Even with Dylan gone, it was hard for Cheyenne to call Joe. She almost dialed Gail's cell first. She wanted to tell her friend why she was about to do what she was going to do. But she knew Gail would say the same thing as Eve. They'd both try to convince her not to make the "mistake" she was making. They'd say she couldn't trust a guy like Dylan.

But they didn't know Dylan. Surely, if they did, they'd see his better qualities-wouldn't they?

Too tense to sit back, she perched on the edge of the couch and stared into the fireplace, remembering the night Joe had come over and built a fire. She'd been so infatuated with him. She'd thought it was love, but...she'd merely been in love with what he represented.

With a sigh, she scrolled through the call history on her phone. She'd received a slew of calls yesterday-people reacting to the news of her mother's death. She'd been too busy searching for Presley to do more than quickly sift through the messages.

But being preoccupied with Presley's situation wasn't the only reason she'd avoided the people closest to her. She'd been afraid of what she might reveal if she talked to them. She hadn't come to terms with the evidence that suggested Anita'd had help dying....

Presley had added one more skeleton to the family closet....

"Why?" she asked, appealing to the empty house. But why didn't matter when dealing with her sister and mother. She had to face the reality and cope with it, because there was no changing them. She'd learned that long ago.

Presley could be anywhere. It was that thought and the need to get the police out searching that made her stop procrastinating and call.

Joe picked up immediately. "There you are. How are...things?"

"Okay. Thanks for the concern. And for the flower and card. That was thoughtful of you."

"It was nothing. I've been worried."

"I know. I'm sorry. I should've called sooner."

"No problem. Did you find Presley?"

She propped his card up on the mantel. "Not yet."

"I'm sure she'll come back when she's ready."

"Maybe," she said, but how could her sister come back after killing Anita?

"It's a hell of a thing to deal with at Christmas. I can't believe the timing of this. What can I do to help?"

"Nothing. I've looked everywhere. I'm counting on the police to get involved. At this point, they're my only hope."

"That's tough. Waiting must be so hard." He paused. "Is there any chance you're coming for dinner tomorrow? I told the girls you might. They're excited to meet you."

He'd mentioned her to Josephine and Summer? "I would love to meet them, too, but-" she straightened her spine "-I'm going to be at Dylan's, Joe."

Silence. Then, "Does that mean what I think it does?"

Was it a mistake to make this decision now? Probably. But she couldn't deny what she felt. "Yes."

"You're officially seeing him."

"I'm afraid so."

She thought he might give her all the reasons she shouldn't, but he didn't.

"Dylan and I have had a professional relationship for years."

Here we go... She bit her lip. "And?"

"I've always liked him."

"That's a generous thing to say. I hope...I hope there're no hard feelings."

"I feel like I missed out, Chey. I'm not going to lie. But there are no hard feelings."

Suddenly deflated from all the stress, the worry and the secret she was carrying, she rested her head on the couch. "I've always thought so much of you, Joe." She smiled as she fingered the rose he'd left for her. "It's nice to know you're everything I ever imagined."

"I'm here if you need me," he said. "Merry Christmas."

"I can't believe we're at sea when all hell is breaking loose at home." Eve smacked herself on the forehead. "I knew I shouldn't have gone."

As usual, Callie and the others had joined her for morning brunch, but they'd eaten so much over the course of the past ten days that no one was very interested in food. Mostly, they nursed their coffees while talking, the same as they did every Friday in Whiskey Creek when they congregated at Black Gold Coffee. Except that Cheyenne wasn't there. Eve was feeling her absence more acutely today than ever.

"You can't blame yourself for taking a trip you planned for two years," Callie said. "I mean...I feel guilty, too, but...we were well past the refund period by the time we realized that Cheyenne's mother would likely die while we were gone."

"Anita lasted so long," Noah said. "I guess I figured she'd last a little longer. Or somehow go back into remission."

Baxter combed his fingers through his thick, wavy hair. "What could we have done even if we'd stayed? What could anyone do?"

Eve speared him with a look. "I hope you're kidding."

"I wish we were there to support her as much as you do." He spread his hands. "But...her mother was going to die either way."

"Her sister is missing, too!" Eve snapped.

Ted turned his coffee cup in his hands. "I'm not sure we could've stopped that, either."

Somehow Ted's weighing in made Eve feel slightly better. He'd always been the academic of the group, the voice of reason. He and Gail had finished at the very top of their class. Eve should've had higher marks herself. If she hadn't been so involved with her high school boyfriend, she might've been able to concentrate.

"I don't think Eve's talking about Anita or Presley," Callie said. "Not really. They've always been a problem, so...nothing new there. The real issue is Dylan."

Ted rocked back in his seat. "Maybe she's not that serious about Dylan. Maybe she just wanted to get laid."

The guilt Eve had been feeling reasserted itself. Initially, she'd kept Cheyenne's business a secret. But the more worried she became about Dylan and the relationship that was taking shape at home, with only Riley there to look out for Chey, the less inclined she was to keep it to herself. Despite what she'd said to Cheyenne, it was more natural to share this information, since they all divulged the intimate details of their lives-most of the time, anyway. "Maybe I could believe that if it was a one-time hookup. But it's evolving into more," she insisted. "They've been sleeping together all week."

"The last thing Cheyenne needs is to go through anything remotely similar to what I've been through." Kyle added this. Although he was only married a year, his marriage had been painful from the start. He'd been manipulated into saying "I do," and had never really loved his ex.

"We don't know it'll end badly," Noah said.

Eve leaned forward. "You think that if Cheyenne dates someone who parties like Dylan, it could end any other way? That she won't mind when he breaks some guy's arm because he made the wrong comment to one of his brothers at a bar?"

"Consider this." Callie spoke mostly to the boys. "Would you want your daughter dating someone like Dylan?"

They glanced at one another as if that drove the point home.

Eve shoved her cup away. "We left her on her own during the most vulnerable period of her life."

Baxter grimaced. "She's not a child, Eve," he said, but he didn't speak with much authority. She could tell he felt badly, too.

"She might not be a child, but she is going through hell right now and grasping for an anchor. Anyone would grasp for something to hang on to if they were in her situation."

"Too bad we couldn't count on Sophia to look out for her while we were gone," Ted grumbled.

"You don't even want Sophia coming to Friday coffee," Callie pointed out.

"But if she has to come, she can at least do her part for the group."

Eve lowered her voice as several other vacationers filed past. "Sophia's got her own problems. Did you see that bruise under her eye before we left?"

"What bruise?" Noah asked.

"The one she was trying to cover up with makeup."

"She must've done a good job of it." This came from Ted. "I didn't notice."

"Because you won't even look at her. And you don't want to notice."

"Her injuries don't always coincide with her big-shot husband being in town," Baxter said.

"How would we know? He doesn't check in with us, and there's a lot she won't say. We haven't been all that nice to her."

"We can't be too bad. She keeps showing up, doesn't she?" Ted again.

Callie used a napkin to clean up some drops of cream. "She's lonely."

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for her after what she's done?" he responded.

"Let's not get into that," Eve said.

Noah jumped in next. "I agree. We've been trying to figure out whether or not Skip is abusive for a long time. The thought of it makes me want to break his smug-ass jaw. But unless she speaks up, there's no way to know. And as far as Cheyenne goes, moaning about what we should've done isn't going to help. We're here, and she's in Whiskey Creek. What can we do?"

"Nothing," Eve said. "Not until we get home."

"And then?" Baxter asked.

Callie leaned to the side so a waiter bussing tables could remove their empty cups. "We have to stage an intervention. It might make her mad at first, but...we have to do what we can to protect her."

Eve liked this idea. At least it was proactive-if they weren't too late. "Maybe we can get Dylan to see that he has nothing to offer her. If he really cares about Chey, that should be enough to make him leave her alone."

Baxter cocked his head to one side. "Okay...and who's going to risk life and limb by telling him to stay away from her?"

"I'll do it," Eve said before anyone else could speak.

"Good." Ted's cup, which he'd refused to relinquish to the young man cleaning the table, clinked on its saucer. "I don't think he'll hit a girl."

Ted's grin told them he was joking, but Eve didn't find his remark funny. "Somebody's got to do something."

"Let's just hope we help more than we hurt," Baxter said.

"You don't think it's worth a try?" Eve suddenly sounded unsure.

"Actually, I do. No hell is worse than falling in love with the wrong person."

If Callie hadn't said anything about Baxter's possible interest in Noah, Eve would've dismissed this comment without a second thought. Baxter could be so negative they sometimes affectionately called him Eeyore. But even while she was consumed with Cheyenne's problems, the sour note of desperation and disillusion in his voice struck her as potentially revealing.

"What do you know about love?" Noah scoffed, barking out a laugh. "I've never even seen you date the same girl twice!"

It seemed to Eve that Baxter blanched at this comment. A poignant empathy thrummed in her chest, tempting her to reach out to him. But she knew he wouldn't appreciate that gesture, so she kept her hands to herself while he mustered a tight smile.

"Maybe I've never met the right girl."

Was that because she didn't exist?

26.

Cold and windy, Phoenix wasn't the same city Presley remembered from years before. Anita had brought them here during the height of summer. When the temperature had been 116 degrees. Just sitting in a car with no air-conditioning, even after dark, made their bodies run with sweat. Presley would never forget how hard it had seemed just to breathe. She'd also never forget Anita leaving them alone shortly after they arrived, telling them she was going off to buy groceries. They'd begged to go along-she couldn't be trusted to come back in the time promised-but were dropped off at the edge of a wide expanse of desert and told to wait in the shade of a dilapidated chicken coop. There, stomachs aching with hunger, they counted fire ants and watched a spider spin a web between two warped boards on the abandoned coop.

After a while, they scavenged for any type of fruit-bearing tree, hoping to get lucky enough to find a pomegranate tree, because Anita had said she'd found one on her first trip to Arizona. But the earth was so scorched it didn't seem to produce anything more than scrub brush. They didn't dare approach the house that sat off in the shimmering, hazy distance. They knew what Anita would do to them if they got her into trouble by involving other people.

When Anita finally returned more than seven hours later, she had no groceries. She did, however, reek of alcohol and threaten to knock their teeth down their throats if they didn't stop nagging her for something to eat.

Chey was the one who made that day, and all the others like it, bearable. But Presley didn't want to think about her sister. Life was life. There wasn't anything she could do to change it.

The semi driver-Axle, which had to be a nickname but she hadn't cared enough to ask-had provided her with a meal and money to catch a city bus to Sunnyslope, where they'd once lived with a gruff old man in a single-wide trailer. She could see the sun-bleached sign for Palo Verde Mobile Home Park in the distance. That was where she'd first tried meth, and it was the reason she'd come back here. She needed a supplier and this was the type of neighborhood where she'd be likely to find one.

If only her sudden nostalgia for Whiskey Creek wasn't making her so damned heartsick. She stood on the corner of Nineteenth Avenue and Cactus Road, breathing in the exhaust of the bus as it pulled away and staring down the dystopian-looking street of strip clubs, sex shops and XXX video stores, all of which looked abandoned this time of day.

Her family had left this behind when they moved to California. At that point, their lives had changed dramatically for the better, and until this moment, Presley had forgotten just how much her situation had improved in the passing years.

"Hey!"

Startled by the intrusion into her thoughts, Presley blinked and focused on a tall, dark figure standing in the entry of a convenience store. "You a hooker, honey? You looking for a date?"

She could hardly see the man for the glare. But when she hesitated, he came out of the shadows. With short-cropped hair, a clean shave and a wedding ring on his left hand, he appeared surprisingly respectable for this side of town-except for the smarmy smile.