Tabitha could hear Mindy walking down the hallway, followed by a knock on Sheila’s door.
“Sheila? It’s Mindy. Can I come in?”
There was a long pause before Mindy tried again.
After not receiving an answer the second time, she readdressed Tabitha. “She’s not answering. Should I open the door?”
“Please,” Tabitha said, holding her breath.
She heard the door creek open, followed by a gasp.
“Tabbi?” Mindy’s voice shook when she got back to her. “Sheila’s not here. And her window is wide open.”
CHAPTER 24
Spencer immediately knewsomething was wrong.
First of all, Tabitha’s conversations with her sister, from the couple he’d witnessed, were never under twenty-minutes long. Second, when she’d walked back into the room, her face was devoid of all color.
He leaped to his feet. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Sheila,” Tabitha managed through lips stiff with shock. “She’s…missing.” Her body trembled.
“Missing?” he questioned, leading her to a chair to make her sit down before her legs gave out.
Tabitha nodded once she was seated, all the Sothard’s gathering around.
“She didn’t answer her phone, so I called one of the staff. The last time Mindy saw her was this morning in the kitchen, but Sheila told her she had a project she was working on and that she didn’t want to be disturbed. Now, she’s gone. Her room is empty and her window is wide open.”
“Who’s Sheila?” Mason went to a knee beside Tabitha, his hand resting immediately on her knee for comfort.
When Tabitha’s mouth gaped open and closed but she didn’t answer, Spencer filled him and everyone else in.
“Sheila is Tabitha’s twenty-six-year-old sister. She has autism, and lives in a group home in Florida.”
Mason was all business as the entire family digested that information; his mother’s soothing hands going straight onto Tabitha’s shoulders.
“What time was she last seen?” Kyle questioned.
Count on his two brothers to drop right into cop mode.
“Eight o’clock this morning,” Tabitha managed. “She…loaded up on snacks, then went to her room and closed the door. At least that’s what Mindy said.”
“Any reason not to trust Mindy?” Mason asked, his mind going into overdrive.
“No. I trust her and the rest of the staff, implicitly,” Tabitha answered with conviction.
“So, Sheila had a plan to leave, then.” Kyle became actively engaged in seconds.
Spencer expected no less from his brother.
“It sounds like it,” Tabitha whispered. “But why? She’s been so happy there. Why would she leave?”
“What’s changed?” Mason was instantly determined to figure things out, and Spencer was never more thankful for his level-headed siblings. He felt nearly as shook up as Tabitha, and he’d only had a single conversation with Sheila.
“Nothing.” Tabitha shook her head. “I… Wait. She seemed really excited when I told her that Spencer was going to be my boyfriend.” She clutched at her throat. “You don’t think she felt like I was going to…leave her behind, do you? Would she have decided that I had someone better in my life than her, so she ran away?” Tabitha raised her head and looked around at everyone, horrified.
“No,” Spencer told her definitively. “It’s not that. I know it’s not. When I spoke with her, she was thrilled for you, and had so many questions for me that I could have talked to her all night.We spoke about meeting, and how much fun it was going to be to pick each other’s brains once we got together. It wasn’t a jealous conversation, at all.”
