Amy POV

We tried to spend the evening at home after the unsuccessful adoption pretending that everything was okay. Everyone knew that it wasn't, but it was better than sitting at home moping and crying about it. The Robert Quinn guy was still in my head, I was trying to put thoughts about him in the far corner of my mind, but it wasn't too successful as I kept returning to wondering about it every other minute.

I tried to look at what happened like a small bump, hurdle towards in the goal. This was nothing we couldn't overcome. It will take few weeks probably, but we will figure things out. I was attempting to keep a positive thought about it, because someone had to. Callie was being very quiet. Which was understandable, because she still was trying to process the news. It's a lot to take in for adult, let alone a fifteen year old. Every time I glanced to the girl, I could see in her eyes, what she was thinking about. Che was very quiet, her look was distant and thoughful, brows slightly furrowed and quite often she didn't even hear what someone was telling her as she kept asking "Sorry, what?" every time someone had spoken to her.

When we returned home from the court, we set our table and had a meal together. In our main, we had salad and some chicken wings. The cake I had ordered was as desert. Adults drank the wine, except for my brother, who was the designated driver for the night. The girls drank coca cola. We had unhealthy snacks – chips and salty nuts – and healthy snacks – apples, bananas and cherries.

At first it had seemed like a lot of food for only 8 people, but were in no hurry at all. Throughout the day, we ate everything that was on the table. Later in the evening, Andy's oldest daughter started braiding french braids to everyone who had long hair. She had started with her sister, then her mom, afterward she made one two to Callie, but finally she made me one big french braid as well.

The conversation throughout the day was everything but the failed adoption. We covered topics from our parents creepy, stalk-y neighbors to nail polish and, might I say, we quite successfully avoided talking about the big pink elephant in the room. The way how we got from one to another to me is a bit blurry, but I do know it took us more than 6 hours to get there.

"It's late," Nell said after she finished drinking her wine, she turned to her husband "Andy, we should head back to our hotel room!"

"What? Already?" Their girls whined back, protesting

"It's almost midnight," Nell pointed to the clock "Nicole, you can barely keep your eyes open. It's been a long day, we should all get some sleep."

10 minutes later Andy took his family back to their hotel. Because Andy was the only one of the adults sober, he was the designated driver for our parents as well. After he will drop of his girls at the hotel, he will drive back and pick up our parents and drive them to theirs.

While we waited for Andy to drive back my parents, Callie and I started to clean up the mess we had all left. Together this chore seemed like nothing. If it had been just me, it would have taken me twice as long.

"You don't have to," I placed my hand on Callie's shoulder blade as she walked up to the sink "I will do the dishes."

"I don't mind," Callie replied reaching for the tap and grabbing the dish sponge

"Let us," my dad said as he took the sponge out of Callie's hand. My mom already stood next to the sink with a towel, ready to dry the dishes.

"It's midnight. You should be in the bed already," I told Callie as she stepped away from the sink letting the adults take care of it

"I don't feel tiered. I drank too much coca-cola," Callie reasoned back, making us all crack a smile. That technically was my fault as I had supplied her with the unhealthy, black, sugar filled drink "Can I use your laptop?"

"Mmm," I hummed while I was debating with myself if I should allow her to use the computed so late at night

"Just till you come upstairs," Callie pleaded trying to convince me

"Okay. Go ahead," I allowed. Callie thanked me by giving me a quick peck on my cheek.

"Say goodnight to your grandparents, kiddo!" I managed to remind her before she had left the room. Callie quickly turned around and went over to my parents to give them a quick, one handed hug. Once that was done, she hurried out of the kitchen eager to use the laptop.

"She's going to look up all the possible information about this Robert Quinn guy," My dad commented as I was still looking at the hallway, where Callie had run off to.

"Yeah, I figured as much," I sighed as I turned around and started to put the clean and dry dishes away one by one. But I knew she was going to do it sooner or later. There was no harm in her looking up some information about her biological father. She was curious. It was only natural.

~o~o~o~

I locked the front doors after my brothers car was no longer in my sigh and then walked around the first floor to check if there wasn't something I had missed while cleaning up. Once I was satisfied with how things were left, I turned off all the lights and made my way upstairs. Deciding to give Callie another 10 more minutes, I went to bathroom to do my night time routine first, before going over to her.

"Time is up, baby!" I announced as I walked into her room. The girl was sat on her bed dressed in her PJ, legs stretched out over the side of the bed, her back against the wall and the laptop on her thighs. Callie looked up from the screen, but quickly averted her eyes back to the laptop not wanting to waste the few seconds she had left.

"One more minute," she said as she clicked the touch pad couple of times. Her eyes darting all around the screen, reading the information, trying to absorb as much of it as possible.

I slowly approach her "Found what you are looking for?"

"I don't know...Kind of," she shrugged her shoulders without raising her eyes up

I slumped down next to her on the bed. Just as I glanced to the screen, she closed one of the tabs and now was staring at a news article about the latest information about Robert Quinn.

"He has over 100 stores throughout USA," Callie pointed to the screen to the headline of the article "And he's planning on branching out of USA and open a store in France and Germany!" she scoffed shaking her head "Like he's not rich enough already!"

"A business never strops growing. If it does, it can go bankrupt."

"Have you ever been to one of his stores?"

"Yes, but it was couple of years ago. When we first moved into this house. We needed supplies for the repairs and reconstruction we were doing," I explained while Callie was closing all of the open tabs one by one

"Did you know that he has a daughter?" Callie asked reaching for the screen to lower it down

"I didn't," I reached for the now closed laptop and stood up, letting Callie get underneath the blanket. I was holding the laptop in under my left arm.

"That means I have a half-sister," Callie laid her head down on the pillow

"That it does," I agreed slowly nodding my head. This day has been so long that I no longer had the energy to talk about this. All I wanted was to rest my eyes. The alcohol was taking a toll on me as well. "Go to sleep, love. We will talk about this in the morning, okay?" I leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her forehead "Good night!"

"Night," Callie mumbled as she closed her eyes and turned on her right side to watch me walk out of the room

I stopped by the doors, when I reached for the light switch "I love you!"

"Love you too," Callie replied. I hit the light switch with my index finger and closed the doors as I walked out.

~o~o~o~

It was 8:15 AM, when I made my way down to the kitchen the next morning. The first thing I did, I went to make a coffee. I was slightly surprised that there was coffee already in the coffee machine, because I could have sworn that yesterday the pot was empty. Not sure what to think about it, I shook it off and poured myself a cup.

Like every morning, I stood by the kitchen counter holding the cup in my hand and looked out the kitchen window to the backyard. The sky was clear and it looked like it was going to be a hot summer day. The grass in the backyard was starting to look dry. I hoped we weren't going into a drought. Made a mental note to flower the bushes and few flowers that were around the house to make sure they don't die out. Water fight with Callie would be fun, maybe we could go to city and buy a lot of balloons - that thought put a smirk on my lips for it sounded like the perfect way to spend the day.

Wanting to cheer up Callie, I decided to make waffles for her. Without any rush at all I started to prepare breakfast and set the table for both of us. My empty coffee cup had stood in the sink for at least 15 minutes by the time I was done with the waffles.

Callie still hadn't come downstairs, so I went upstairs to wake the sleeping beauty.

Knocking lightly on the door I opened them. To my surprise Callie's bed was empty. It was neatly made. Thinking that I had missed her walking to bathroom, I stepped out of her room and turned to the bathroom.

"Callie?" I called out approaching the bathroom. The doors were open, just like I had left them, when I had exited bathroom in the morning. Worry grew with every step I got closer to the room, but still hadn't heard any nose coming from the room. With my right hand I pushed the doors open slowly, not wanting to walk in on Callie. But once again, I was met by an empty room. I hurried inside the bathroom and pulled open the bath curtain checking to see if she wasn't hiding there.

"Callie!" This time I shouted out in panic as I ran back to Callie's room. I hurried to her roomand looked around. Her PJ was neatly folded and put next to the pillow. Her phone – I started to frantically searching for it. I didn't have to look far as it was set neatly on the bedside table, next to the book she has been reading the past few days. Looking around the room once again, I noticed that her jeans and shirt she wore the other day to city was gone as well. Most likely she was wearing those clothes.

This was not a good sign.

My mind went to a bad place - Callie ran away.

"No!" I shook my head as I stepped backward not wanting to believe this "This can't be happening..."

"Please no!" I ran towards the dresser. With shaky hands I pulled open her drawers one by one. Seeing that her clothes were all still here, calmed me a little. But not enough, not nearly enough. I threw open the big closet doors. I bent down to look at her shoes. Most of them where there, expect for the pair that usually wears on daily basis. Looking through the closet frantically I tried to tell what else was missing.

The one thing I didn't find, was her school backpack. Looking through her drawers again, I was pretty sure her favorite hoodie was gone as well. Another place I looked at was the bottom drawer of her nightstand. At the very back of it, she was saving her money. As far as I knew, she had little over 200 dollars saved up. I took the drawer out. There was no bundle of money. I looked at the other drawers as well. I put the drawers back and resumed paced in the room. As of right now I was in panic and could not think straight. My mind was racing as was my heart.

"God-fucking-damn-it, Callie!" I slammed the closet doors shut loudly in anger as they had been conveniently in the way. The whole closet vibrated from the force.

Callie has run off.

No note, no nothing.

Most likely she slipped out in the middle of the night.

She left her phone, so I couldn't call her or track her.

While I was furious with her for simply leaving like this, I was more angry with myself for not hearing her leaving. Usually I'm a light sleeper, but I guess, it was the alcohol in my veins, that made me sleep through everything.

"Think!" I started to pace around her room, trying to figure out where the girl could have taken off to "Think, Amy, think! Where would she run off to?" The parent in me was in panic, so I tried to channel the cop in me. She at least could clear her head and look at this from different perspective. My hands ran through my hair and over my face multiple time.

The first thought that came to my mind was Robert Quinn. Maybe she went to look for him on her own. She did look the guy up yesterday. If I had known she would do something like this today, I would have never allowed her to look him up yesterday.

Having that thought in my mind, I ran towards my room. The laptop wasn't starting up nearly as fast as I wanted to. Curse words left my mouth every other second. Once the laptop started up, I opened the browsers history, looking for any clue as to what she could have found out yesterday. After searching the history for couple of seconds my eyes stopped on one particular web page. I clicked on the page to see what exactly she searched for.

"I'm going to kill you Callie!" I vented as I slammed the laptop close furious at the girl at the moment

I changed into my daily clothes, simple black jeans and t-shirt in matter of few seconds. Grabbed my wallet, keys and phone from the desk and ran down the stairs heading after my runaway daughter.

"You are so fucking grounded for life!"