Page 130 of Wild Card

“Wait, you think she went to your place?”

He makes a soft keening sound. “Fuck, Bash, I don’t know. But she looked tearful when we went to bed, and she gave me an unusually tight hug. And I don’t know, I just… I’m worried.”

My stomach turns over on itself. Clyde left her with a hug, and I left her withguess you did warn me you don’t stay in one place for long.

Regret pummels me from every direction. Pressure constricting around my skull until I can barely think straight.

That can’t be how I left things with us. I never even answered her goddamn text.

But if Clyde is worried, that means I should be very, very worried.

I spring into action. Years of working under pressure snap me back to reality.

“Okay, Clyde, please, whatever you do, stay where you are. Because if she comes home, you’re the person who needs to tell me. I’m going to start calling around. I’ll stay in touch with you. But I need to go up in the air soon, which means I’ll be out of contact for a while.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, his voice shaking a bit. “I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

“I mean it, Clyde. Don’t even go out on the patio to sun your perineum. Just be ready by a phone, okay?”

“Okay,” he says.

“And, Clyde, no matter what, while I’m up there, I promise to fly over your place. I’ll check, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, voice cracking with emotion. “But, Bash?”

“Yeah?”

“Find Gwen first.”

With that, I hang up. Because if I have to listen to Clyde cry, I might lose it too.

I call Gwen immediately, almost hurling my coffee onto the gravel when it doesn’t even ring. Straight to voicemail, just like Clyde said.

Needing to keep focused, I pull up my contact list and start going through everyone who might know Gwen’s whereabouts.

The first person I check with is Tabitha, because I know she attends Gwen’s yoga classes and they’ve forged something of a friendship.

She answers her phone, sounding tired, but confirms with a nervous voice that she hasn’t seen or heard from Gwen. The results are much the same when I call Rosie and Skylar in turn. All nervous. All tired and all pleading with me to give them an update and promising to do the same if they hear anything.

Truth be told, I don’t know who else to call. I phone the emergency shelter, but no one with her name has checked in.

As I turn to join Emmett and West, I hear the crunch of tires pulling up to the barn. It’s Tripp Coleman, driving right toward me.

He steps out of his car, wearing a sweatsuit, sneakers, and the world’s most dramatic eye roll. “My God, you’re fucking everywhere,” he groans.

“What are you doing here?” I grumble before realizing he’s the only person I haven’t called that might know where Gwen is.

“Well, despite the fact that you clearly think I’m a shitty person, I’ve been up watching the news all night, and I figured I might as well help out since I’m here. So I went down to the community hall, and they sent me here to help load straw bales.”

I’m shaken. Why was he even still here? I’d expected him to burn straight out of town and never look back.

He wants a relationship with you too. Gwen’s words filter in from my memories.

But all I do is correct him with “Hay bales.”

“What-the-fuck ever, man. As if it makes a difference. Just let me do my thing.”

He goes to brush past me, but I grab him by the arm, stopping him in his tracks. He looks down at my hand, like I’ve somehow gravely offended him.