Chapter 26

House had been sitting at his desk for over two hours now. He was still waiting for a call from Cameron's parents. When he realized Cameron had picked Tony up at school and they weren't returning home that first night he thought of all possible places she could have gone. His first thought was Wilson and Cuddy, but when he went to them, he only succeeded in getting them upset. When they had asked why Wilson had seen her looking so upset and why she would have left, House explained as much as he was capable of–as much as he could figure out for himself, and Lisa became enraged.

"What were you doing there with her?" She yelled at him.

"Nothing. I thought I was sent there for frozen pipes. I didn't know she was the one who set it up. How would I know that? This is so out of. . ."

"If you say out of character for Stacey, I'm going to scream!" Lisa poked him in the chest with her finger. "Why are men so damned blind? Why can't you see this "is" Stacey's character? So what did you do that sent Cameron over the edge? It had to be something or she would have fought the bitch for you!"

"I was kissing Stacey," House mumbled.

"YOU WERE WHAT?" Lisa lost all sense of reasoning and punched him in the arm. "What in the name of God did you do that for?"

"Oh, House. Tell me you weren't ," Wilson sighed.

"I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything there–anything that would jump up and bite me in the ass when I least expected it."

"And what did you find out from your little experiment?" Lisa asked, still very angry.

"That I don't have anything left for Stacey. It's gone," he said as he looked at her but winced when he received another punch to his arm.

"No, stupid! You found out that you don't kiss other women when the woman you're engaged to is over eight months pregnant and the best thing you'll ever have in this lifetime." She was about to hit him a third time but Wilson put his arm around her and walked with her toward the sofa, seeing that she sat down and didn't beat House to a pulp.

"Come on, Honey. We'll find her," Wilson told her.

"No! I don't even think I want to help him find her!" She told Wilson then looked back over at House. "Could you think of any way to hurt her more? House, you're such a damn ass."

With that, Cuddy burst into tears and Wilson sat next to her and allowed her to cry on his shoulder.

"Lisa, don't get yourself so upset. You know she's probably fine."

"I know," she sobbed against her husband's neck. "But he's so "stupid!" How can anyone be that "stupid?"

That was two days ago, and still he had heard nothing. Every time he called her parents' house he was met with a happy, "Hi, you've reached Bill and Karen Cameron. Please leave a message!" He must have left twenty messages in the past two days. Still no sign or sound of his son and Cameron. He gave up on her cell phone when he found it sitting on the counter in the kitchen, evidently either forgotten the morning she left, or brought back to the house and left intentionally so he could not get hold of her.

He sat at his desk, spinning his large tennis ball in his hand as he stared at Chase in the other room. Finally, he had had enough and went into the conference room and leaned over the table with his hands on its top.

"You know where she is, don't you?" House's voice rumbled throughout the room.

Chase looked up at him with a blank look on his face. "I take it we're talking about Cameron."

"You know exactly who I'm talking about."

"No. I don't know where she is. The last time I saw her was the morning she disappeared. She was in here, making coffee." Chase got to his feet and picked up his bag then turned to leave. "But I must say–she never went into hiding while she was with me."

House walked into his home–or at least what he had come to think of as his home these past few months. He dropped his bag and jacket inside the door and went to the telephone, hoping to find a blinking light to indicate any messages, but there were none. He moved to the kitchen and grabbed a beer then headed upstairs as was his newly acquired nightly ritual. He first went into Tony's room, stood near the doorway and just looked around. He could hear the boy's voice calling him an "old goat," and smiled at the memory. He was "his" boy. There was no question about that anymore. He had such a strong attachment to the kid he used to refer to as "devil's spawn," that he felt an emptiness inside that was just as significant as the emptiness of the room.

Next, he would walk down the hall to the nursery. It had been completed just days before the incident. He looked at the crib his father and Tony had assembled, the dressing table and dresser that his mother picked out and bought for them. He touched the fluffy lambs that hung from the mobile that Nurse Brenda had given them for a gift.

Then he would go to bed. Cameron's bed. He would lie on his designated side of the mattress and try to fall asleep. Last night, when he had a little too much to drink he actually glanced over at the rocking chair in the corner of the room and saw her sitting there, rocking as she held her enlarged abdomen, and smiled at him. But he saw nothing tonight; just an empty rocker.

He stripped down to his t-shirt and underwear and crawled under the covers. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. He could imagine her breathless voice as she told him that she loved him. And then he remembered her stricken face when she stood in his apartment's doorway and watched him with his arms around Stacey, then turned and ran away from him.

His heart seemed to be ripped out of his chest every time he remembered her sobs as she ran away. He rolled over and pulled her pillow against him, holding it as a poor substitute for the woman he yearned for. He could smell her fragrance. He closed his eyes and hugged the pillow closer. He knew he couldn't go on like this. He decided he was going to Illinois. He was going to find what he so carelessly allowed to slip away.