Ily and im srry, id much rather stay with u but there wasnt time for smth else, dont wait for me

  Anna stared at the text from Michael for the hundredth time. She had hoped that by now it would have revealed some sort of clarity on what he was talking about, but she was just as confused now as she had been when she’d gotten the text an hour ago. It was bad enough that he used abbreviations in his texts when she much preferred to write everything out properly, even with appropriate capitalization and punctuation. Just because it was a text didn’t mean a person had to forgo respectable and understandable communication.

  If Anna had written the text, it would have said… I Love you and I’m sorry. I’d much rather stay with you, but there wasn’t time for something else. Don’t wait for me.

  The message sent chills through her. Naturally, she tried calling him right after receiving it, but he hadn’t answered, not that she was surprised; her boyfriend hadn’t answered any of her calls that morning. Where the heck was he? And what the hell did he mean by don’t wait for me?

  Anna had spent the last hour calling every single person she and Michael knew. Not a single person could shed light on his whereabouts. Probably the most confounding was that she couldn’t get a hold of Michael’s family either. Even Emmaline wasn’t answering, and that girl practically lived on her phone.

  After she’d struck out with Michael’s family, she decided to try her dad. He was, after all, not only a partner and co-founder of the tech company New Horizons, but best friend to Michael’s dad, who was the CEO. She thought that of everyone, her dad would know something, but he was as baffled as she. The last time he’d talked to Arnold Layton had been yesterday after the board meeting, and Michael two days before that. He said he’d track them down and see what might be going on. That had been twenty minutes ago. Dad had yet to call back.

  So that left Anna pacing her apartment and watching the clock. She had a shift at the hospital in two hours. She hoped to have an answer by then, or she was going to be a mess at work. Already her thoughts were going to the bad places. Had Michael been hurt? Maybe in an accident on the way to work? Or maybe something had happened to his parents or sister? It was the only reason she could think of that he or his family wouldn’t answer their phones.

  Not for the first time, she was frustrated that she lived in Washington, D.C., while most of everyone she knew lived in New York, but this was where her residency was. In another five months and she would be done, then she would move back to the city to be closer to Michael, her family, and friends.

  Anna stopped in front of the TV. It had been on mute since she’d gotten the text from Michael. She had woken to news of an alien ship in the sky of Georgia, of all places. She didn’t take any stock in the news at first, thinking it was some sort of elaborate prank. But when she’d finished with her run around the block and turned the TV back on, there the black hulking ship was still taking up air time on every news station available.

  After a slow realization started to settle in that this might actually be the real deal, Anna wondered what this meant and what the aliens wanted. Then, the big ship had pulled a much smaller ship out of Lake Thurmond. She couldn’t help but stare as the water sloshed off a vessel that had the same coloring and markings on the outside as the bigger ship. But the most unbelievable was that the smaller ship was plastered with algae, looking like it had been at the bottom of Lake Thurmond for quite some time.

  That had sent the news experts into a tailspin with questions like How did that ship get there? How long had it been there? And who had put it there? And that led to the big question. Were there aliens already among us?

  That thought sent a shiver through Anna, but it paled in comparison to the shock that they were now saying there was a second ship in New York just outside the city. It had renewed her urgency to get a hold of Michael, who had yet to answer her many texts and phone calls. Until he’d sent that one text that had really sent her over the edge.

  Don’t wait for me.

  Anna felt a knot twisting in her chest at those words. Her phone rang, startling her so badly she nearly dropped it. It wasn’t a number she recognized. She blinked at it, disappointed it wasn’t Michael, and trying to think who on earth could be calling her. Then her brain caught up with her, and she knew exactly who it was. Anna eagerly punched the green talk button.

  “Eric?”

  “Anna, what’s wrong?” A strong baritone asked through the speaker. “My CO says you’ve called the base three times looking for me.”

  “Because you weren’t answering your phone!” Anna accused.

  “I was on maneuvers. We’ve had training exercises all week,” he explained, and then in the next breath. “What’s wrong?”

  “Please tell me you know where Michael and the rest of your family are?”

  “What?”

  Dread filled Anna. She knew from the surprise in his voice that he didn’t know where they were.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, suddenly finding it hard to breathe as all her worst fears crashed into her.

  “Anna, calm down. What happened? What’s this about Michael and my family?”

  She took a deep steadying breath before speaking. “I’ve been trying to reach Michael all morning. He wasn’t answering my texts or calls, and then all of a sudden I got this bizarre text. It…” She stopped for a moment, unable to say the words. Maybe she had read it wrong? Maybe it didn’t mean what she thought it meant? “It’s like he was saying goodbye. And now I can’t reach your parents or Emmaline. It’s like they all disappeared.”

  The other end of the line was quiet for a long moment, and then she heard the man on the other end blow out a long breath. “Have you called your dad or Minnie?”

  Anna nodded, even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Yes, Dad says he hasn’t heard a word from your dad or Michael today, and I haven’t been able to get through to your dad’s secretary either.”

  Eric cleared his throat. “Okay. Let me make some calls. See what I can dig up. You in Washington or New York?”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “I’m at the apartment. Dad said not to come up yet until we knew more, but honestly, Eric, I’m ready to hop on a plane right now.”

  “Give me a chance to see what I can come up with,” his deep steadying voice said. “Maybe this is just a misunderstanding of some sort. Maybe they took a spur-of-the-moment vacation? Dad’s been talking about just taking off for months now with the fam. The stress has been getting to him.”

  Anna shook her head. “Michael’s presentation of his new drone was this morning. He wouldn’t want to miss that.”

  “And my dad is the CEO of the company. He could have declared he was done and needed a vacation and rescheduled Michael’s presentation. I talked to Michael about his drone schematics just a few days ago and told me he wouldn’t mind having another week to work out some of the kinks before presenting it.”

  Anna felt a wave of calm come over her. She remembered Michael saying something about a possible trip away a few weeks ago, but she’d forgotten all about it. And wouldn’t it be just like Michael to try to make her think he was leaving for vacation only to come to Washington to surprise her for a long weekend stay instead? The more she thought about it, the more she realized that could be the case. She had been worried about nothing.

  “Yeah, okay. Call me as soon as you know something?”

  “I will.”

  The other line beeped to let her know the connection had been cut. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Eric would get to the bottom of it. She was sure he had ways of tracking them down that she did not. He’d probably call her in a few minutes, saying it really was all just a big misunderstanding and the family was on their way to the Bahamas for some relaxation in the sun or a quick ski trip to their favorite resort in Aspen.

  Anna stood up from the couch and went to the kitchen. She had only a protein shake after her run this morning, and her stomach was reminding her of that fact. Anna went to the refrigerator and pulled out the leftover pizza she’d ordered last night. She quickly inhaled two cold slices, immediately feeling much better.

  She looked at the clock. It had only been ten minutes since she’d ended the call with Eric. Anna decided she couldn’t just hover over the phone to wait for his call back and went to get a shower and dressed for work.

  Anna had just finished dressing in blue Mickey Mouse scrubs Michael had gotten her shortly after she started her residency at Johns Hopkins, when she heard her phone ringing from the bed where she’d dropped it before getting in the shower. Anna eagerly looked at the screen. It wasn’t Eric, but it was her dad. She picked up the phone, certain her father had finally tracked the Layton family down.

  “What did you find out?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” her father’s voice replied in a tone she knew all too well. He was frustrated, and her hopes that Michael and his family had gone on an impromptu vacation started to deflate.

  “Okay.”

  “I talked to Minnie and Amanda. They both said Arie and Michael came in to work today. Then they left about mid-morning.”

  “Left?” Anna asked. “Did they say where they were going?”

  “From what Amanda said, they were going home, and Arie had told everyone else to go home too.”

  Anna took that in for a moment. It wasn’t like Arnold to leave work in the middle of a workday, not without a good reason. And he didn’t often tell the staff of New Horizons to go home in the middle of the day either.

  “I think it might have had something to do with the alien ship showing up,” her father continued. “That’s what Amanda said, anyway. They had seen the news about it during the morning research and development meeting. Arie had come in, asked Michael to come with him, and then told everyone to go home for the day.”

  So Michael hadn’t rescheduled his drone presentation, which meant they definitely weren’t on vacation. She felt the panic come back full force as she considered what that could mean.

  “Hold on, Hun. I’m getting a call from Tyler. It’s the third time he’s called in the last half hour, but I’ve been too busy calling around about Arie and Michael. Let me take this real quick.”

  “Sure,” Anna said, deflated.

  She sat heavily on the bed. This day wasn’t going very well at all. She had the urge to crawl back into bed and just stay there. Instead, she sat perched on the very edge, as the worry gnawed at her stomach about what could cause the Layton family to just up and disappear. The possibilities only caused her concern to grow.

  After what seemed like hours, she heard the phone click and her dad’s voice once again. “Well, that was interesting.”

  “What?” Anna perked up. Did he finally have some news?

  “I just got off the phone with Tyler. He’s the––”

  “He’s New Horizons’ on-call helicopter pilot. Yes, Dad, I know who Tyler is,” Anna rolled her eyes. Dad always assumed that because Anna rarely ever went into the New Horizons building that she didn’t know all the regular people who worked there. But of course she did, even if by proxy, because of how much Michael talked about the place. He loved working there and forged friendships with as much of the staff as he could.

  “Well, he said he got a call from Michael just before lunch. Tyler had this wild story about Arie going out to the farm on a secret meetup to ransom some deep tech that was stolen by a rival company. Michael wanted a ride out to the farm because he said I found out that the ransom was fake, and he needed to warn his dad before the buyout.”

  “Oh my god,” Anna said, immediately thankful that there had been a good reason he had not answered her texts and calls, but also concerned for Arie and Michael. “What happened? Did he make it in time? Are they okay?”

  “That’s the thing, Hun,” her dad blew out a long, frustrated sigh. “As far as I know, there was no ransom buy. Michael obviously lied to Tyler.”

  “But maybe you just didn’t know––”

  “No, if such a thing had occurred, I would know about it. There’s no way Arie would have kept something like that a secret from me.”

  Anna sat there for a long moment staring at a carpet stain on the floor. It was red wine that Michael had accidentally spilled the last time he’d come to stay. They had tried everything, but neither of them could get it all the way out.

  “Why would he lie about something like that?” Anna asked as she poked at the stain with a bare big toe.

  “I don’t know, Hun. Poor Tyler is beside himself. He said he should have called the police about the whole deal, but Michael talked him out of it. He promised to text Tyler when everything was alright, but it’s been almost two hours and he hasn’t heard a word from Michael, and Tyler tried to call Arie with no results. So that’s why he finally called me.”

  Anna felt a coldness take hold of her. Something was wrong. Very wrong. But she couldn’t fathom for the moment what it could possibly be. Why would Michael make up such a story? It didn’t make sense… unless…

  “Maybe Michael just needed a reason to get out to the farm quickly, and he told Tyler all that as an excuse?” Anna suggested.

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said, wishing she had booked a plane for New York after all. There wasn’t much she could do sitting in her freaking bedroom. “Maybe someone needs to go out there and check?”

  “I actually just stopped by their townhouse, but no one answered the door,” her dad said. “Looks like I’m headed out to the farm. I will call you when I get there.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” Anna breathed in relief.

  “I want to get to the bottom of this too, Hun. Just call me if Michael or any of the others call, and I’ll do the same.”

  “I did talk to Eric, but he didn’t know anything either. He’s making calls.”

  Dad snorted on the other end. “Hope he has better luck than me. The traffic is bad, so I’m going to jump off. I’ll catch up with you soon. We’ll figure this out, Hun.”

  “Alright, Dad,” Anna replied as the phone went silent on the other end.

  Anna sighed and tossed the phone back onto the bed. Her gaze for some reason fixed on the wine stain as if it might yield to her the mystery of what was going on with Michael and his family. But there were no sudden revelations. Only the deep silence of her apartment that felt uncomfortable and oppressive.

  After a long moment of contemplative thought, Anna made a decision, picked up her phone and dialed her supervisor at the hospital. She wasn’t going into work after all today, or the next day either. Anna wasn’t sure what was happening in New York, but it was becoming increasingly clear that she needed to go back home to figure it out.