The Secrets That We Keep (16 page)

A
piercing wail penetrates my peaceful and deep sleep and I’m jarred awake. I look around still half asleep, confused as to what the noise is that woke me. I finally look over at my nightstand and see that it’s my cell phone ringing. It stops before I can reach over and grab it and I breathe a sigh of relief that they gave up and drop back down to my pillow and hope I can get back into that comfortable slumber.

Right as I feel myself dozing off, the blasted thing goes off again. I knew I should have just left it off. Keeping my head on my pillow, I extend my arm to the phone and hit the little button on the top of the phone that makes it go quiet. I open one eye and look at the digital clock and see that it’s only 7:30am. It should be against the law to call anybody at that time on a Saturday. I quickly fall back asleep and don’t wake up until 11:30.

I stretch my arms over my head and turn to see that the space next to me is empty. Julian must already be downstairs. Clearly I’m the only sleep deprived one around here. I take a few minutes to fully wake up before I drag myself out of bed. I press the button on my phone that turns the ringer back on and it rings instantly.

“Hello?” I answer in an annoyed tone.

“Annabella,” the frantic voice on the other end says. “It’s Dylan. Have you heard from Michelle?”

I’m taken aback because Dylan never calls me
, and based on the tone of his voice, this isn’t going to be a pleasant call. I instantly sit up on the edge of the bed.

“No Dylan, I haven’t. What’s going on? She isn’t home?” I ask, quickly getting worried.

He mutters a couple of curse words under his breath before responding to me.

“No, she never came home from the club last night. There have been times where she has come home pretty late, but never this late. It’s almost noon for Christ’s sake!” he shouts.

“Have you called Jade? Maybe she went and stayed the night over there,” I say, hoping it’s true.

“I talked to her already and she said she hasn’t heard from her either. I don’t know what to do. The cops won’t do anything yet because it hasn’t been long enough.”

Dylan sounds like a nervous wreck and completely heartbroken. I wish I could say something to him that would give him some comfort, but I can’t. My imagination starts running wild and I can only think of the worst.

“What club was she at last night? Do you remember?” I ask him.

“The same club she always goes to. The Underground.”

The Underground is the same club I was taken from. This isn’t good.

“Okay, maybe you should go to the club and talk to the workers and see if they remember seeing her or who she might have been with or anything like that. Okay? I’ll talk to Julian and see if he can help. We’ll find her, Dylan,” I say, wishing I was as confident as I was trying to sound.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “
Annabella, I hate to ask this, but I have to. Do you know if Michelle is having an affair? Maybe she could be with another man.”

I wish I could say I was shocked at the question but I wasn’t. The way they’ve been fighting and with her always going out and being flirtatious when she was out, had me thinking maybe she was up to somet
hing. But I never saw her actually doing anything wrong and she never confided in me about anything either.

“No, I don’t think she i
s, Dylan.”

I can hear him let out a breath.
“Okay, thanks Annabella. Call me if you hear anything.”

“Will do.”

He hangs up and I fall back onto the bed and think about what could have happened to Michelle. I’m instantly hit with guilt about not going out with her. She had asked me to go but I said no, that I’d rather stay home with Julian. Maybe if I would have gone, she would be home and safe right now.

I’m
about to dial Jade’s number when Julian bursts through the bedroom door wearing a pair of basketball shorts, running shoes and a baseball cap. He has sweat glistening off his chest and stomach and as much as I want to stare at him, I can’t think about anything else but Michelle right now. My face must convey my worry because his brows furrow and he walks towards me.

“What’s wrong
, Bella?”

“It’s Michelle.
Dylan said she hasn’t come home.”

Even he seems surprised by this news. “Where
was she last and when was the last time anybody heard from her?” he asks.

“She was at The Underground last night and I’m not sure who she was with. Dylan last saw her when she had left the house which was probably around ten or so.”

“Okay, well she hasn’t been gone long enough to report her missing. Are we sure she hasn’t just found a place to crash?” he asks with one eyebrow raised because he knows how Michelle can be too.

“I honestly don’t know. She isn’t with Jade and I don’t know any of her other friends. I don’t think she’d go home with some random guy.”

“All we can do is wait and see if she pops back up, go to the club and ask around or maybe try to trace her cell phone. Make sure you tell Dylan all of that so he can get started.”

“I’ll let him know, thanks.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, Bella,” he says while rubbing my arm in comfort. “I just got back in from running, so I’m going to take a shower real quick.”

“Okay.”

When he goes into the bathroom, I pick up my phone to call Jade and she answers on the first ring.

“Oh
my gosh, Anna! Can you believe it?” she screeches into the phone.

“No. This is so weird and I feel terrible for not going out with her now.”

“Tell me about it. Don’t you find it weird that she was taken from the same club you were taken from? Maybe it’s the same thing? Maybe they’ll release her tonight.”

I never told
Jade the whole story about that night. I didn’t tell her Lucas was involved and that I had snuck away from him because he wanted us to runaway together. I also didn’t tell her about what they said about Julian. So as far as she believes, it was the two guys that were following me, but that they had indeed taken me only because of their history with Julian. She thinks that I was released because they believed Julian had gotten the message. I felt bad lying to her about the details but it was much too complicated to try to explain.

“I don’t know Jade, why would the same guys want Michelle for? It doesn’t make any sense.”

I didn’t bother to tell her that Lucas was out of town so it definitely wasn’t him, and as far as Cyrus goes, we reported him to the cops but I doubt that was his real name and my description of him didn’t go far. They were never able to find him so it’s kind of a cold case. I never described Lucas as the other abductor because I didn’t want him to get in trouble for only trying to protect me.

“Well I don’t know, maybe they’re just a couple of creepers who want to keep snatching up women and scaring the shit out of them. I hope she’s okay
and she goes home soon.”

“Me too, but hey, Dylan asked me if I thought she was having an affair because he thought that maybe she could be with another guy. I told him I didn’t think so but what do you think? Did she ever tell you anything?”

“Wow. She never said she was cheating on her husband outright but we both know how she gets really flirtatious when she’s been drinking. And the fact that she was talking to those guys…wait, were the guys she was talking to the same ones who took you?”

“I honestly don’t know. It seems like it could have been
, but she never pointed out the guys to me so I wouldn’t know if they were the same ones in the house with me that night. It could all be a big coincidence or maybe…maybe they are the same guys and maybe mine and her abduction are connected somehow. I don’t know for sure.”

“Shit, this isn’t good, Anna
.”

“I know, I
gotta call Dylan back and let him know to try to have her phone traced and hopefully we’ll find her.”

“Okay, well call me later or something.”

“I will. Bye.”

“Okay, bye.”

As soon as I end the call with Jade, I quickly call Dylan to let him know about tracing her phone and he said he would contact the phone company and see what they could do.

I don’t hear back from Dylan until later that night. I’m sitting in the living room watching TV while Julian is upstairs doing some sort of work related paperwork. I answer his call hoping that he has some good news to tell me.

“Hey Dylan, what’s going on?”

I hear him take in a deep breath before letting out a defeated sigh. “We found her phone. It was in the dumpster behind the club.”

I let out a gasp. “Oh no.”

It’s the only thing I can think to say. There is no way she would just throw her phone into a dumpster. Somebody had to have done that for her.

“We’re coming up on twenty four hours of her being missing,” he whispers and I can hear him starting to break down. “I shouldn’t have yelled at her before she left, I shouldn’t have been fighting with her so much.” He’s now sobbing uncontrollably and my heart breaks for him.

“Dylan, I’m so sorry. There’s still hope. We don’t know what’s happened, we can still find he
r. Stay strong, okay? Keep calling the cops.”

I don’t know what else to say. I know nothing I can say is going to make him feel any better and none of it is comforting
, but I’m trying to stay positive.

I hear him sucking in loud breaths and
then he mutters something before hanging up.

I feel so helpless just sitting here, waiting to hear news about my friend, but there’
s nothing I can do. I continue to watch TV in a daze until I eventually fall asleep on the couch.

When I awaken later, I notice I’ve been covered with a warm fleece blanket. Julian must have
known I needed to sleep, otherwise he would have woken me up and had me go upstairs.

I get up and fold the blanket into a square and leave on the edge of the couch for now. I make my way up the stairs, ready to be in my comfortable bed and curl up into my husband. I check my phone as I hit the landing and head towards my bedroom door. I have no missed calls or text messages
, so I assume that there isn’t any new information on Michelle’s disappearance.

I look up when I have taken a couple of steps into the room and try to use my cell phone light to guide my way to the bed without running into anything. When I get to my side, I put the phone on the nightstand and pull off my pants and just crawl into the bed. I slide over to Julian’s side of the bed, seeking his warmth
, but he isn’t there. I turn to look at the digital clock and I’m shocked to see that it’s three o’clock in the morning. Where the hell is Julian?

I slide all the way to his side of the bed and turn on the lamp that sits on his nightstand. I look around for some sort of note but I don’t find any. I go downstairs in hopes that he left one down there letting me know where he went but I don’t come across one. I jog back up the stairs into the room to grab my cell phone and quickly type out a text to Julian asking him where he is.
A few seconds after hitting send, I hear a noise coming from the dresser. When I walk over there, I see my name and message flashing across the screen of Julian’s phone.

“Dammit!” I hiss out loud.

I can’t go back to sleep without knowing where Julian is or if he’s okay so I end up just pacing through the house waiting for him to walk in. At four o’clock I’m sitting at the table in the kitchen with a drink in my hand and the phone in front of me. When it dings I almost jump out of my seat and spill my drink at the same time. I fumble with the phone trying to read the message as quickly as possible. It’s from an unknown number but the message reads;
I’m about to call you, answer it.

I anxiously
wait for the phone to ring, hopeful that it’s Julian who has found a way to contact me. When it does go off, I answer it before it has even finished its first ring.

“Hello? Julian?” I answer in a panic.

“No, not Julian,” the voice replies, almost amused.

“Lucas?” I shriek. “Where are you calling from?”

“My phone, I had to get a new number.”

“What do you want?” I ask, not reall
y in the mood to deal with his “you made the wrong decision” speech again.

“Well, I just wanted to ask you a question,” he says calmly.

I let out an annoyed sigh and take a sip of my mostly vodka drink. “Go ahead.”

“I was just curious, were you with your husband the night he was
at The Signature Room? I only ask because I was there that night too and spoke to him. Do you want to know what we talked about?” He only gives brief pause, not allowing me to answer. “We discussed the plan to have him kill you. Cyrus had been trying to convince him to forget about it and that he made a mistake, but he didn’t like that. He wanted to still be the one to kill you because he knew that Cyrus planned on doing it. The only problem was, your husband wasn’t going at a pace that Cyrus liked. He wanted it done as soon as possible. Your husband seemed to be waiting it out, for whatever reason.”