Dangerous Desires

Twenty-Four

Octavius-

Max lightly knocked on the open door of my office and I looked up from my computer screen. "Scripps is on line one," he informed and my brow furrowed.

"What do they want?"

"Apparently Estella has missed a few classes."

"Okay, thanks Max."

He nodded and returned to his desk as I picked up the receiver from my desk phone hitting the flashing button. "This is Octavius," I sighed putting it to my ear.

"Good afternoon Mister Kennsington," a female voice greeted from the other end. "My name is Sharon Mills, I'm a counselor here at Scripps."

"What can I do for you Ms. Mills?"

"Well, Estella missed her morning classes. I had the RA of her dormitory  go to check on her to see if she might be ill and she even reached out to her dormmate who hasn't seen her since she returned to campus last night. We wanted to reach out to see if something may have come up and she's gone home without letting anyone here know."

"I haven't spoken to her since we dropped her off yesterday evening. Thank you for brining it to my attention. I will make a few calls."

I hung up the phone and drug my hands through my hair before grabbing my cellphone from where it lay, dialing Analyze's number only for my call to go straight to voicemail. "What the hell," I muttered before dialing Anna's number.

"What's up?" she asked when the call connected.

"Have you talked to Stella this morning?"

"Uhm no, why?"

"The school just called. She didn't go to her morning classes and her roommate hasn't seen her since we dropped her off. I called Analyze's phone but it went straight to voicemail."

"Did you call Stella's phone?"

I dead panned at this question. "I... didn't think about that. I'll tell her now."

"Call me back and let me know how it goes."

"Okay."

The call ended and I hit my daughter's contact putting the phone back to my ear. It rang and ran until the call went to voicemail. "Hey Baby Doll, just checking on you because the school called because I got a call from your school, you weren't in your morning classes. Call me back, I love you."

With a heavy sigh I hung up and racked my fingers through my hair again then called Anna back. "Well?" she asked after packing up.

"Went to voicemail."

She softly sighed and in my mind I could see her massaging the bridge of her nose. "I'll call my dad to see if he's heard anything."

"All right. I'm, uhm, I'm gonna have Max reschedule my meetings so I can come home."

"Okay."

The call disconnected and I shut down my laptop before standing after grabbing my things. I rushed out of my office and stopped momentarily to let Max know to reschedule my evening before of a family emergency.