Cal closed his eyes. He felt physically sick. Where would she go? Who did she know in the city? Friends of course and acquaintances galore, but no one she would trust to run to. Her brother in Virginia was close enough. But that was too obvious. She knew he would check there first. Plus, Cal got a sneaky suspicion that Kate would absolutely call him to let him know she was there, even if Gillian instructed her not to. Then there were her parents in San Diego. But that was all the way across the country and she wouldn't go that far away from Lewis. Plus, with all she had already said on the subject of her parent's reconciliation, Cal doubted she would even want to be there. So who or where did that leave? Emily? No way. Em would definitely call him and Gillian wouldn't burden the young woman like that. Cal thought again, pushed his memory out to its limits. No one from work. Too close to home. Who else? There had to be someone else...
Casey.
The thought snapped Cal's heart into action. He knew for sure. Casey made perfect sense. She was one of Gillian's closest friends, they hadn't seen each other in months since Casey had moved, Casey was a psychologist and Cal knew Gillian had talked to her on other occasions about things that were bothering her. And Casey was just far enough away in New York that put Cal out of reach, but close enough that she could be home within hours. He grabbed for his phone and connected it to the internet. He was bringing up a phone directory when he realised that Casey had moved in with a guy and Cal knew no more about the guy than his name was Mark. He should have paid more attention. He should have snooped. That's what he would have done before. And this kind of situation was the very reason why he did stuff like that.
Cal threw his phone against the wall. It bounced to the floor, managing to keep in one piece while it clattered over the tiles of the kitchen. 'Shit,' Cal thought. 'Shit, shit, shit.' Think again. How else could he track her down? Did Gillian keep a phone list on the hard drive of her computer? Cal went to his laptop and remotely connected to the server at the office. He'd never done this before. Hard to believe, but he'd always afforded Gillian her privacy. Not because she would shoot him in the balls if she ever found out he had done something like this, but because he had always trusted her. He had never had a need to hack into her hard drive on her work computer. He asked her and she told him. And now she was gone. She had run away and she wasn't answering her phone and he needed to know where she was. He had always needed to know where she was. He wanted to know what was going on in her head. No, he needed to know what was going on in her head. He needed to know that she was ok.
When she said she was leaving, did she mean for good?