Ignite (36 page)

CALLIE AND I sat on the stairway trying to mend our broken hearts when Chase came by with a bowl of popcorn.

“We’re watching a movie now,” he said. “Are you guys okay?”

We nodded, both bleary eyed and sniffling.

“Okay then,” Chase said as he scooped another handful of popcorn out of the bowl in his hands. “By the way, Dean came by earlier. He was looking for Lauren.”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to talk to the traitor.

“Thanks Buddy,” I said. “Bedtime after the movie is over, okay?”

He nodded and went back to the other room.

“I just don’t understand,” I said. “Why wouldn’t he say anything? He had so many opportunities to tell me.”

A realization dawned on me.

“Callie, how long did he know my dad for?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know, a while. For as long as I knew them both.”

I pulled the picture from my dad’s dresser out of the pocket of my jeans.

“Is that Dean?” I said, pointing to the beat-up boy next to him.

Callie took the picture from me and gasped.

“Oh my god,” she said. “It’s totally him.” She handed it back to me. “Alright, that’s a little creepy, I’m not going to lie.”

“Thank you,” I said, putting it back in my pocket. “It’s seriously creepy.”

The letter was still in my back pocket, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it now that I knew Emma was my sister, and Dean had a friendship with my dad. Suddenly, everything made sense.

Emma. The money. Everything.

I thought back to when Dean and I were on his boat. The
Annabelle
. It was my father’s boat. Now it was Dean’s boat. My father had passed down the land onto Dean, and that’s why they were both so rich. They were the only ones who knew about the gold at the bottom of the lake. The house up there must be his, too. I felt so stupid. How had I not realized any of it before? They say every girl falls in love with the man who reminds her of her father, but this was taking it to another level.

I had to go confront him. My palms were sweaty at the thought, but it was the only way to find out why he didn’t say anything after all this time.

“Callie, I have to go find him.”

She nodded. “You go, girl.”

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked. “I’m sorry I made this about me.”

She stood up.

“No, it’s okay. I feel better after going into her room.”

“Good,” I said as I hugged her tightly.

“Love you
sis
,” she whispered. I wanted to cry again at the fact that she said that. I pulled back and beamed at her.

“Love you too. I’ll be back in a little bit,” I told her.

I knocked on the door of Dean’s house only to find a panicked looking Jenny on the other side.

“Thank God, Lauren!” She said. “I can’t find Dean! Do you know where he is?”

I shook my head.

“No, I was looking for him actually. He hasn’t been around?”

“No!” She looked around wildly. I haven’t seen him since last night. He was acting really weird and saying something about a letter. He left all the lights on last night so I don’t think he really slept at all.

I instantly felt terrible.

“Oh god, this is all my fault.”

“Why is it your fault?” She pulled me inside out of the cold.

“I got mad at him because I didn’t understand why my dad would write Dean a letter like he wrote me. Well, it turns out that my dad and Dean were really close.”

She didn’t look surprised.

“Yeah, we all knew that.”

I threw my hands up in frustration.

“See, but I didn’t know that! I also didn’t know that Emma was my sister.”

“Woah, Emma’s your sister? Like for real?”

I nodded.

“I’ve had a lot of bombs dropped on me in the past few days. It’s been a little stressful. Anyway, we need to find Dean.”

“I’ve called him literally a hundred times,” she said, scrolling through her call log.

I pulled out my phone. I had four missed calls from him. I called him back but it didn’t help.

“Straight to voicemail,” I told her.

“No,” she said, starting to freak out. “If I lose him, I’m going to be all by myself again. I can’t do it, I can’t.” I could see the tears welling up in her eyes and I put my hands on her shoulders.

“First of all, you aren’t going to lose him. I’m sure his phone just died. Second, I would never let that happen to you, ever.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Chase said that Dean came by my house earlier while Callie and I were talking. That was within the past few hours, so he can’t be far.”

She took a deep breath.

“The Range Rover is still parked in the garage, so he took the truck.”

“Okay,” I said, “Let’s get in the car.”

We drove around town for an hour, but we had no luck. Jenny said that once she found him at a bar, but that was all she knew of.

“Okay, if you were in his shoes, where would you go?” Jenny mused.

Where would he go? Then it dawned on me.

“Palmer Lake,” I said softly.

“What?”

“Palmer Lake,” I told her as I threw the car into gear.

“No! That’s so sketchy,” Jenny protested. “Especially at night! It’s haunted up there!”

“No,” I told her, speeding up the road. “It’s not haunted. That’s just what they want you to think.”

“Who’s
they?”
Jenny asked.

“My dad and Dean.”

She looked perplexed. “Well, I hope you’re right. Because this is really weird.”

His car wasn’t anywhere at the Lake, and all of the lights in the house were off. After calling his name for a few minutes, I realized where we needed to go.

“Jenny,” I said as we got back in the car. “We have to go to the mine.”

Her face paled.

“Lauren, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Do you want to find your brother?”

She nodded frantically.

“Then we have to.”

I tried to be brave as I drove toward my least favorite place in the middle of the night.

By the time I pulled around the last bend on the road that led to the mine, my headlights flashed on another car.

“That’s his truck!” Jenny shouted, pulling on the door handle before I’d even turned off the engine. Her fear disappeared as she flung herself out of the car and ran toward it.

I followed and pulled my phone out for light.

“He’s not here,” she said, opening up the cab of the truck. “He’s not here!”

My heart beat faster.

“If he’s not in his truck, where is he?”

We both looked at the mouth of the mine.

“No,” I breathed. “He wouldn’t.”

Jenny started crying.

“He said he came up here sometimes to think,” she said. “Why would he go in there? Why?”

I hugged her and tried to calm her down even though I was on the edge of hyperventilating myself.

“Okay,” I said. “He’s fine. He goes in there all the time.”

“Yeah,” she said shrilly. “With other people when it’s light out.”

“But the mine is underground,” I said. “He’s used to it being dark.”

“But he doesn’t have any of his equipment,” she said desperately. “It’s all still in the closet at home. I would know if he took it out. Plus, he’s not stupid. He wouldn’t just go mining in the middle of the night all by himself!”

She was right. He was a boy scout to the core. He wouldn’t go in unprepared.

“Okay,” I told her. “I’m going to go call for him.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said, gripping my hand in the dark as we made our way toward the entrance.

I mustered every ounce of courage I’d ever had in my entire body and shouted.

“Hello?” It echoed off the walls. “Dean?”

The sound of the echo was enough to make me dizzy. I remembered the day of the accident and I had to fight my own memories so stay lucid, so I wouldn’t panic. I couldn’t do that to Jenny or Dean.

No answer.

I shut my eyes, realizing what I had to do.

“Jenny,” I said. “I need you to go wait in the car.”

She looked at me like she didn’t understand.

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911.

“Hi, I’m at Palmer Mine. I need emergency medical care for two people,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. The operator told me to stay on the line, so I muted it and handed the phone to Jenny.

“You can’t!” she said, suddenly sounding desperate. “You can’t leave me!”

“I have to go help him,” I said. “Have you ever known a time when Dean didn’t come running to help you?”

She shook her head.

“You’ll be safe in the car,” I told her, giving her a quick hug. “When they get here, don’t tell them I went in after him. We all know this is stupid.”

She handed me the flashlight she’d found in the glovebox of the car.

“Take this. You might need it.”

I nodded as I descended into the mouth of hell.

“Lauren?” I turned.

“Be careful,” she said. “Please find him.”

“I will,” I promised her. Then I turned back into the darkness.

I CAREFULLY MADE my way through the mud in the tunnel. I heard dripping, but other than that it was completely quiet. Every so often, I called out his name, but there was no response. I knew that Palmer Mine had more than one hundred miles of tunnels, so if he was too far off the main tunnel, I was never going to find him.