Hotel Ladd (5 page)

A dreadful thought seized her and Annie
rushed to the bathroom, whipping open the door. Again, no Casey, no
nothing. Annie focused on the vanity. No toothbrush. A looming
sense of apprehension choking her, Annie marched back to the dining
room and dug into her purse for her cell phone. She dialed Casey’s
number but there was no answer. Next, she called Fran.

“
Fran’s Diner.”

“
Fran, its Annie. Did Casey
show up for work?”

“
No, darlin’ and I’m going
crazy busy right now.”

Fear fired hot in her chest. “Well, she
isn’t home, so I don’t know if she forgot or what happened,” she
said, unable to erase the empty toothbrush holder from her
mind.

“
Tell her to call me first
thing, will you? Right now I’ve got to go.”

“
Yes, sure. Will do,” Annie
replied, but Fran had already hung up the phone. Ending the call,
her hand began to tremble.
Casey, where are
you
?

Chapter Four

Annie stopped in at the diner first
thing in the morning. She had called Casey ten times over the
course of the night and the girl never answered, never returned her
call. Worried, Annie calmed herself with the fact that Casey’s
toothbrush was missing, which meant there was no foul play
involved. But it didn’t mean foul play couldn’t catch up to her. It
was a crazy world out there. Any one of a number of things could
happen to her. Her car could break down. She could run out of gas.
She could get lost. Annie had no idea where Casey could have gone
or why, but the scenarios for disaster grew by leaps and bounds in
her imagination. When the thoughts became too much to bear, she
called Candi and confided in her what happened. Candi called her
nephew right away, but Jimmy didn’t know anything. Not that Annie
would expect him to, but he was the closest thing Casey had to a
friend these days, and if she was going to run away, she might have
told him.

Run away
. It was beginning to be clear that’s indeed what her daughter
had done. Upon further investigation last night, Annie had
discovered that Casey had packed a suitcase, cleared out her
drawers and taken a few of her personal belongings. The framed
portrait of her and her mother was not among them. That detail
still hurt. The picture had been taken during happier times, a trip
to the fresh water aquarium in Chattanooga two years ago. Casey had
been thrilled with the wildlife, creatures she didn’t know existed,
many of which lived in the lakes and streams around their home. It
had been a great day. Two years ago, mother and daughter had been
happy and carefree.

Today looked a whole lot different.
Bells clanged as Annie pushed through the front door of Fran’s
Diner. Seven-thirty a.m., but the diner was already serving a
half-packed restaurant. Black and white checkered floors were
spotless, red vinyl booths gleamed. Guilt threaded through her.
Fran and the dinner crew must have stayed late to fill in for the
two missing bodies last night. If she’d thought about it, Annie
would have come and helped clean up after the dinner crowd herself,
but truth be known, she’d been in no condition to go anywhere last
night. Casey’s disappearance was shredding her last
nerve.

Venturing toward the back, Annie picked
out Fran’s red hair without effort. Tucked within the confines of a
sheer hair net, the bright-colored hair dye echoed the booths, the
stools, practically everything in the restaurant. But red was Fran
and Fran was red—firecracker red, most days—in both style and
temperament.

Fran sailed out of the kitchen, a tray
loaded with orange juice and coffee in hand. “Well? What did the
child have to say for herself?”

“
Nothing,” Annie replied. An
uncomfortable feeling lodged tightly in the pit of her
stomach.

Fran’s penciled brow rose sharply.
“Nothing?” Her gaze shot to the ceiling. “Well, butter my butt and
call me a biscuit, that child has no sense of obligation,” she
said, breezing by Annie en route for her table destination. Annie
smiled grimly and watched her aunt deliver the beverages, jot down
an order and return with a severe look of displeasure etched across
her usually cheerful brown eyes. “What’s a matter with her, Annie?
Doesn’t she know I was relying on her?”

“
Casey’s gone,
Fran.”

Her expression fell. “Gone?”

Annie nodded and tears pushed behind
her eyes, a rush of angst peppering her chest. “I think she ran
away.”

Concern swamped Fran’s eyes
with a doe-like distress. “Oh, darlin’
no
.”

She nodded again, but this
time there were no words. Standing near the breakfast counter,
Annie slumped to a seat. Casey had run away. It was a smack in the
face to her mother, her aunt, and everything that spelled home.
Casey wanted none of it. She had rejected those who cared about her
most and did so without the first scribble of a note. Annie only
wished she knew where Casey went.
Where did
she have to go, anyway
?

“
Oh, sugar.” Fran eased
heavily to a stool beside her, instantly ejecting the needs of her
restaurant in favor of her family. “Are you sure?”

More sure than she cared to admit.
Annie took a deep breath and calmed herself as best she could. “I
found a suitcase missing, her drawers were empty, her car gone.”
The last observation hit home in Fran’s gaze. She had purchased the
used car for Casey to encourage her independence—not enable her
escape.

Fran wiped a hand across her forehead,
a common tension pulling between the women. Underlying the initial
shock of a teenager’s rebellion, both understood the consequences
could have ramifications Casey might not have considered. “Have you
called around? Are you certain?”

“
I’m certain. But I don’t
know where to go from here. Where do I begin to search for a girl
who’s up and left without a note? I have nothing to go on.” And it
was killing her. Not only had her child left her, Annie didn’t know
of any friends to reach out to. Other than Jimmy, Annie came up
empty. She felt helpless. A heap of failure.

Hot tears sprang to her eyes and rolled
down her cheeks. Fran kicked into “fix-it” mode, rubbing a hand up
and down Annie’s back. “Don’t you fret, Annie Grace. We’ll find
her. She couldn’t have gone far in that tin can I bought her.” But
the wise crack fell flat. Annie knew Fran was just as worried as
she beneath her façade of bravado. In reality, Fran didn’t know any
more than Annie did about how to find Casey, but she wouldn’t let
it show. She had a restaurant to run, customers waiting. It was the
same determination she showed when her husband Deacon died. One day
he was here, next day he was gone, third day Fran buried him and
returned to work. That was her way. “Let me get you some coffee,
sugar, and we’ll put our minds to it. We’ll get to the bottom of
this black well, in no time.” With that, Fran up and made a bee
line for the kitchen leaving Annie to herself.

Not a good idea. Surrounded by
townspeople she knew, who knew her, Annie felt isolated. Tears
streaming down her face would beg questions, set fire to gossip.
Annie wiped her cheeks and cleared her throat. She had to pull
herself together. She had to think, reason. If she were Casey,
“where would she go?”

That’s as far as she made it until an
hour later when her sister Lacy strolled into the restaurant in
search of food. Four months pregnant, the woman had turned into an
eating machine, though she didn’t show the first pound. Of course
she was wearing a coat, but the hot pink jacket was cinched snug,
forming an hour glass to her round hips and thin legs, currently
clad in black leggings and black boots. Despite the cold and her
pregnancy, Lacy opted for a mini skirt. Add her stylish
black-haired pixie-cut and artfully applied makeup and her sister
could pass for a fashion model.

“
Annie!” Lacy waved gaily
and hurried over.

One look at the radiance in her
sister’s face and Annie couldn’t help but smile. Her happiness was
contagious, if fleetingly so. “Hi, Lacy.”

Lacy bent down and pecked her cheek.
“What are you doing up so early?” She swept down to the stool
beside Annie, her blues eye bright, eyes that felt eerily similar
to her own. The Owens girls had many differences but the
resemblance in coloring was incredible—not only their fair skin and
inky black hair, but their blue eyes, both color and shape. Once
Annie allowed herself to be compared to her sister, she accepted
the facts. A stranger would not mistake the relationship between
the women. It was uncanny. “I thought Saturdays were your lazy
days,” she said, loosening her sash.

They usually were. “I’m not having a
great day.”

The comment caught Lacy like a hooked
fish, her mouth agape. “Why? What’s wrong?” And then scrutinizing
Annie’s face as though seeing her for the first time, Lacy asked,
“Something’s happened?”

“
I think Casey has run
away.”

“
Oh, no!” Lacy clapped a
hand over her mouth.

Annie nodded and shoved the empty
coffee cup aside, the mere sight of the stale brown liquid rubbing
her stomach raw. “And I don’t know what to do about it.” It’s why
she’d been stapled to this stool since seven-thirty. She had no
place to go. No idea where to begin. Jimmy didn’t know anything.
Fran didn’t know anything. No one had a clue. “I’m worried about
her.”

“
Well, of course you are!”
Lacy exclaimed. Now that Lacy was with child, Annie had noticed a
brand new layer of sensitivity to her sister. Before, Lacy didn’t
have the first inkling as to what Annie had been through on account
of Casey. Now, she was beginning to understand or, at the very
least, think about the subject. Lacy skimmed the restaurant, an
uncomfortable air hovering about her. Her gaze returned to Annie,
but she didn’t say a word.

“
Lacy?” She honed in on the
new energy circling about her sister. “Do you know
something?”

She made an evasive dodge before
venturing hesitantly, “Have you called Troy?”

“
Troy?
Why would I call him?”

Lacy clamped her shiny pink lips
closed.

“
Lacy?” Annie studied her
sister’s features, zeroing in on her eyes. Well accustomed to
Lacy’s tendency to fib and cross her fingers, Annie would have none
of it. “What do you know?”

Her sister slashed her gaze about the
diner and asked, “Where’s Aunt Frannie?”

“
Don’t ‘Aunt Frannie’
me—what’s this about Troy? Is Casey with him? Do you know
something?”

“
I don’t know,” Lacy
stumbled over what obviously was a “yes” response. “But I think
they were seeing each other for a while and maybe he might know
where she went.”

Troy and Casey were seeing
each other
?

When did this happen? For how long? And
how come she didn’t know about it and Lacy did? A fresh pour of
determination filled Annie’s spine. “Spill it, Lacy. I want to know
everything.”

Lacy did as she was told and divulged
everything she knew—from Felicity’s revelation at the diner six
months ago to Travis’ information on his brother’s whereabouts
after he left town. Troy had moved to Murfreesboro. He had decided
to quit college before he ever started and, instead, work with a
horse trainer friend of his father’s. Lacy wasn’t sure, but
according to Delaney who heard it from Felicity, Troy had been
keeping in touch with Casey.

“
If he convinced my daughter
to leave home and move in with him, I’ll ring his neck quicker than
a Thanksgiving turkey.”

Lacy blinked. “But Thanksgiving is
weeks away, yet, Annie. You’re not going to wait, are
you?”

Annie growled under her breath. “It’s
not meant to be literal.”

“
Oh.”

Annie felt a quick stab of
regret. She didn’t mean to come off so harsh. Lacy never finished
high school and took
most
things literally. But that was her world. She
lived in “literal” land and occasionally missed the subtle
underlying meaning of things. It was neither here nor there. Annie
had bigger fish to fry. “How can I get in touch with
Troy?”

Lacy perked up at the opportunity to
help. “I could call Delaney. I bet she could find out with one
phone call.”

Annie didn’t care to involve Delaney
Wilkins in her personal business. She’d already been poking around,
wedging herself into Casey’s life at the diner, trying to make
friends. She claimed they were family and needed to start acting as
such, which sounded good but Annie didn’t trust Delaney. She’d been
no friend of the Owens family in the past and they didn’t need her
friendship now. She was probably trying to keep a hand on the Ladd
Springs property to ensure that Casey did her future bidding.
Resentment curled Annie’s toes. She’d always been the controlling
sort. But if Delaney was the only way to locate Casey, then so be
it. “Can you do it? Will you call her right now?”

“
Sure!” Joy glittered in
Lacy’s eyes. Pulling a cell phone from her purse, she dialed and
waited. In seconds, she clipped, “Delaney, its Lacy. Can you call
Felicity and get me Troy’s phone number?” She paused, probably
waiting through the predictable “what for” from a woman who didn’t
do anything without knowing all the details beforehand. “Casey has
run away and I think she might be with Troy.”