Filed to story: Sedona Preston and Logan Hayes Book PDF Free
The coffee shop on Michigan Avenue, the small independent one she loved that I’d always thought was overpriced and pretentious. The barista who answered sounded young, bored until I described Sedona.
“Oh, the lady who always orders the cortado and the almond croissant? And tips like, way too much? Yeah, she was in like a week ago maybe? She came with some tall guy. Looked like they were having a heavy conversation. I haven’t seen her since.”
A tall guy. Cameron, presumably.
I thanked him and hung up, staring at my phone. She’d been preparing for this. This wasn’t a spontaneous decision driven by anger or jealousy or manipulation. She’d been quietly dismantling her life in Chicago while I’d been at galas with Catherine, while I’d been convincing myself she’d come crawling back.
She had never intended to come back
The thought should have made me angry. Instead, it made my palms sweat with something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Fear.
I drove to Grandma Brooke’s house that afternoon, telling myself I was being practical. If Sedona had said goodbye to Brooke, maybe she’d mentioned where she was going. Maybe she’d left contact information, some breadcrumb I could follow.
Grandma’s maid answered the door and let me in without her usual warmth, which was unusual. Brooke was in the sitting room, as always, but she didn’t smile when I came in.
“Logan.” Her voice was measured, careful. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I know. I’m sorry for coming without calling.” I sat across from her, noting the slight tension around her eyes. She’d been worried about something. “Grandmother, I need to know if Sedona told you where she was going. She’s filed for divorce and I can’t reach her. Her phone is disconnected, she’s disappeared from every place she used to-“
“She came to see me,” Brooke said, cutting me off. “About a week ago. She returned the necklace.”
Logan’s POV
“I know. You called me about it. I thought she was just-” I tried to explain, giving my grandmother an excuse.
“She said goodbye, Logan.” Brooke’s voice was quiet but firm cutting my tirade shut as she didn’t look happy. “Not I’ll see you later, or we will catch up soon. She did not say I need some space. She said goodbye. Like she didn’t expect to see me again.”
The words settled on me, taking out the oxygen out of my lungs as the words spoken felt heavy. Like someone anticipating the worst and warning in time. I’d dismissed that phone call, had been so certain Brooke was overreacting because she liked Sedona now and had been on her side from day one, I had been so certain that Sedona was just being dramatic.
“She looked terrible,” Brooke continued, her hands folded in her lap, her expression grave. “Thin. She looked so thin and her face was pale like she had no blood. She was sick, and it was serious. there were these shadows under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept properly in weeks. I noticed it as soon as she came in, but I didn’t want to frighten her by asking too directly.”
“She’s been stressed-“
“Logan.” My grandmother’s voice sharpened, filled with anger that she had been suppressing all this while as her tone made me shut up immediately.
“That was not stress. I’ve known people who are stressed. I’ve known people who are grieving, who are struggling too. What I saw in that girl was different. That was something else entirely.”
I shifted in my seat, an uncomfortable feeling crawling up my spine. “What do you mean?”
“She said something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since she left.” Brooke paused, her eyes distant, as if remembering the conversation.
“I asked about Nick. About whether she wanted to stay in his life, even if she was leaving you. And she said-” Her voice faltered slightly. “She said Nick perhaps never saw her as his mother/She said she didn’t need a child who hated her.”
“He doesn’t hate her. He’s six, he says things-“
“That’s not what stopped me.” Brooke looked at me directly. “What stopped me was the way she said it. So final. So resigned. Like she’d already accepted that she was never going to be in Nick’s life again. Not because she was petty and trying to prove a point or hurt Nick the same way he had hurt her, but because she genuinely believed she wouldn’t have the opportunity to fix it.” She paused.
“That girl loved that boy more than anything in this world, Logan. She gave up her career, her social life, three years of herself to raise him. She wouldn’t walk away from him because of a fight, or because she was jealous, or because she wanted to make a point.”
“Then why-“
“Something’s very wrong.” Brooke’s voice was final, certain. “Something is very wrong with Sedona, and I Think you need to find her before it’s too late.”
The words followed me home, repeating in the back of my mind as I drove through Chicago traffic on autopilot. My grandmother’s words kept revolving around my brain refusing to leave me alone.
Brooke wasn’t an alarmist. She didn’t say things she didn’t mean. If she was worried-genuinely worried- then there was reason to be worried.
I arrived home to find Nick in the living room with, Mrs. Peterson, working on a puzzle. He looked up when I came in, hope flickering across his face.
“Is Mom home?”
“Not yet, buddy.”
His face fell. He’d been asking every day, the hope in his question getting progressively smaller each time I gave him the same answer. Pretty soon he’d stop asking altogether, and I wasn’t sure which would be worse.
I went upstairs to our bedroom, standing in the doorway for a moment before forcing myself inside. I’d been avoiding spending too much time in here, avoiding the half-empty closet and the bare nightstand and all the small absences that spoke louder than Sedona’s actual absence.
I moved to her nightstand first, opening the drawer. Empty-she’d cleared it out. I crossed to the dresser and opened her drawers, finding only the expensive clothes she’d left behind, the things I’d bought her.
Except for one thing.
The small wooden box was still there, pushed to the back of the drawer. I pulled it out slowly, knowing what it contained, having seen Sedona with it so many times to recognize what it was.
Nick’s baby teeth.
I opened it carefully. Seven tiny teeth, each wrapped in tissue paper, each labeled with a date in Sedona’s handwriting. I unfolded the tissue on the first one, the earliest date-Nick’s first tooth, lost around when he was 2. She’d been so excited about it, had stayed up past midnight to play tooth fairy, had written that ridiculous note in glittery purple pen because she’d wanted to make it special.
She’d left this behind.
Of everything she owned, of everything in this house that she could have taken with her, she’d left behind the one thing she treasured most.
Why? The question settled in my mind, refusing to leave.
“Dad?”
I startled and turned. Nick was standing in the doorway, still in his school clothes, a small object clutched in his fist. His expression was uncertain, hesitant.
“What are you doing up here, buddy? I thought you were doing your puzzle.”
“I was.” He shuffled into the room, feet dragging in that way he had when he was trying to work up to saying something. “I was looking under the bed for my red crayon that rolled away. And I found this.”
He opened his fist.
