I want you to stay here and still look, all right? I’m going to talk to the staff and Josef and see if we can get people looking for her.”

Hope gripped Angelica’s hand tightly, squeezing. She was nearly in tears, and she had no idea what she wanted to say or what she could do. “Thanks.”

Angelica furrowed her brow.

“Just for…being here.” Hope trembled.

Moving in swiftly, Angelica slid her arms around Hope’s back in a light hug, pulling Hope’s face against her chest for a split second before she stepped back. “We’ll find her.”

“I know. She’s done this before. It’s just…” Hope brushed the tears away from her cheeks. “…we’re someplace strange and everything’s been a shitshow since we arrived.”

“Agreed.” Angelica sighed. “We’ll talk about that later, all right?”

Hope nodded. She didn’t want Angelica to leave though, as much as she knew it needed to happen. Angelica was pure comfort and peace in this moment, the calm that Hope had been trying desperately to find.

“Do you want me to bring Rex down here?”

“No,” Hope said firmly. She absolutely blamed him for this right now, and she needed to sort through some of that or resolve the issue before she saw his face. She just needed another thirty minutes before she saw him again.

“You sure?” Angelica asked again.

“I’m sure.” Hope looked up at her and forced a smile onto her face. “He’s staying in the room in case Eva goes back.”

“Think she can find the room?” Angelica asked, curious.

Hope nodded. “She has an affinity for numbers, so she memorizes the room number and repeats it.”

“Good. That’s a good thing, then.” Angelica touched Hope’s shoulder lightly. “I’ll be back in a bit, all right?”

A well of unease opened up again, and Hope had to try her damnedest not to drop herself into it. She went back to looking at the cameras, focusing on those. She rubbed her lips together, checking her phone on and off to see if there were any other texts that had come in or gone out. She saw the one from Angelica to the production crew, the one that said Eva was missing and everyone needed to be looking for her, the one that said the front doors were being watched by hotel staff.

Hope hadn’t even thought of that.

She wiped more tears as they fell, the overload of emotions and stress from the week finally breaching the walls she’d created to keep it in. They spilled down her cheeks, blurring her vision, but she refused to look away from the cameras for long.

They had to find Eva.

She had to be here somewhere.

Chapter

Thirty-Four

“There’s a kid missing. I need you to enact the policy for that.” Angelica dripped water onto the floor as she stood behind reception and looked at the two employees. Henry had long gone home for today, she was sure, and the two receptionists stared at her like she had yelled at them in German or something. “The lost child policy.”