Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
I hadn’t talked to Eve since.
CHAPTER NINE
Sage Hill, North Carolina. That was Eve’s last known location.
According to what Nico sent this morning, he couldn’t trace her phone and assumed it was off, but he found out when she’d last used her laptop by sifting through her emails. It was the night before Zoey called me to say she was worried.
In the emails, Nico also discovered that Eve had booked a two-bedroom cottage on Lake Aquilla. I ended up searching for the listing of the house to get a better visual of where she was.
According to the online booking calendar, the cottage was still reserved today, September 7th. I couldn’t put in a booking until September 9th.
This meant one of two things: Eve was still there, or someone else had booked right after she’d checked out and was staying for, what, one night? I checked some of the reviews and saw several complaints about spotty cell service and Wi-Fi. That alone didn’t make much sense because Eve needed reliable Wi-Fi like she needed water.
I remembered what Zoey told me the day before. Eve wanted a break from traveling and vlogging. Perhaps she’d purposely booked the cottage so she wouldn’t wind up scrolling through social media or comparing her content to others. She did that a lot. All that to say, it still didn’t make sense that Eve wasn’t answering her phone or any of her texts. I texted Zoey right after gathering the information about the cabin and asked if she’d heard from Eve yet.
Nothing.
Diana hadn’t and neither had our dad.
If there was one thing I knew about Eve Castillo, her phone was always in her hand. She was always texting, scrolling, posting, chatting. She was always online, even when she pretended not to be.
Seated in my office, I took a sip of water before going to YouTube and searching for her channel. She had over thirty-two videos, many of them featuring her travels to different cities or countries and showing off her views, outfits, and the foods she ate. She had a whopping 252,000 subscribers—all people who lived vicariously through the pretty Latina girl who traveled.
Her last video was uploaded two weeks ago. A three-day trip to Dubai. Eve was a biweekly poster. If she wasn’t uploading to YouTube, she was posting on Instagram. I’d previously blocked Eve on Instagram. My thumb felt heavy as I unblocked her to check her profile. Her last picture was posted five days ago and for some reason, my heart dropped when I saw where she was.
She was standing in front of the cottage from the listing. Clearly on a dock, with the home in the distance at the top of a hill, it’s gold lights glowing behind her like halos. It was autumn, so the leaves behind her were vibrant hues of saffron, yellow, and brown.
Supposedly she’d checked into the cottage five days ago. She was smiling on the dock with her hands raised in the air like she was the happiest girl in the world. It annoyed me for a split second, thinking about how she might’ve been holed up in that marvelous home, ignoring everyone and doing God knows what.
The annoyance passed the more I thought about who my ex–best friend truly was.
I came to the solid conclusion that Eve was a woman who talked too much, shared too much, and wanted too much. A person like that doesn’t just ignore the rest of the world. They don’t shy away from attention. They embrace it. Eve may have been on a getaway to disconnect, but she would still be vocal about it somewhere.
I went back to the listing and searched for the owner’s number. When I found it, I typed it into my phone’s keypad. As I brought the phone to my ear, I glanced out the window of my office that revealed the hallway, and spotted Herbert walking with two cups of coffee in hand. The phone rang as he set my cup down on the desk.
“Thank you,” I mouthed.
“You know I got you,” he mouthed back, then he disappeared again.
I took a sip of the coffee that was still warm and creamy.
The ringing on the phone was replaced by a deep voice. “This is Alex,” a man said.
“Oh—hi, Alex! Alex Reed, right?”
He hesitated before saying, “Yes?”
“Great. I was just calling about your listing for the ‘Gorgeous Two Bedroom Lakefront Cottage in Sage Hill.’ ” I read each word from the listing carefully.
“All right. You interested in booking it, or what?”
Okay, rude asshole.
“If so, you know you can just book online,” he added sarcastically.
“Yes, I’m well aware,” I returned, clinging to politeness. “I was actually calling to see if you have someone staying in the cottage right now who goes by the name of Eve? Her last name is Castillo.”
The line went dead silent. So quiet, I thought he’d hung up. “Hello?” I pulled the phone from my ear to check the screen. The digits were still ticking away as the call rolled on. “Mr. Reed?”