The sand was cold under his knees. The sun, a brutal white disc, baked the back of his neck, but inside, Robin was freezing. He’d been walking for hours, from one boutique to another, one modeling agency front desk to the next, a ghost haunting the places a nineteen-year-old model might be. Nothing. No trace. Her number rang out into a void, a digital tombstone.
He’d ended up on the beach, the same stretch of tourist-packed Miami shore where everything had started. It felt like a mockery. The laughter, the splashing, the tinny music from portable speakers—it was all noise meant for someone else’s life.
His breath hitched. Then it broke.
A sob tore out of him, raw and ugly. He dug his fingers into the grit, the shells biting into his palms. He cried like he hadn’t since he was a boy, shoulders shaking, tears cutting through the salt and sunscreen on his face. People stepped around him. A spectacle. Another Miami weirdo. He didn’t care. The thought was a single, desperate loop: Just April. Just her. Nothing else. The mansions, the cars, the platinum records on his wall—they were ash in his mouth. Useless. He’d trade every last one for the sound of her laugh, for the right to lay his head in her lap and be quiet.
His phone vibrated in the sand beside him. He ignored it. It stopped. Then it started again, a persistent, angry buzz.
With a trembling hand, he wiped his face and grabbed it. An unknown Miami number. Probably another manager, another obligation. He almost swiped it away. But the habit of a lifetime, the performer’s reflex to always be available, made him press answer. He didn’t speak.
“Robin?” A young woman’s voice, hesitant. “It’s… it’s Chloe. From the campus café? April’s friend.”
He sat up straight. The world snapped into a painful, sharp focus. “Chloe.” His voice was wrecked. He cleared his throat. “Do you know where she is?”
A long pause. He could hear her breathing, the conflict in it. “She made me promise not to tell anyone. Especially you.”
“Please.” The word was stripped bare. No charm, no smooth talk. Just a naked plea. “I need to see her. I need to… I have to talk to her.”
“She’s not in Miami,” Chloe said softly. “She went home. To her parents’. In Fort Lauderdale. She’s… she’s not doing great, Robin.”
An address followed. Robin fumbled, patting his pockets for a pen, finding nothing. He repeated it aloud, committing it to memory, a sacred chant. 1427 Coral Ridge Drive.
“Thank you,” he whispered, the gratitude so immense it threatened to buckle him again.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Chloe said, and the line went dead.
He looked at the phone. Then at the ocean. The address burned in his mind, a single point of light in a month of darkness. He pushed himself to his feet, his muscles stiff, sand cascading from his jeans.
And then he ran.
He ran past the tourists, past the vendors, his shoes slapping against the paved walkway. He ran like the address was a lifeline and he was a drowning man. He didn’t feel the burn in his lungs. He didn’t feel the sun. He felt only the pull of her, magnetic and absolute.
His rental car was three blocks away. He fumbled with the key, his hands shaking too badly to hit the unlock button on the first try. He finally yanked the door open and fell into the driver’s seat.
He plugged the address into the navigation. Forty-five minutes. An eternity.
The engine roared to life. He pulled into traffic, cutting off a convertible, earning a blaring horn. He didn’t care. Every red light was a personal insult. Every slow-moving car an obstacle between him and the only thing that mattered.
He drove north, the glittering Miami skyline shrinking in his rearview mirror. He was leaving the scene of the crime, chasing the ghost he’d created. The hum of the tires on the highway was the only sound. His mind was terrifyingly quiet. No music. No plans. No clever lines. Just a single, focused need: Find April.