The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 497

"Let's check her apartment first."

The two of them met up downstairs at Emerald Grove. Piper had run so fast she was out of breath, completely ignoring the fact that her hair clip was crooked and sliding off her ear.

They sprinted upstairs. Sloane's apartment door was tightly shut. Josh knocked heavily several times, but there was no response from inside.

He pressed his ear against the door panel. No sound of running water. No footsteps. It was unnervingly silent.

He dialed Sloane's number again. The robotic voice buzzed through the receiver: "The number you have dialed is powered off."

Piper's face had gone completely pale. She bit her lower lip, her fingers twisting her backpack straps nervously. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Could she... could she be at the library? Sometimes she gets so absorbed in a book she loses track of time—"

"Come on. Let's search the campus."

Josh and Piper turned Riverdale University upside down.

The library study halls, her usual window seat on the fourth floor, the business school building, the music room where she practiced piano, the ginkgo path by the track, the corner booth in the cafeteria—they checked every single place Sloane could possibly be. Nothing.

Piper contacted every classmate who might know Sloane. She asked them all one by one. Nobody had seen her all day.

Her phone was burning hot from all the calls, and Josh's battery had already ticked down to the red zone.

The sun dragged itself from the center of the sky to the west, finally sinking below the dull gray skyline. Twilight descended over the campus as the streetlights flickered to life one by one.

Piper sat on the stone steps outside the library, hugging her knees. Her eyes were red, her voice completely hoarse.

"Josh, where did she go? What if... what if something happened to her?"

Josh stood beside her. He gripped his phone so hard his knuckles were white.

He stared down at the screen, looking at the number he had dialed countless times with no answer. His mind raced through every possibility. Did she go to Taylor Manufacturing? Did she go home? Or maybe... she had a sudden follow-up at the hospital? But she never ignored calls during her appointments.

Garrison walked to the window and answered the call.

Josh's voice blasted through the speaker. No pleasantries. Just a blunt, aggressive question: "Garrison, is Sloane with you?"

Garrison froze for a second. "No. What's going on?"

Silence stretched across the line.

Garrison could hear the wind in the background, along with Piper's anxious, poorly suppressed whispers of, "Did he answer? Did he answer?"

Then Josh spoke again. His voice was lower and slower than before, as if he were using every ounce of his strength to hold back his emotions.

"Sloane is missing."