“I’ll try calling her again too,” the older woman, Bev I think is her name, says.
“Let me see if she sent me any messages,” Sydney says as she looks at her phone. “Nope. Nothing. Maybe Ruth will run into her in the bathroom.”
“Run into who?” the other lady says when she finds our group, letting the music drift outside before the door shuts again.
“Tessa,” Charlotte explains. “Was she in the bathroom?”
“No. Why?”
“We can’t find her,” Bev explains. “Has she texted or called you?”
“I didn’t bring my phone. It’s back at the house,” Ruth replies.
“Crap!” Charlotte exclaims and runs her fingers through her long, straight hair in frustration.
“Maybe she had enough and went back to the beach house,” I suggest. “We can go downstairs and check with the bouncers at the front and back exits, see if they’ve seen her. Any of you have a photo on your phone?”
“Yes, I do. Thank you, Roman,” Charlotte says as she hands me her device with a photo of her and Tessa on the screen, both smiling at the camera in a selfie.
“Come on,” I tell the women, showing them the way down the steps on the far side of the building and taking them to the front where the line to get in still stretches down the boardwalk.
“Bruce, man, have you seen this woman?” I ask the bald bouncer, holding up the image.
“Ah, yeah, boss. She’s right beside you,” he says. He’s not the brightest bulb in the fucking box, but he can whip someone’s ass in a heartbeat. “The other one, with red hair,” I clarify. “What kind of dress was she wearing tonight?” I ask the women who are standing behind me.
“Green sequin,” Charlotte says.
“Oh yeah, Ariel,” Bruce says. “She came out about fifteen minutes ago or so and went that way.” He points with a big, meaty finger toward the row of stores on the strip, most of which are still open.
“Thank you!” Charlotte tells Bruce before she grabs her phone from me and takes off at a jog in that same direction with the other women following behind. I’m not the type to just stand around and do nothing, so I fall in behind them. “Tessa?” she calls out as she stops at each storefront. I lift my chin at the staff who all know me before Charlotte thrusts her phone in their face. “Have you seen her?”
“Yeah,” Mikey says. “Walked by a few minutes ago on her phone talking to someone in a rush, but she didn’t come inside here.”
“Thanks, man,” I tell him before Charlotte and the women take off to the next store.
We go through five more before we hit the end of the line. No other store clerks seem to have seen her.
“She must still be around here somewhere, right?” Charlotte says when she calls her friend again, still not getting an answer. “What are we going to do?”
“Well, she didn’t just disappear. The last clerk said she was standing on the sidewalk one second, and then a minute later he looked up and she was gone. Maybe she got an Uber home and didn’t want to spoil the night for the rest of you,” I offer.
“She wouldn’t have left to go home without telling us,” Charlotte mutters.
“Maybe…maybe she got sick and didn’t have time to tell us,” Bev offers.
“Not even time to call before she left in the Uber? No, that doesn’t make sense,” Charlotte says with a shake of her head.
“My feet are killing me,” Sydney says before removing her heels and taking a seat on the curb. “I can go back to the house and see if she’s there or not.”
“I’ll go with you and get my phone, see if I have any calls from Tessa,” Ruth says.
“Okay, you two go back and keep in touch. Bev and I will go across the street and talk to the clerks over there,” Charlotte tells them. “And you,” she turns to me. “You don’t have to keep following us around.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell her. “Besides, the locals all know me but not you, which makes them more willing to talk and not blow you off if I tag along.”
“Fine!” she huffs.
“I’ll ask our IT guy to pull up the surveillance videos, see what he can find,” I offer. “Send me that photo you have of her and a few others.”
“Okay. Thank you,” Charlotte replies with a sigh.
Charlotte
* * *
My head is pounding with worry, and my feet are one big blister by the time Bev and I walk through the door at the beach house a little after two a.m., well past the time when all the stores had closed on the strip and even the clubs and bars had started locking up.
“Did you find her?” Ruth asks from where she and Syd have been waiting in the living room.
“No.”
“This isn’t good,” Sydney says. “Do you think we should call her parents or Paul?”
“No, not yet,” I say. “It’s the middle of the night, and I don’t want to unnecessarily worry them when she could very well be off with…”
“With what?” Ruth asks when I pause.
“What if she went home with someone?”
“You think she would do that to Paul?” Syd asks.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to be the reason everything goes to shit with him if she did.”
“So we’re going to wait until the morning?” Bev asks.
“Yeah, we’re going to wait and pray that she comes home or calls by noon tomorrow. If she doesn’t, then…”
“We’ll call her parents, Paul, and the police?” Ruth finishes.
“Yeah,” I say with a heavy sigh. “Until then, we should probably all try to get some sleep.”
“How can we sleep when we don’t know where Tessa is?” Bev asks.
“I know, it sucks,” I agree. “But all we can do for now is wait.”
Chapter Five
Roman
* * *
“Danny, hey. Did you find anything?” I ask the head of our IT team when he calls me back around one in the afternoon on Saturday.
“Yeah, Roman, I did. And it’s not good.”
“What do you mean?” I ask as my heart starts racing in my chest.
“I think it’s better if you see for yourself.”
“When can you get to the clubhouse?” I ask him.
“I’m already in the car on my way.”
“Good enough. I’ll see you in a few.” Ending the call, I head outside for a smoke while I wait for him to pull up.
Danny is barely out of his Jeep when I say, “Show me.”
Coming over, he pushes a few buttons on his iPad and then offers it to me. “Just hit play.”
I do, and then begin watching a dark, night scene of Ocean Blvd, people walking up and down the sidewalk the club is on, including a woman walking alone with her phone to her ear, her back to the camera. Still, it’s obvious to see that it’s Tessa with her red hair and sparkly dress.