Unraveled (Holding On Book 3) (23 page)

1
8

When Jesse’s alarm went off at the normal time, it awoke him with a jolt. He bolted upright, slapping his hand across the top of the digital clock to quiet it. It was 7:00.

And his bed was empty.

His heart tried to catapult out of his chest as he reached for his phone. There were no missed calls but Carly should’ve been to his house
hours
ago. He quickly placed a call to her cell phone. It rang before going to voicemail.

He tossed the covers off and hurried down the hallway. He glanced into the guest room, thinking maybe she hadn’t wanted to wake him up, after all. The
narrow twin-sized bed was empty. So was the couch. A quick glance out the kitchen window confirmed that her car was not in his driveway.

“Shit,” he muttered.

A sick, strangling feeling welled up within him. She had been on her way when he’d last spoken to her. She wouldn’t have gone back home, changed her mind, without letting him know. Would she have? He doubted it but at the same time, he hoped that’s what had happened. Because if not
that
…Well, he didn’t know what.

His brain felt scrambled as thoughts were flung around, trying to decide what he should do.
There was a time when Carly wouldn’t hesitate to pull a stunt like this. She wouldn’t hesitate to tell him she was coming, only to leave him hanging. She was past that. Wasn’t she? He had thought so. But then, where the hell could she be?

Not knowing what else to do, h
e headed for the shower, leaving the water at a chilly degree with the hope it would help him think more clearly. He hurriedly did what needed to be done. When he was finished, he wrapped a towel around his waist and gave Carly another call. When she didn’t answer this time, he decided he would drive past her parents’ house. Maybe she’d decided to stay there. Not likely but he couldn’t think of anything else more logical.

Unless something happened to her
, his mind whispered. He silenced the thought.

“Maybe she got too tired and pulled over somewhere to sleep,” he muttered. It was a possibility but with the weather being as it was, so cold, he doubted that was likely.
He thrust his arms into a t-shirt, already knowing he wouldn’t be going into work. Not unless Carly miraculously showed up in the next few minutes. And even then, he was so worked up he wasn’t sure he could go in.

Should he call her parents? Quinn? Did it make sense to worry them with this already?
Should he do that when he really had no idea what was going on? But maybe they’d heard from her. He shook his head. It was doubtful. If anything, she would’ve called him. Just as she’d done last night.

I love you, Jess.
More than anything.
Her admission, after all this time, should’ve brought a smile to his face this morning. Instead, his heart twisted painfully.

An errant thought came to him from nowhere. Maybe she regretted saying those words. Maybe she’d just said them
because she was feeling emotional. Carly was so wildly unpredictable at times…He shook his head. That wasn’t really true, not anymore. When she was younger, yes. But now, well, she’d changed.

Or at least, he thought she had.

Still, the worry nagged at him. It was possible that she’d regretted what she’d said. Maybe she felt embarrassed or panicked. It was possible that she wanted to take the words back but instead of facing him to do that, maybe she was avoiding him. Running scared, just like she used to.

They had
worked through those issues. He was sure of it. Or maybe he was wrong. Because where in the hell was she?

Could she have decided not to come to Lanford at all? He was sure she wouldn’t have gone back to her house. Not after what had happened with Nolan. Maybe she’d decided to go to her friend, Melissa’s. That would almost make sense. She lived close by and she would surely take Carly in for the night.

Another thought slammed into him. Had she run into Nolan again? Had he somehow followed her? Had she maybe needed to stop for gas? Nolan had been drinking and it sounded like he was completely unstable…Had…He shook the thought away. He wasn’t going to let his mind go there.

“
Damnit
!” Why hadn’t he kept her on the phone!? So what if he needed to work in the morning. It wasn’t like he’d never gone into work without sleep before.

He took a deep breath. None of these thoughts were going to get him anywhere. He needed to take some action. He needed to
find
her.

He was just pulling on his sock, trying to form a plan of action—he’d drive past the Johnson’s and if Carly wasn’t there, he’d head
toward Roseville—when the doorbell rang.

“Finally!”
He shot out the words to his empty room. The pressure of dread eased just a little.

He lumbered to the door, expecting that Carly had forgotten her key in her rush to leave. When he flung the door open, the last person he expected to see at this time in the morning was Luke. The feeling of dread intensified to a crushing degree.

Jesse had no doubt that something wasn’t right. In fact, something was well beyond
wrong
.

“You have no idea how much I hate doing this,” Luke admitted in a pained voice
as he stepped inside.

The expression he wore matched his somber tone.

“What is it?” Jesse said as he tried to steel himself. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

“There’s been an accident.”

“How bad?” Jesse demanded. When Luke grimaced, Jesse’s world blurred in front of his eyes. “Come on, Luke. How bad?”

“It sounds bad. You better come with us.”

Jesse was already cramming his feet into his boots. Luke continued to talk while Jesse rushed around grabbing his essentials: Phone, wallet, jacket.

“Pete and Margo got a call, less than an hour ago. Quinn and I had to wait for my parents so they could watch the kids. I didn’t
want to tell you over the phone.” Luke, seeing that Jesse was as ready as he was going to get, opened the door and stepped outside. “All I know is that there was an accident. She was sideswiped by a truck. She wasn’t conscious when they found her. Pete told Quinn that she was being taken into surgery.”

“Who called them?”

“Don’t know,” Luke said. “Quinn was still on the phone when she handed my cell phone to me and told me to see if I could get my parents to come over immediately. It was kind of chaos after that, you know, trying to get the kids and ourselves ready.”

“Where did it h
appen?”

“Right outside of
Carlton,” Luke said as they quickly rushed down the sidewalk. “Obviously she was headed back here but we can’t understand why she’d be headed back that time of night. She obviously has classes this morning.”

When they reached Luke’s running truck,
Jesse threw the passenger door open. Quinn had scooted to the middle of the bench seat. She looked up at him with watery eyes.

Wordlessly, he got in and Luke backed out of the driveway.

“Mom’s the one they talked to,” Quinn said, breaking the silence. “And you know how she is. She makes everything so much more dramatic than it has to be. Right?”

She turned to Jesse for reassurance. He caught Luke’s eye. He didn’t miss the
look of dread that was etched across his friend’s face. But he forced a smile for Quinn anyway. He nodded. “Right. Carly’s going to be fine.” Quinn gave him a weak smile as she swiped at a tear. “Just fine,” Jesse muttered.
Because she
has
to be.

Several more
moments of silence filled the truck.

It was Luke who finally spoke.

“So, uh,” he began as she shot a look at Jesse, “do you happen to know what the hell she was doing?”

Jesse gave a curt nod. “Yeah, I do.
She was coming to see me.”

He realized Quinn was staring at him with a look of
shocked disbelief. “Seriously? You two couldn’t wait for the weekend?!”

He stared at her for a second as her implication sunk in.
It took a raised eyebrow look from Luke for Jesse to understand, despite his discombobulated thoughts, what Quinn was saying. “What?! No. No, it wasn’t like that.”

She raised her eyebrows. “
Then I think you should explain to me what it was like. Why was my sister out, on an icy road, trying to drive four hours in the middle of the night?” 

He quickly filled them in. He felt
as though he were invading Carly’s privacy by telling Quinn and Luke what had happened to her. At the same time, Carly and Quinn were so close, he was sure Carly would tell Quinn anyway. If she were able. Besides, it wasn’t as if he could keep it to himself. Not under the circumstances. Not when her family desperately needed answers.

“I
never
liked him,” Luke growled.

Quinn sniffled beside Jesse and plucked another tissue out of the box that was settled in her lap.

“Yeah, well, if I ever see him I can’t promise I won’t rip the guy’s head off,” Jesse fumed. “In fact, I have the strongest urge to hunt him down and do it anyway after what he did to her!” His emotions wavered between fear for Carly and rage against Nolan. He had hurt her. Maybe not physically, or at least, she’d claimed he hadn’t. But he’d hurt her emotionally. He’d scared the daylights out of her. Terrified her, really. For that alone, Jesse could tear him limb from limb. That had all been bad enough. But now? Now she’d been in a horrible wreck because of Nolan. Because of her terror, her need to get away.

“Jesse,” Quinn cautiously said.

He slowly turned to face her. She was looking at him with concern. He realized his fists were clenched in his lap, his jaw was tightly clamped shut and his posture was rigid.

“We can’t lose it right now,” Quinn said. “We need to stay strong for her. She’s going to need us.
She’s not going to like it if we get there and we’re all wound up. You know how she is.”

“Yeah, yeah,
I know,” he managed to say. He instantly felt like a jackass. He should be offering Quinn comfort. Not the other way around. “Thanks,” he finally said. “For thinking of me. I mean, thanks for letting me know what happened. And for coming to get me.”

He knew that they really didn’t have to do that. He wasn’t family and his relationship with Carly had always been questionable.

Quinn reached over and gave his knee a reassuring squeeze. “Of course. Do you know how furious Carly would be if she woke up and found out you weren’t there?” she tried to tease. “She would never forgive me if she woke up and the love of her life wasn’t by her side because I forgot to bring him with.”

Jesse shot a look at Quinn. Was he the love of Carly’s life?

“Oh come on,” Quinn said. “You know what you mean to her. I might not have ever understood your relationship—”

He snorted a
mirthless laugh. “That makes two of us. Three, actually, because I’m pretty sure Carly never understood us either.”

“But you’re figuring it out now,” Quinn said, firmly.

“Yeah,” he said with a small nod, “we are.”

“I can’t believe he just let himself in,” Luke said in dismay.

“Poor Carly,” Quinn muttered. “She must’ve been terrified, waking up like that.”

“
Yeah,” Jesse confirmed. “I didn’t like her being in that house alone. I should’ve helped her find somewhere else to stay.”

“There wasn’t anywhere else,” Quinn said firmly. “You know that. I didn’t tell her she shouldn’t stay there either. So don’t blame yourself. No one saw this coming.”

He shouldn’t have let her head home. He knew that now. He should’ve insisted that she go to her friend’s house. He hadn’t realized he’d voiced his thoughts out loud until Quinn looked at him with a scrutinizing gaze.

“Really?”
She said with a frown. “You’re going to do this? You’re going to blame yourself? I don’t think so. You need to stop that right now. Carly isn’t going to put up with it.”

“So, what exactly did your parents find out?”

He turned away from Quinn when he realized his question had caused her to blink back tears.

“She was just this side of Carlton. Apparently, a truck crossed the centerline. The other driver was thrown. Carly’s car rolled. They were a ways o
ff the road. There’s not a lot of traffic that time of night.” He heard Quinn swallow back some tears and she continued. “A woman getting off the nightshift saw the cars down in a ditch. I guess the sun was just starting to come up. I’m not sure how long they were there before the lady found them. She called it in. They were able to track down Mom and Dad through Carly’s driver’s license. She still has our parents’ house listed as her permanent address.”

Jesse’s throat constricted tightly, as if fear held it in its grip. The backs of his eyes prickled painfully but he shoved the feeing away. He needed to hold it together. He hadn’t felt like this since…Since his best friend had died. But Carly wasn’t Jake. Carly was going to be fine.