16 Lighthouse Road - Debbie Macomber [45]
“What’s up with Dan?” Olivia pressed.
Grace changed into her sweats and running shoes. “He isn’t home from work yet.” Then, before Olivia could chastise her for worrying, she added, “He probably had an appointment and forgot to tell me.”
“He might have said something and it slipped your mind,” Olivia suggested.
“Sure.” Grace had already considered that scenario, but didn’t really believe it. Something was wrong. Her heart told her and her head echoed that certainty, pounding with fear.
Probably because of her pent-up anxiety, Grace had the best workout of her life. By the time class finished, she was so weak she could barely walk back to the change room.
“Call me,” Olivia said as they strolled toward the parking lot. The air was damp and cold, and their breath came out in little puffs of fog. The huge lights in the asphalt lot cast a bluish glow.
“I’m sure Dan’s home by now,” Grace murmured.
“I’m sure he is, too,” Olivia said, but her words rang false.
Grace waited until Olivia was inside her car before she got into her own. As she turned down Rosewood Lane, her heart beat so loudly it sounded like a distant drumbeat in her ear. She felt almost as though she were sitting in a theater and the music preceding a tense moment in the story had begun, growing louder and louder around her.
Other than the porch light, the house was still dark. Dread suffused her whole being. She could hardly breathe.
Where the hell was Dan?
Then it occurred to her that he might be in bed. If he’d had to work overtime or been delayed in traffic, he’d probably arrived home exhausted. In that case, he’d have showered and gone straight to bed.
Only Dan’s truck wasn’t in its usual parking space. Going inside, Grace sat her gym bag in the laundry room, then moved into the darkened living room and slowly lowered herself into her husband’s recliner. The cushion gave, broken down by years of use, and she sank into the comfortable old chair he loved so much. That was when she started to shake.
She waited fifteen minutes, then walked into the kitchen and reached for the phone. Without turning on the light, she dialed Olivia’s number and let it ring until her friend answered.
“Dan isn’t here.”
Olivia didn’t say anything for several tense moments. Then calmly, as though this was an everyday occurrence, she said, “I’ll be right over.”
Seven
Grace sat up all night, her fears out of control. Olivia had stayed up with her until after midnight, when she’d fallen asleep on the sofa out of sheer exhaustion. Grace let her friend sleep. There wasn’t anything Olivia could say that would reassure her. Nothing either one of them could do, for that matter. None of this felt real.
At six-thirty, just as the first light of morning crept toward the horizon, Olivia woke. Bolting upright, she blinked rapidly and looked around.
“Have you heard anything?” she asked, rubbing her face with both hands.
Grace shook her head. She’d brewed a pot of coffee, more for something to do than any desire for caffeine.
“I think it’s time I called Troy Davis,” Olivia said in that no-nonsense way of hers. “It’s been almost twenty-four hours, hasn’t it?”
Grace nodded, and automatically poured them each a cup of coffee. She stood in the kitchen, sipping hers, while Olivia made the call to the local sheriff’s department. She found it difficult to keep her mind clear and focused. The sleepless night hadn’t helped. Her thoughts were fearful and obsessive—ideas of where Dan might be, what could have happened, what plausible reason he might have for not coming home.
“Troy isn’t on duty until seven,” Olivia explained when she’d finished.
“Should we go there ourselves?”
“No, I talked to Lowell Price and he said Troy would take a drive out here. He knows Dan and he’ll want to handle this personally.”
Grace felt a tremendous sense of relief. “Should I phone the girls?” After all those sleepless hours of worrying, she seemed incapable of making decisions.
Olivia appeared to weigh her answer. “Why don’t you wait until after