Page 14 of Mending Fate

Eight

Alec

“The numberyou are trying to reach is no longer a working number. Please hang up and try the call again.”

“Fuck!!” I threw my phone at the couch and watched it bounce off the cushion and onto the carpet. If I’d had worse aim, buying a new mobile would’ve been my next action.

Keli had disconnected her phone.

She was one of those people who always needed her phone, which meant that this was more serious than I’d hoped. If she’d simply taken off, panicked, overreacted, that was one thing. Canceling her phone was something else entirely. She had crossed from something she could explain away to making a deliberate choice to prevent me from even talking to my daughter.

How could I have missed this? Why hadn’t I seen the desperation Keli must have felt to do something this drastic? Had there been no signs? Or had I just been too enamored with Lumen to see what was happening right in front of me?

My phone rang, and I snatched it up, unable to stop myself from hoping it would be good news. When I sawDaon the screen, the hope died, replaced by the urgent need to talk to my father.

“Morning, Da.”

“Nothing new?”

The familiar rumble in that thick accent took me back to when a word from my father had still been enough to make me know all was right with the world. No matter how old I was, I believed there would always be times when I needed him. Having lost one parent young, I had vowed I would always appreciate having Da still here. Today, more than any other day in a long time, I was grateful for his presence.

“Her phone’s been disconnected.”

“Shite.”

“Aye.” I sighed and closed my eyes as I dropped down onto the couch. “I thought for sure it’d be over by now. A day or two and Keli would come to her senses.”

“Instead, she’s making it harder to find her and Evanne,” he said. “Deliberate decisions that cannae be explained away by panic.”

“Exactly.” I let a minute of silence stand between us before speaking again. “Is this my fault? Did I miss seeing this coming?”

“No, lad. This isn’t on you. Keli is the one in the wrong here. And none of us could have guessed she’d do this.”

“How annoyed is Theresa?” I pressed my palm over my eyes. “The whole point of me taking over as the CEO of MIRI was to let you enjoy your retirement in peace, and here I am dragging you back in.”

“I’ve had twelve years of watching you build our family’s company beyond anything I could have hoped for. It’s not too much for me to step back up when you need me.”

I coughed to clear my throat. “That doesna answer my question.”

“MIRI is the last thing on her mind, lad. She and Paris are working on Missing Persons posters and scouring social media for any sign of Keli or Evanne. The only reason I was able to get them to stay here was reminding them that we would be the second most likely place Evanne would go if she got away.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted. “I feel as if there should be so much more I’m doing.”

“You cannae think of everything.”

Logically, I knew that was true, but logic didn’t always win out in these situations.

“Which brings me to the second reason for my call.” I listened to him inhale deeply. “What do you think about going public? Issuing a press release to appeal not only to the public to watch for Evanne, but to Keli herself, to ask her to bring Evanne home?”

“I’m torn about it,” I said honestly. “I want to believe that the more people looking, the better the likelihood of finding them, but another part of me is worried about what it would do to Evanne if she saw her family saying negative things about her mother.”

Da sighed. “Aye, I thought that too.”

“I’ll ask Eoin what he thinks. He seems to have a good head for this sort of thing.”

“Aye, he does.”

“Tell Mom and Paris thank you,” I said. “And can you pass along things to everyone else? I donnae have the energy to talk to that many people right now.”