Free Come and Find Me by Hallie Ephron Page B

feel.

Chapter Eleven
    B y Monday morning, Diana was acutely aware that the weekend was over. It was barely ten and her in-box was full of messages from Jake that she’d left unanswered but not even a text message from Ashley. Diana was still shaken by her adventure with GROB in OtherWorld, and far too distracted to work. Her morning pill was barely calming the gremlins in the pit of her stomach. Ashley should have been at work, and it seemed unfathomable that she hadn’t bothered to come by and pick up her laptop. Equally unfathomable that she hadn’t answered her e-mail.
    Diana called Ashley’s office extension at International Palm Court Hotels headquarters. The line rang five times before the call went to voice mail. Diana pressed zero. An operator picked up.
    “Hello, I’m looking for Ashley Highsmith,” Diana told her. “I tried her office, but there’s no answer.”
    The operator put her on hold to strains of Vivaldi, then came back and gave her what Diana knew was Ashley’s cell-phone number. “Or I can leave a message for you,” the operator offered.
    “So you haven’t seen her today?” Diana asked.
    “I’m sorry. Who were you looking for?”
    Earth to operator. It was all Diana could do not to shout. “Ashley Highsmith? Your event planner?” She took a breath. “She’s doing such a great job, helping us plan for our big annual meeting there. So calm and competent. I had a question. It was a little complicated to leave as a message, so I was hoping you could tell me if she’s there and if you could find out when she can get back to me?”
    “Of course. Highsmith, Ashley,” said the ever-polite voice. “I’ll put you through to her extension.”
    “I already—” Diana started. Too late. She’d been transferred. This time she let it go to voice mail.
    “Hey, Ash, it’s me. Again. How’d it go at Copley? Curious minds need to know. Please—” Diana heard the offhand tone in her voice turn brittle. She gave in to it. “I know you’re a big girl and I shouldn’t worry. But I can’t help myself. Humor me and give me a call.”
    She hung up the phone. Her hand was trembling. She tried to identify the feeling that was giving her hand the shakes. Giving things names, she’d found, often made them easier to control. Not fear. Not anger. Anxiety. Not unwarranted, but still, there were a million explanations for why her sister hadn’t called. If she’d merely overslept, she’d be furious with Diana for calling the hotel and drawing attention to her lapse.
    As she imagined Ashley yelling at her to “get a life and stay out of mine!” her anxiety abated a notch. But not so much that it stopped her from opening the Spontaneous Combustion video on her computer and watching it, yet again, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ashley that she’d missed.
    Systematically, Diana inspected the three-minute clip. There was Ashley, raising her cell phone skyward. Then the camera cut to close-ups of other participants, of pedestrians, of the hotel window and Superman’s flight. It wasn’t until near the end of the footage that the camera once again panned over the empty spot where Ashley had been standing. Diana ran the video forward and back in slo-mo, zoomed in and out, but she couldn’t find any additional glimpses of Ashley.
    According to the time stamps, the short clip represented thirty minutes of elapsed time. It looked like a montage of footage spliced together from at least four different cameras. So that meant at least two hours of footage had to have been taken, most of which hadn’t made it into the final cut.
    Diana found the Spontaneous Combustion Web site and shot off an e-mail, asking if there was any way she could see the raw footage from the various cameras filming at Copley. She explained why. Then she left the same message on their office phone. While she was at it, she found Spontaneous Combustion’s Facebook page and posted an entry asking anyone who’d been to the event and