Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Catie answered her friend with a heart eyes emoji, then took a deep breath and began calling hospitals to check if Clive had been in an accident. She still had a kid’s voice, so the busy people who answered the phones were nice to her where they might not have been as welcoming to an adult.
“Oh, honey,” one nurse said. “Is there no trusted adult who can do this for you?”
Yes, she thought. Issie would help her in a heartbeat. So would Martha. But Martha should’ve been off-shift before dinner today. Catie had apologized for that and said it was okay if she wanted to clock out. At fourteen, it was no longer illegal for Catie to be left alone at home.
Scowling at the very idea, Martha had kissed her on the cheek and said, “Not on my watch, hon. You’re a child, not an adult. And Jacqueline pays me triple when I work overtime, so I’m doing just fine.”
Catie hadn’t argued, though she knew full well that Martha had been planning to have dinner with her daughter’s family. As for Catie’s big sister… Catie didn’t want Ísa to know how bad Clive had begun to act. She was scared her sister would try for custody out of worry for Catie. But though Catie loved Issie more than anyone else in the whole world, she couldn’t leave her dad.
Clive would be devastated by her defection. He wouldn’t eat properly, wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t make any good choices at all. Because though he was a bad father, he loved Catie in his own mixed-up way.
“No,” she said to the nurse who’d asked if anyone could help her. “My dad’s usually the one who’d handle things.” That was a full-on lie. Clive was the least responsible person she knew; the only reason their bills got paid was that Issie had set them up as direct automatic payments—it hadn’t always been that way, but then Clive had taken off with the bill money one time and the electricity company had almost cut them off. The money came from the dividend account Jacqueline had established for her children—an account Clive could never access.
Their mother was rich, but even rich women wouldn’t want to support their ex-husband. “I’m not supporting him,” the Dragon had said coolly the one time Catie brought up the topic. “I’m supporting my daughter. Leaving him penniless would affect you, and for all his faults, he’s a loving father.”
Loving but unreliable. Yet Jacqueline had given him custody of Catie. Which made Catie think that a big part of the reason Jacqueline didn’t mind footing the bills was because she saw it as a fair trade for not having to raise a child.
Tonight the nice nurse confirmed that Clive hadn’t been brought into the hospital, and after thanking her, Catie continued to ring around. She’d called all the hospitals she could find in the phone book by the time she hung up.
Tomorrow she’d ring the police and ask if he’d been arrested.
The stone in her gut got even heavier. Because maybe the police would tell her they’d found his vehicle down a ravine or in a gorge. Just because he wasn’t in the hospital didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt. It could be that he just hadn’t been spotted. The weather would turn his black car all but invisible if he’d gone off the road along the way.
Eyes gritty and bile in the back of her throat, she was staring at the ceiling when her phone beeped at four in the morning. Snatching it off the bed stand, she sobbed out a breath when she saw the message was from her dad.
It read: Sorry, baby girl. Got busy with my mates. All good here. Back when I’m back. Love ya.
Cheeks hot, her eyes afire, she dropped her phone onto the designer white-on-white duvet he’d bought her with his last gambling winnings. On the ceiling, shadows prowled in the light thrown by her phone screen before it went black. As it did so, something inside her snapped in two.
“No more,” she whispered. “No more.”
From now on, she wouldn’t worry over her father. She’d be zen. She’d go running. She’d learn a new language. She’d call Veni or Ísa to chat. Hell, she’d even call the Dragon and pretend she wanted to pick Jacqueline’s brain about an economics project for school.
No matter what it took, she’d create new habits to deal with her anxiety when her father vanished on her—until she had no anxiety at all.
“I. Am. Done.”
Tonight was the last time she would lie awake worrying over Clive.
1
KNIGHT IN GLITTER EYE SHADOW AND SHINING TITANIUM
Catie narrowed her eyes when she saw Danny stumble against the bar inside the thumping Dunedin club. If there was one thing she knew about her number one nemesis, it was that he was about as clean-cut as they came—especially when he was representing his team.