*****
Early the next morning, Gwen stumbled down the stairs and to the kitchen, bleary eyed and trying not to yawn as she went. Gabe was already up and sitting at the table, eating a bagel with cream cheese. He didn’t look up as Gwen sat down, but he shoved half of his bagel towards her. Without a word, Gwen took a bite, even though she wasn’t all that hungry. She had no appetite to speak of, and from the look of Gabe slowly chewing as if he had a mouthful of cardboard, he didn’t either.
Her father dropped a bag on the kitchen floor behind her, startling Gwen and causing her to jump in her chair. Grant Grady didn’t look at her as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, cracked it open, and took a quick sip. “If we’re going to get there in time to join the search party, we have to leave now. Is everyone ready to go?”
Judging from the dark circles under her father’s eyes, he hadn’t gotten any sleep last night. That meant her father’s temper would be ridiculously short for the rest of the day, and everyone would have to walk on eggshells around him for fear of getting a verbal lashing. Gwen hated her father’s temper on a good day, but on a bad day like this one, she knew it was going to be even worse. All she could do was hope that her brother’s bad temper didn’t collide with their fathers and cause even more trouble.
One look at Gabe quietly chewing the last of his breakfast and Gwen knew today wasn’t going to be pleasant. Everyone was going to be worried about Ginny, and things were going to get tense fast. Until their cousin was safely home, things would be difficult for sure. Gwen peeked at her father again, watching him sourly glance at the clock on the stove every minute or two. When it hit five thirty, he bent down and picked up his bags. “Let’s go. We’re leaving in the next five minutes. Don’t make us late!” He marched from the kitchen, leaving a very annoyed Gwen and Gabe behind.
“It’s not like we’re just getting out of bed. We’ve been sitting here ready to go for the last twenty minutes,” Gabe huffed, picking up his own luggage. He had a backpack and duffel bag that looked to be overflowing with his things. He offered to shoulder one of her bags, but she shook her head, determined to get them herself. She slung her computer bag across her chest and fitted both duffel bags on her shoulders. They strained under the weight and she felt the straps digging into her skin, but she gritted her teeth and hauled it all out to the car.
Grant took her bags from her, loading them into the back of the car with everyone else’s belongings. Watching it all pile up, she was reminded of the last time they had gone to Brighton for their two week stay, and she wished this trip had a happier reason behind it. As she climbed into the seat next to Gabe, her mind wandered to Ginny as it had all last night. She couldn’t imagine what her Uncle Geoffrey and Aunt Sandra were going through right now, or Ginny for that matter. She could have been abducted by a sociopath, or maybe she was lost in the woods. Either way, she was probably in danger and wouldn’t last long without help.
Grant sped out of the driveway, earning a glare from Karen. Their mother was always a cautious driver, especially when she had Gabe and Gwen in the car. She kept her mouth shut though, knowing the mood was already tense enough without her picking a fight over their father’s bad driving habits. She just pursed her lips and stared out the window, and Gwen knew she must have been even more worried about Ginny than they originally thought, because not much could have kept their mother silent like that. Gwen wondered to herself if perhaps their mother knew something she hadn’t told them—something about Ginny’s disappearance.
Is she in even more danger than they’ve told us?
Gwen and Gabe were silent for the entire journey. The only sound in the car was the sound of music playing softly from the radio. While they traveled, Gwen did her best to write in her journal in her lap. Writing was difficult enough for her under normal circumstances, but writing while she was riding in the car and worried sick about her missing cousin was making it even harder. But she had been writing in her journals for years with the hopes that it would help improve her writing and reading abilities, and to some extent it had, a little.
She squinted her eyes and tried to make out the shoddy penmanship, but it all blurred together. The words seemed to crawl across the page, and she tried desperately to chase them for about an hour before slamming her journal closed with a disgusted sigh. Gabe glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, and she felt his support as he gently nudged her. He didn’t say anything, but she knew he didn’t have to. They’d always gotten what the other was trying to say without the use of words, and Gwen appreciated nothing more in the world than her strong relationship with Gabe.
Even if they did annoy each other all the time.
They stopped at a roadside diner in a nearby town. Gwen sat beside Gabe, across from their parents. As the waitress came and took their orders, Gwen noticed that their father was incredibly nervous. He picked up his napkin and began to shred it between his fingers while their mother watched with obvious disapproval. Her own fingers twitched, and Gwen knew she was resisting the urge to slap that torn napkin right out of his hands. Gwen wondered why their father was so nervous. Stressed she could understand, but nervous?
Gwen didn’t have much of an appetite, but she forced herself to eat, picking at her fries and her sandwich. The food wasn’t bad, but it settled in her stomach like a lead weight, like a greasy time bomb waiting to go off. As her stomach gurgled, she pushed her unfinished food away and sipped at her strawberry shake. The others didn’t seem to have much of an appetite either, but they were going to need to have something in their stomachs if they were going to have the energy to join the search effort.
Eventually, everyone at the table was done eating, though not one of them had managed to finish their entire meal. As Grant signaled for the check, a television perched behind the bar caught Gwen’s attention, and she turned to read the subtitles. Her breath caught in her throat as Ginny’s picture flashed across the screen, and the rest of her family turned to look. The words were far too small and quickly moving for Gwen to make out, so Gabe whispered them quietly to her, never taking his eyes off the screen.
It seemed that there were no new leads and no clues as to her disappearance. The police weren’t giving up hope yet, but they had no more leads to follow through on, and they were urging anyone with any information to step forward, no matter how relevant it might be. Gwen noticed that Geoffrey and Sandra were offering a monetary reward for any information that would bring Ginny home. They’re well off, but they’re not that well off. They must be really worried. Do they have a reason to be so worried?
Grant didn’t even bother to wait for the check. He laid a handful of cash on the table—more than enough to cover their bill—and ushered them all out the door. They climbed back into the car and were back on the road within minutes, and Gwen couldn’t help the nervous feeling that was beginning to grow in her as well. It was obvious from the way Grant drove fifteen miles over the speed limit something else was going on, something she and Gabe weren’t aware of. But she couldn’t figure out what it might have been. What were her parents keeping from them?
She and Gabe traded nervous glances but didn’t say anything.
When they finally arrived in Brighton, Gwen was happy to see that everything was bone dry. Since it hadn’t rained the night before, it would hopefully make it much easier for them to find Ginny. Any clues as to her whereabouts wouldn’t be washed away before they could even be found and examined. As Gwen got out of the car, she had to fight the urge to run to the nearest police officer and demand to be included in the search effort. She would have, if Geoffrey and Sandra hadn’t been waiting for them on the front porch.
The house was a massive farm style house, with two full floors and a wooden front porch. The paint had faded in a few spots, but for the most part the house was yellow with white trim and shutters. Inside was a spacious kitchen that Sandra always said was her favorite part of the house, along with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, plenty of room fo
r a large family, though it was just the three of them most of the time.
Sandra welcomed them with open arms, embracing Gwen when she made her way up the porch. She wrapped her arms tightly around her aunt, holding her close and trying to show her support. She heard Sandra sniffle and felt the wetness on her cheeks, and she wished she could make it all better. When she pulled away from Sandra, she was engulfed in a big hug from Geoffrey while Gabe was smothered by Sandra. When they had been welcomed by their aunt and uncle, Grant and Karen climbed the steps to the front porch.
There was a tense moment where nobody moved, and Gwen noticed a couple of the police officers nearby had stopped what they were doing to watch. They weren’t even bothering to try and hide their interest, and Gwen felt a pang of annoyance at their unprofessional behavior, but it wasn’t hard to understand what the draw was. Brighton was a small town, and word was that everyone and their mother knew that the Grady boys had had a falling out years ago, one that had never been patched up. To see the two of them together for probably the first time in years was no doubt interesting to the small town folks that knew them.
The tension was broken when Karen brightly suggested they bring their things inside. The “away from prying eyes” was left unspoken, but everyone picked up on it. Grant and Geoffrey both went back to the car, neither speaking or looking at the other, and grabbed their luggage. Gwen and Gabe both headed inside, and Sandra told them where to put their things. Gwen was unsurprised to find she would be staying in Ginny’s room for the duration of their stay, since that was always where she stayed when they visited.
Ginny’s room was the same as it had been the last time she’d visited, with the exception of updated posters of her cousin’s new celebrity crushes. The two twin-sized beds had the same baby blue striped bedspread, the walls were the same bubblegum pink they had been since Geoffrey had let her pick the color herself at the age of six, and the desk in the corner was piled with numerous textbooks, testament to the fact that Ginny took her schoolwork more seriously than anyone Gwen knew.
Grant dropped her luggage on the floor near the door with a loud thump, and she quickly took out her laptop and set it up on the desk, along with her lime green headphones. She tossed the rest of her stuff on the bed for now and headed back downstairs. She didn’t want to spend time in Ginny’s room alone, thinking about all of the fun they’d had together over the years, bonding in the dark through shared secrets and dreams.
She nearly bumped into Gabe at the landing as he came out of one of the two guest bedrooms. Together, they hurried downstairs, where their parents were sitting in an obviously uncomfortable silence. They all perked up when they heard Gwen and Gabe come down the stairs, but it was forced and tense. They hadn’t even been here for an hour and Gwen was already getting sick of all the tenseness between the four adults. Whatever had happened between Grant and Geoffrey years ago needed to be laid to rest for the sake of finding Ginny, no matter how bad it had been. They needed to be able to work together to help find her.
“Can we join the search?” Gwen asked.
“Oh, Honey. Don’t you wanna settle in first?” Karen asked. “It was a long drive.”
“Why would we wanna settle in?” Gabe asked. “We can do that when it’s too dark out to search. We wanna join the search party now while we can do some good. Please,” he said, looking from one adult to the other. “We’ll settle in when Ginny is home safe and sound.”
Geoffrey smiled, but his eyes were intensely sad and maybe even a little hopeless. Gwen was floored to realize that part of her uncle had probably already given up hope of finding Ginny alive. She couldn’t imagine ever giving up hope, not even if several years had passed. Yet here it was, not even two full days since her disappearance, and he was already thinking of the worst case scenario. Perhaps it was harder for a parent to remain optimistic, but Gwen thought that was no excuse. They were going to find Ginny, no matter how long it took.
“You can go and speak with one of the many officers outside, and they’ll direct you to an area to start searching,” Geoffrey said. “We’ll be out to join you guys shortly.”
Gabe looked at her, his eyes full of determination. “Ready to get started?”
Gwen nodded and followed him out the front door, letting it slam shut behind her and trying not to think too hard about the situation between her father and uncle. There were more important things to focus on right now, and there would always be plenty of time to ponder what had happened between the two of them.
They found an officer that didn’t look particularly busy, and Gabe asked where they would be the most useful. The officer looked doubtful that they’d be any help at all, but he pointed them in the right direction, showing them a small area nearby they could start searching. He told them not to be out past dark and to stay together before sending them on their way.