Among the Heather (The Highlands, #2) (85)

“Good. Good.” Caitlyn’s eyes brightened with tears. “When you welcomed me into your life, made me your friend even though I was a nobody, it was a lifeline, Ari.”

My chest squeezed with sympathy despite the awful circumstances. Maybe if I could get her to talk to me, really talk to me, I could make her see this was wrong. “How so?”

“I …” She shrugged. “I don’t want to think about my life before you.”

“I’m trying to understand. Maybe if I knew what your life was like, I’d understand why we’re here right now.”

She considered this. “Okay.” Her gaze dropped to her feet. “I’m a foster kid. My dad took off when I was about seven and then, when I was about nine, they came and took me away from my mom.”

“Why?”

“She was a drug addict.”

“I’m sorry.”

Caitlyn looked at me with those strange contacts. “I moved from foster home to foster home, and when I was fourteen, I was at the mall with my friends and I saw my mom.” She gave a huff of bitter amusement. “She was clean. Turns out she’d been clean for two years and she never bothered to come get me. She told me that looking after a kid was too much responsibility and she was afraid if she took me back, she’d fall off the wagon with the pressure.”

Dear God. Suddenly, Caitlyn’s frantic desire to keep a hold of our friendship made perfect sense. She had intense abandonment issues because of her childhood. But why me?

“I’m so sorry, Caitlyn.”

She flinched and whispered, “It’s Ariella now.”

“Ariella. Will you tell me more? About your life before LA?”

And so she did. Her story was one of a cycle of abuse and abandonment that made my heart hurt for her, for other kids like her.

A story that made me fearful that I was about to be the next victim in the cycle.





Thirty-Eight


NORTH





Icould hear my heart. It felt like it was inside my throat, banging like fuck in there. “I’m telling you, something is wrong.”

“Dad, I agree. Aria would never take off like this and not pick up her phone. She’d find a way to contact us,” Allegra said, her young face tight with worry on my phone screen.

When Aria didn’t arrive in Century City six hours ago, I’d tried calling her only for it to go straight to voicemail. Two hours passed, and I was growing frantic, so I returned to the Malibu house in case she’d returned home for some reason. The rental wasn’t at the house, and neither was Aria.

“We should call the police,” I bit out.

Wesley scowled, worry pinching his brow. “While I agree something isn’t right, I think it’s too soon for the police. Aria’s rental could have broken down somewhere, we just don’t know.”

Chiara’s face suddenly appeared on my screen in between her husband and daughter. “Why don’t you try that cell thing where you can find someone by tracing their phone?”

Fuck. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “How do I do that?”

“Oh, oh, I know!” Allegra hurried out of frame, but I could still hear her voice. “You can track a cell through the phone number!”

Under normal circumstances, I’d find that horrifying. “Really?”

“I’m just getting”—Allegra’s voice grew nearer until she was back on screen—“my phone. Give me a second.”

We all waited impatiently until her face lit up. “Got her!” She showed me a map on her phone screen. A red pinpoint hovered in a certain spot, but I couldn’t make out an exact location.

“Can you zoom in?”

“Sure.” She zoomed in and frowned. “It looks like she’s parked on the Santa Monica Freeway.” Allegra frowned as she looked at me. “That can’t be right.”

Fear churned in my gut. “I’ll check it out. Is there anyone you can think of … who would”—I could barely think it or about the possibilities—“who would want to hurt Aria?”

Chiara clung to her husband. “No, I …”

Wesley shook his head, expression grave. He looked at his youngest daughter. “Allegra?”

She bit her lip, frowning in thought. “Well, there is one person, but … there’s no way …”

I snapped, “Allegra, who is it?”

“Ari’s ex-friend, Caitlyn Branch. I told Ari at the time that I didn’t think her behavior was appropriate. It was like she was trying to take over Ari’s life. You know, the whole cliché single-white-female thing.”

“How does that make her a threat?” Wesley asked.

Allegra shrugged. “I’m not sure it does, but she’s been emailing Aria constantly since she left LA. And she’s been coming around this coffee shop at my school to talk to me. I’ve told her to back off, but it’s like talking to a brick wall. She … seems a little delusional.”

“Unstable?” Wesley pressed.

“I hate to use that word, but … yeah.”

“Why didn’t Aria tell me about this?”

“I think she thought Caitlyn was harmless. She could be still.”