Page 27 of Single Mom’s Undoing (Lucky Lady Reverse Harems #1)

JACE

I t’s been hours since I last heard from Clara.

She was supposed to text me after she finished at the bank. No word from her yet. A sense of dread begins worming its way into my mind as I check my phone again.

“Nothing,” I mutter, restless in my seat.

Before long, I find myself driving across town, leaving behind my work and tasks for the day. As the sun sets over Blackthorn Falls with its splashes of red and purple and wisps of orange clouds, I pull up outside Clara’s house. It looks quiet. Too quiet.

I don’t see her car anywhere. All of the lights are off.

I glance over at Jodie’s place. At least, she’s home. I call Clara again.

“Come on.”

Nothing but ringing until I end up in her voicemail .

Something doesn’t feel right. I have a spare key, so I go up to the door and knock.

The silence I get in response only serves to tighten my stomach and further agitate my nerves.

I think of Bill Lockwood, the way he is with people—either buying or scaring them off.

I promised Clara she’d be safe, but deep down, I sensed her doubt.

I try calling again.

Still nothing.

The more I try, the more anxious I become, and the more real the worst-case scenario gets.

I go inside, and as soon as I look around, it is painfully clear.

“She’s gone,” I whisper.

A few of Matty’s toys remain scattered about. A half-packed bag she didn’t bother to take with her. The bulk of both of their belongings, gone.

It lights a fire in my belly.

“She did what?” Jodie gasps.

Her eyes are wide as she stares at me, struggling to process everything I just said. I wish I had the time and the patience to further talk her through the steps of my discovery, but I don’t.

“Jodie, listen to me very carefully,” I say. “When is the last time you saw Clara?”

“Yesterday.”

“And when is the last time you spoke? ”

She shakes her head slowly. “This morning, I asked her if she needed to drop Matty off with me today because she said she had some errands to run.”

“Show me.”

With a trembling hand, she gives me her phone, and I read the last few messages between them.

It’s definitely Clara texting. Her lingo, her emojis.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary in that sense.

I’m willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that she was already gone during the part where she says she had errands to run.

“She told you she was dropping Matty off at the Vanguard daycare,” I mutter. “She didn’t. She left, Jodie.”

“Are you sure, Jace?”

I nod. “Most of their things are gone. I can’t get hold of her. She’s not answering any texts or calls. She’s gone.”

“Something bad happened that night,” Jodie sighs deeply, lowering her gaze.

“Clara never told me the details, but I know that she was terrified. She didn’t even want to come back here in the first place.

And then Bill Lockwood came to see her, and she was downright scared, though she tried to hide it. ”

“I know what happened that night, and I understand why she ran away.”

Jodie looks up at me. “Then do something about it. Bring her back, Jace.”

Easier said than done. Bringing Clara back means betraying her trust and revealing the truth to Carter and Damon. Damon will understand, but Carter will be devastated .

“I guess you’re right,” I tell Jodie. “I am going to have to do something about it.”

“I will keep an eye on my phone in the meantime,” she says. “If Clara reaches out, I’ll let you know right away. I’ll try to figure out where she might’ve gone, too.”

“The trust fund must’ve come through,” I conclude.

“Then she’s off to handle Matty’s surgery. I’m sure of it.”

“But where?”

Jodie shrugs. “There were a few options she was considering in the state, good hospitals with a high success rate for Matty’s procedure.”

That’s a decent starting point for our search.

But I can’t do it alone.

I give Carter and Damon a moment to look around Clara’s cabin. I understand the shock, the confusion, and the ensuing anger. They’re all stages I’ve already gone through. We gather in the living room.

“Something happened,” Carter says, struggling to contain his rage. “She wouldn’t have just bolted like?—”

“Something did happen,” I cut him off, releasing a heavy sigh. “Five years ago.”

Damon looks at me. “What are you talking about, bro? You’re not making any sense.”

“Your father killed Stephan. Clara was there. She saw everything,” I come right out with it. Better to tear the Band-Aid off with one swift move.

Carter stills in the middle of the room. “What did you just say?”

“Clara begged me not to tell anyone. She only told me because I caught her in a vulnerable moment after she fled from our office the day your father came to see you.”

Damon groans. “Holy shit.”

“Stephan and Margot were involved. They were having an affair for years, going behind Emmanuel’s back,” I add. “Clara caught on, eventually. She and Stephan argued about it a lot. It put a lot of strain on their relationship.”

“Those are the public arguments we heard about,” Damon recalls.

“Yes. Clara begged him to stop. Margot kept promising she’d divorce Emmanuel. It was a vicious cycle,” I say.

Carter shakes his head. “He would’ve said something.”

“Yeah, right. ‘Hey, Carter,’” I mock with plenty of sarcasm.

“‘I’ve been banging your sister for the past few years. You don’t mind, do you?

’” I scoff. “Don’t be ridiculous. He couldn’t tell anybody.

He didn’t want to get Margot in any legal trouble either.

Pretty sure there was a cheating clause in that prenup of hers.

Point is, Clara isn’t the only one who found out. ”

I go on to tell him precisely what Clara told me about that night. Every detail, every word, every moment up to the point where she reluctantly took Bill’s money and got out of Blackthorn Falls .

“She didn’t know she was pregnant at the time. Clara said she would’ve done things differently if she’d known. But by then, the damage was already done.”

“You’re telling me my brother-in-law and father killed my best friend, then drove Clara out of town? Am I getting that right?” Carter manages, now seated in one of the armchairs.

“I’m sorry, Carter. I believe her.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe her,” he snaps. “It’s that it fucking happened, and I knew nothing about it. We knew nothing about it. And Margot…. Fucking hell…. Does she know? Is she complicit?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you. The drinking and pill popping make a hell of a lot more sense now,” Damon says. “It’s grief, not guilt. The way she acts…I don’t think Margot knows.”

“Jesus,” Carter exhales sharply. “My own father.”

“Clara was scared out of her mind,” I tell him. “She was young, she’d just watched her brother get murdered.”

“She could’ve?—”

“Said something?” I cut him off. “She didn’t have much of a choice that night.

Your father had just murdered Stephan, Carter, her brother.

She didn’t know whom to trust, whom to turn to.

For all she knew, Margot might’ve had something to do with it, or maybe you wouldn’t have believed her in the first place. ”

“I would’ve?— ”

“Carter, stop. She was young, impressionable, terrified, and stricken with grief. What you two shared before, it wasn’t strong enough at the time to overpower everything else. It all happened so fast.”

Damon nods. “Remember all the newspaper headlines and the town gossip after Clara left? That was an all-out PR war against her. Bill must’ve made some calls, because the local press went to a hell of a lot of trouble to cast doubt over Clara and her actions.

They were a few words short of blaming her directly for Stephan’s death. ”

“I heard people gossiping about her for years afterward,” I add.

“She’s been running ever since. No wonder she was so secretive when she came back, why she was terrified when Bill showed up at the mansion. Dammit, it all tracks.” Damon takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair. “That being said, Margot and Stephan being together does make sense.”

“What?” Carter gives him a startled glare.

“If we look back, knowing what we know now, we could all agree that the signs were there. We knew Stephan was hiding something. Margot was having issues with Emmanuel. Hell, one of the reasons why your father got her a bigger role in the company was to help stabilize her. She was distracted. Now we know why.”

Carter is still struggling with the entire concept, and I can’t blame him. He will need time to process and heal accordingly. But we still have a bigger issue to fix in the meantime.

“We need to find Clara before it’s too late, before she completely disappears,” I say. “Carter, she was willing to stick around this time. We got her to stay, even with your father in town. We have to figure out what happened, what spooked her.”

“It was Bill. It had to be,” Damon concludes.

“I agree. We have to get her back. We’re going to have to deal with your father, too, Carter. I know it’s sudden, insane, and all too much, but time isn’t on our side here.”

As if switching from shock to determination with the click of an inner button, Carter stands up and squares his shoulders, giving Damon and me a hard, steely look.

“Well, you’re right about one thing, Jace. Time isn’t on our side,” he says, his voice low and cold. “We need to know everything there is to know about Clara, every secret she’s kept from us.”

“How do we?—”

“Jodie,” he replies. “I’ll have a chat with her first. You and Damon should head back to the mansion and start using all of our search protocols for missing persons.

Apply Clara’s parameters and see what hits you get.

Run them against every hospital with a cardiology section that has a high success rate for Matty’s surgical procedure.

Get a hold of Stephan’s lawyer, too,” he adds.

“He won’t tell us where she is,” Damon says. “Attorney-client privilege and whatnot.”

“Maybe. But if her life is at risk, he might be compelled,” Carter says. “And see if you can ping her cell phone off the towers. Skip the legal aspect on this one. Nobody needs to know.”

Wherever she is, we’re going to find her.