Page 26 of Sweet Music (Sugarville Grove #7)

BELLA

B ella awoke early on Christmas Eve morning, and for a moment, she couldn’t remember why she felt so sad.

But by the time she stretched and sat up, it all came back to her. Cash was leaving, and Cody was taking it hard.

I’ll let him sleep in today, she decided. That will cheer him up. And I’ll bake something nice. That will cheer us both up.

She’d had all kinds of Christmas baking plans, but everything had been upended with Cash’s arrival. This morning, she could take advantage of the quiet time to catch up with some of what she’d been dreaming of doing.

We can bring pinwheel cookies with us when we visit the Lawrences tomorrow, she told herself. That will make Cody happy.

She took a shower and got dressed in a pair of funny Christmas pajamas that were adorned with a thousand tiny blue Santas in a Nordic pattern against a red backdrop.

Once she was in the kitchen, she put on an apron, started an Elvis Christmas album on her phone, and got down to work.

By the time the dough was ready for the pinwheel cookies, Cody was still sleeping. She thought he would enjoy rolling it out and slicing the cookies, so she put it in the fridge while she started on the ginger snaps.

The morning went by in a blur of mixing, chilling, baking, and music. Around noon, she took the last tray of ginger snaps out of the oven and decided to take a break.

Normally on the weekends, she woke Cody by nine or ten so he wouldn’t fall off his school schedule too much.

She had wanted to let him sleep extra today, but sleeping past noon didn’t really feel like a good idea.

They had been invited to spend Christmas morning at the Lawrence place tomorrow, and if he slept too late today it might be hard to get any sleep tonight.

She approached his door and tapped lightly, but there was no answer.

“ Cody,” she said softly. “ It’s time to get up.”

She had expected to at least hear the bed creak a little. With the hollow doors in this place, you couldn’t so much as sigh without someone hearing you in the hallway.

“Cody?” she said in her full voice, knocking again.

Still there was no response, and suddenly panic filled her like ice water in her chest.

“I’m going to come in,” she said, knocking one more time .

She wasn’t sure what she had expected to see when she opened the door, but it wasn’t his perfectly made bed with a packet of some kind of documents on top.

Without thinking, she stepped inside and grabbed the papers.

On the top page, a note had been scrawled in Cody’s messy handwriting.

I’m sorry

She looked again at what she was holding, and she felt her stomach twist.

ExpressDNA

Your Results Are Here!

She scanned the document once, and then a second time, unable to believe what she was seeing.

But the results were crystal clear.

Cash wasn’t Cody’s biological father.

She sank to the bed, her mind reeling. This must have been the piece of mail Mrs. Waters had brought down to them. This was why Cody had been so down last night.

In the blink of an eye, the monumental change to his young life was about to be undone.

Why did you do this? she asked him inwardly.

But she knew why. Every social media post he made for the rest of his life would be filled with conjecture about why he was or wasn’t Cash’s son. Even his friends at school had expressed disbelief. Cody had probably done this in order to have some kind of proof.

And it backfired…

In her shock, she had almost forgotten that he wasn’t in the apartment, but now the panic returned.

She had no idea where he had gone or when.

Bella was on her feet again in a heartbeat, the awful papers still clutched in her hand as she ran for her phone.

Her hands shook as she pulled up the tracking app that she and Cody had for each other. But his dot was gone. He had deactivated it.

Please, God, please let him be okay.

Fear had her fighting for breath as she racked her brain for where Cody might have gone. His closest friend at school was Annika Corbin, but she didn’t think they were close enough yet for him to just show up at her house.

All of his old friends were back in Burlington. Could he be on a bus back there to try and find them?

If that was what he wanted, he would have run last night when we were already in Burlington.

She tried calling Cody’s phone, but hung up when it only went to voicemail. She called the police next out of instinct, but she already knew that if she had no idea where to look, they would have even less of a clue.

The conversation seemed to go on forever, and she was ashamed that she didn’t have more of an idea for them of where the boy might go.

“We’ll start making the rounds, ma’am,” the woman on the other end said at last. “Does he have other family he might visit? ”

“No,” she said, feeling the weight of the word like an anchor on her heart.

As soon as the call ended, she knew what she had to do next.

I swore I would never be a coward again when it came to what was important.

Her fingers danced on her phone screen.

Cash picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?” he said, sounding a bit on edge himself.

“Cody is gone,” Bella blurted. “Apparently he ordered a DNA test. You’re not his father, Cash.”

The words all came spilling out before she could even think about them.

“I… what?”

“Cash, he’s not your responsibility,” Bella said. “I know that now. And I know you’re not the type of guy who sticks around anyway. But if you help me find him, I promise I will make it up to you somehow. Please. Please… ”

By the time she finished, she was crying so hard that she didn’t hear what he said next. Whatever it was, he hung up immediately afterward, leaving her to her own devices.

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and then forced herself to think. It was Christmas Eve—nothing in town would be open. Cody would know that. He had to have had some kind of a plan. She hurried back to his room to look for clues.

It felt wrong to go through his things, but he was out there alone and probably overwhelmed with sadness. She had to find him.

His room was neat, a tribute to what a good kid he was trying to be. Her own room had been a disaster area at his age.

His clothing was all folded neatly and tucked away in his dresser. There was nothing under his bed but his guitar case, with the instrument tucked inside.

Somehow, that sight terrified Bella more than anything else that had happened so far.

Where would he go without his guitar?

But she couldn’t afford to panic. She grabbed his backpack and searched it systematically. There was nothing in it but his schoolbooks and folders.

On his desk, the notebook that Cash had given him was set neatly on top of Cash’s folded hoodie.

“Oh, Cody,” Bella murmured, lifting up the notebook for no reason she could imagine.

It fell open to a page of handwritten lyrics. But they weren’t lyrics she had ever seen before.

“Where can you be?” she read aloud. “Where is my Sweet Jane?”

Her heart crashed in her chest as she flipped to the next page and saw more of the same, lyrics covering the pages with notes on the side, all about Sweet Jane, page after page.

She closed the notebook, and tried to clear her mind.

It didn’t matter how he’d felt back then. Nothing mattered right now except finding Cody.

She hurried out to the living room and pulled on a pair of boots and her coat before checking her phone again. There was still nothing from Cody, and his location was still turned off .

She called him again as she fled the apartment, leaving her key under the mat.

But again, she only got his voicemail. This time, she stayed on the line.

“ You know what to do ,” his husky teenage voice said. He was trying to sound cool, but the earnest note in his voice gave him away.

“Cody,” Bella said. “I found your note, and I know you’re freaking out.

I know this seems like the worst thing that could ever happen, but I promise you that it isn’t.

You’re a wonderful person and a wonderful musician.

And Cash Law never had anything to do with that.

I’m proud of you and I love you. Please let me know you’re okay. ”

She made it to the bottom of the stairs, where she opened the door and flew out, crashing immediately into something that felt like a brick wall.