CHASING SUNSHINE: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK THIRTEEN)

by Honey Palomino

  Our boys are two and four, and I don’t envy my wife having to stay home with those little tornadoes all day.

  “They’re wild as ever,” she replied. “I think Robbie’s going to grow up to be a stunt man.”

  Our youngest, Robbie, is fearless. It makes me proud.

  “When will you be home?” Angie asked.

  “It’ll be late tonight. I’m busy working a missing person’s case.”

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s sad. A local Mom. Looks like she just took off and left her kid, though.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “I know,” I said. “Listen, kiss the boys for me and don’t wait for me for dinner.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “I miss you.”

  “Miss you, too, my love,” I said, before hanging up.

  I sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, thinking once again of Frannie. I pulled up the pictures in my phone and scrolled through them one last time to make sure I’d gotten everything. Good thing, too, because I found one I missed.

  I smiled down at the blurry picture of Frannie’s perfect tits and let the memory of the day I’d taken the picture flood my brain. A few weeks ago, we’d spent the better part of a Saturday night holed up in a hotel room, fucking till we couldn’t fuck anymore.

  It’d been a great night.

  I sighed as I hit delete one more time.

  I threw my phone on the seat and put the cruiser in gear, slowly pulling out of the parking lot of the precinct.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SAGE

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  “Nothing!” I shouted, throwing my phone onto the couch. Corinne and Maddy looked at me expectantly. “They’ve got nothing!”

  “It’s been two weeks,” Maddy said, her voice sad and broken.

  “I know, babe,” I said, throwing an arm around her shoulder and pulling her close.

  “How can the cops just give up like that?” Corinne asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I call every damned day and they tell me the same thing: if they hear something, they’ll tell us.”

  It’s been the most excruciating two weeks of my life since I first got the call from Maddy telling me Mom wasn’t home, till now. The cops were no help. They’d turned up nothing when they checked her car, and after a week, they’d had it towed back to the house, so there the car sat, like a huge reminder that our mother was still missing.

  There’d been no phone calls.

  No leads whatsoever.

  No clues, inside or outside of the house, that we could find, anyway.

  I’d gone to her job and searched her office. Her boss had no idea what might have happened, assuring me they’d not sent her on any work trips. Her friends had no idea, either.

  I’d torn the house upside down, much more so than the cops did during their measly search that first day. Even when her name didn’t show up on any of the airline’s passengers lists, they still wouldn’t let go of the theory that she’d disappeared on her own.

  I felt hopeless and I was doing my best not to show that to Maddy.

  She deserved that, at least.

  I was beyond grateful that Corinne had come to stay with us for a few days, because things were getting a little hairy with it just being Maddy and me, and the occasional visit from Finn from next door.

  I think Maddy and I both were grateful to have a different energy in the house for a change.

  I’d missed two weeks of school, including a few important tests, and at this point, I had no idea how I was going to make it up. I spent most of my time driving around Astoria, traveling up and down the coast, going into every business I could find and asking them to post one of the hundreds of flyers I kept in my car with Mom’s smiling face on them.

  It was maddening, to be honest.

  Outside of what turned out to be a few false leads, nobody had seen her.

  It was as if she just disappeared into thin air. And it appeared nobody really cared, except Maddy and me. Nobody was helping us. I felt completely abandoned by the police. I’d complained to the police chief, too, numerous times, but it didn’t do any good.

  After a while, the switchboard operator stopped putting me through, promising someone would call back, but I hadn’t heard from them in three days now.

  Today marks the fourteenth day she’s been missing.

  I alternated between worry, grief, and desperate anger, all the while I was trying to keep a positive face on, for Maddy’s sake.

  The toll it was taking on me must have been obvious, because when Corinne showed up to spend one night with us, she decided to stay another one. For Corinne to give up all that time to babysit me, I must really be a mess.

  Unfortunately, she was leaving tonight. She couldn’t miss her finals, and I would never have let her, even if she tried. With med school, second chances aren’t guaranteed. At this point, my future is so far up in the air, it’s sitting in the nosebleed seats.

  Maddy pulled out of my embrace and squared her shoulders. She’d been so damned brave. I know this is tearing her apart. I know she blames herself. She told me all about the fight she’d had with Mom that morning and I hated knowing she felt so guilty. I’d done my best to recount some arguments I’d had with Mom myself at her age, but I don’t think they really made her feel better.

  I wasn’t sure anything would make her feel better.

  “I’m going to my room,” she said, grabbing her phone from the kitchen counter and disappearing down the hall, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “Dammit,” I whispered, shaking my head. Corinne hugged me, her Chanel scented embrace a familiar comfort. Even with the rigors of med school, she somehow managed to always smell good.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she insisted, her voice calm and confident. She’d be the best doctor ever. “I promise.”

  “Don’t promise outcomes you can’t guarantee, remember?” I said, with a wry smile.

  “We’re not in an exam room. You’re my friend, not my patient.”

  “I know,” I said. “God, I’d give anything to be in a clinic right now. Hell, I’d rather drain an infected hemorrhoid than to be going through this.”

  “I feel you, boo,” she said, stroking my back. I pulled away, looking at her earnestly.

  “I’m worried about Maddy,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, me too,” she agreed. “She’s taking this all pretty hard.”

  “It’s driving us crazy that there’s nothing we can do,” I said. “And I don’t know if making her go to school was the right thing to do. She comes home every day with a hopeful look in her eye, like she thinks Mom’s going to be in the kitchen making fucking cupcakes or something. It’s perverse, her having to go through that disappointment every single fucking day.”

  I was cussing needlessly, but I was on the edge of losing it completely.

  “Take a deep breath,” Corinne said. “I have a proposal.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let me take Maddy,” she offered.

  “Take her where?”

  “To Portland. Just for weekend. I think she needs a change of scenery. I’d suggest you come, too, but I know you won’t.”

  “No, you’re right, I won’t,” I agreed. “But it might be good for Maddy.”

  “We’ll hang out and I’ll show her around. We’ll go to Powell’s, go thrifting. We’ll get hot chocolate and shit. She’ll dig it.”

  “She’s just thirteen,” I said. “She shouldn’t be going through all this.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” she said. “And neither should you. But I’m not doing this just for Maddy, I’m doing it for you, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you need a break from Maddy, too. You need to just decompress, be alone. I know you, Sage. You need your alone time, or you go crazy.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “So, let me take her for the weekend. Take a nice, long bath and have some tea —
spike it with whiskey or something — and then when you’ve had enough of that, go to a bar or something. Get out of this house. Maybe you can meet some sexy fisherman and have a one-night stand or something. You need a distraction. You need to just forget about everything, just for a little while.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t think —”

  “Sage, you’ve done everything you can do for now. At this point, you’re just waiting. But you don’t need to wait here, in this house. If the cops find her, they’ll call you. Or she’ll call you. Keep your phone with you, but you need a little self-care at the same time that you’re doing all this waiting.”

  I looked at her, realizing just how right she was. She knew me well.

  “You’re a good friend, you know that?”

  “Of course I am,” she scoffed. “Won’t find a better one.”

  “I won’t even try.”

  She laughed, “Good! It’s settled, then. You’re getting laid and I’m taking Maddy to Portland.”

  “I’m not getting laid!” I insisted. “That’s the last thing I want. I’m just going to take a little time to myself. Read a book or something, I don’t know. Most likely, I’ll just pace silently.”

  “So boring,” she said, shaking her head, with a wink. “I’m going to tell Maddy to pack.”

  “Thanks, Corinne,” I said. “I love you.”

  “Love you more!” she shouted over her shoulder as she walked towards Maddy’s room.

  I felt good about this. Maddy needed this, it would be good for her.

  And me, too, I suppose.

  The first thing I planned to do was have a good, long cry.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SUNNY

  I’ll never forget that first kill.

  The eyes are what stayed with me for years after.

  It wasn’t the look of surprise when it realized it couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t the dead, cold finality of stillness that settled in those eyes when it was all over — no, it was the sparse few seconds when I could actually see the transition from alive to dead, the slow journey from vibrance and fear to actual lifelessness, to nothingness.

  After it was over, long after Mom helped me bury it, I kept thinking about those few seconds. I obsessed over it, in fact. I imagined the pull of death tugging on a string attached to the kitten’s soul, pulling it away into the darkness. I wondered what it felt like for the kitten, if it was aware that death was imminent. I wondered if it could see to the other side.

  It filled my dreams for many nights afterwards, and I found myself soon longing to experience it all over again.

  That night, after we buried its body, I went back home, sure that my beloved mother would eventually be angry. I was ready to beg her for forgiveness. I was convinced she’d hate me eventually and I was devastated about that. She was all I had.

  If I lost her love…well, I just couldn’t even think about it.

  My steps grew heavier and heavier the closer I came to her bedroom.

  As my fingers clenched around the doorknob to her bedroom, I could hear my heart pounding in my chest as I braced myself for the full impact of her wrath.

  I remember facing her somberly as she sat in her chair knitting, the faint whiff of her lilac perfume hanging in the air. She turned to me with her usual saintly smile, and it never wavered.

  I peered deep into her eyes, daring her to see my secret waiting there. That I’d actually enjoyed stealing the breath of that kitten.

  But when I told her, nothing changed. She didn’t know. She couldn’t see.

  She just…loved me.

  Like always.

  Something changed in me in that moment. To think that I could do what I’d done — take what I’d taken — and that my mother would continue to love me.

  Well, it was freeing.

  I felt like I’d found myself.

  Always, I’d done things for the sole purpose of pleasing her. Once I’d done something for myself — something to please myself — and her love still stood strong, then it opened me up to do so much more.

  It was as if her love gave me permission.

  Permission to be myself.

  To feed that darkness that I was convinced was a part of me.

  To take whatever I wanted from this world.

  The memories of that night flooded my mind today, as I walked down the basement stairs and unlocked the door.

  Two weeks have passed and Frannie's growing restless.

  Her family must be good and terrorized by now, but that’s not on me.

  I feel bad for them, but its Frannie’s fault. I refuse to take on that burden.

  Frannie stares up at me from the bed as I walk up.

  “Hasn’t this gone on long enough?” she asked.

  I ignored her question, peering into her eyes. I’d grown so familiar with them. Bright, apple green with tiny gold flecks. When she cries, they get even greener. They’re beautiful, truly. Right now, they’re filled with a wry plea, but they’ve been full of anger and sadness and worry and well, I’ll admit it — my favorite — fear.

  It’s the most exquisite of them all, isn’t it?

  “I just want to go home, please, my daughters…”

  “Your daughters,” I nodded. “Yes, they must be worried sick.”

  Tears threatened to spill from those pretty eyes, and for the hundredth time, I imagined what it would look like as the life drained from them. Just like the kitten, just like all the others that came after.

  I liked to call it the ‘dance of death’, because it was like that.

  A final movement.

  A waltz into the darkness.

  Delicious, truly fascinating…

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SAGE

  I’d done absolutely everything I could think of — distributed thousands of flyers throughout Astoria and up and down the Oregon coast. I’d called the cops every single day, sometimes multiple times, until the person answering the phone gently asked me to stop. I’d called every person Mom knew, either personally or at work.

  I’d searched the house up and down.

  I’d posted on the internet, flooding Facebook with the missing person’s flyer. I’d called all the hospitals three times. I’d even called the news stations and badgered them until they agreed to do a segment on her.

  We’d even held a vigil — a big group of us gathered down at the Astoria Column, huddled together against the cold, with candles flickering in the dark, rainy night, as if somehow that would bring her back. We’d even said prayers, despite my lack of any particular religious beliefs.

  I was willing to try anything.

  But for fourteen long nights, I’d faced the end of each day without my mother resurfacing.

  I was tired. So very tired. Emotionally exhausted, physically depleted of all energy, and yet, somehow I was still going.

  I’d spent most of this weekend pacing a hole in Mom’s oriental rug lying in front of her large, stone fireplace. But I’m pacing alone. With Maddy and Corinne gone, it was unnervingly quiet. After updating the Facebook group and scouring the comments on the news articles online, I’d turned off my computer and began my usual pacing session all over again.

  This is when I went over everything I’d done throughout the day and tried to piece it all together, to scour the information in my mind for some clue I’d over looked.

  I just couldn’t figure it out.

  How could she have just disappeared into thin air?

  It was like a movie — a very bad, endlessly long and painful movie.

  Fifteen minutes later and I was sure I’d thought of everything. Day by day, the information I discovered was less and less, until, like today, there wasn’t much to go over.

  Mom’s name still hadn’t shown up on any of the airline’s lists, and the cops didn’t seem to think that made any difference. They were insistent that she left on her own. They offered to help me get Maddy into foster care, which I was completely appalled by. I wanted to climb through
the phone when Office Murphy suggested that and punch him out.

  “It’s only been a few weeks!” I’d protested.

  “Well, we can help if you need it,” he said.

  “What I need you to do is help find my mother!” I’d shouted. I didn’t care what he thought anymore. At first, I’d tried to be polite, but once I realized I was being brushed off, even when I’d contacted his supervisor, I figured manners just didn’t matter much anymore.

  And still, nothing had changed.

  No sign, no clue, no indication that Mom hadn’t just disappeared of her own will, but no sign she had, either.

  It was maddening.

  Thus, the exhaustion.

  I longed to go back to Portland, to be exhausted from school, instead of exhausted from this nightmare of worry and fear, not just for Mom, but for Maddy — and well, for myself, too.

  Now, I’d had a few days to myself and while I hated to admit it — I was now left with nothing to do. I was out of ideas of where to look, how to widen the search.

  This is when I should catch up on sleep, I thought.

  The idea of sleeping just made me pace faster.

  I headed to the kitchen, searching for a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, I found one but it was totally empty and in the recycling bin.

  “Thanks a lot, Corinne,” I said out loud to the empty house.

  My eyes trailed around the room, and I could just see Mom flittering around, wearing some fuzzy sweater, with her reading glasses perched on top of her head, the wild black curly hair Maddy and I had inherited from her as fuzzy as the sweater, usually.

  Goosebumps peppered my skin and my stomach sank.

  “I gotta get outta here,” I said, shaking my head. I grabbed my keys, my wallet and my phone and shoved them into the pocket of my coat and headed outside, desperate to escape the ghosts inside the house.

  I refused to think my mother was gone permanently.

  She certainly didn’t feel dead.

  She was just out there somewhere.

  She was going to come back.

  In the meantime, I needed a drink.