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Isabel Diaz was in her garden, sitting on one of her lounge chairs and enjoying the evening with a nightcap while thinking about all that was happening right now. It had been months since she had last seen one of her nietos and she was of half a mind to disinherit another because he was the reason she hadn't seen Buck so long. Eddie had some kind of beef with the younger man and had no doubt forbidden Buck to come around anymore. And bless his heart, but Buck always did his best to do what people wanted of him in the hopes that it would make them stay longer.
She couldn't even contact Buck because somehow the man's number had vanished from both her phone and Pepa's as well and neither of them could find him on any of the social media accounts they knew he used from their phones. She had no idea why, but she suspected her grandson who while he didn't like technology, also made a habit of knowing how to work it so that he could show his son. The man had been royally pissed at his best friend for a long time and pushed him away in an effort to make things hurt less. She loved that boy, but sometimes she wanted to throttle him for his emotional constipation. Repeatedly.
She also cursed herself for not making sure she knew where her Evanito lived because then she could have just shown up on his doorstep and no Eddie could have prevented it.
She was just considering ordering her grandson to come by for a stern talking to after his shift when her phone rang. At first, she considered ignoring it since it was much too late in her eyes for anyone to call her, but then she reconsidered. There were too many people in her life that would warrant a late-night call, her grandson first and foremost, even if she was mad at him. She knew that her Eddito was working a 24h shift today and that anything could happen while he was on shift, so she got up and went for the phone.
When she reached it and saw just who was calling her, her heart lept to her throat, because Carla Price was not who she would expect to call her should something be wrong with her Eddito. Chris on the other hand, yeah, she would be one of the first to call, especially if Eddie was not answering his phone due to a callout.
"Carla, what's wrong?" she asked as she answered the phone.
"He's gone," Carla sobbed. "I was just putting on a washing machine, because Eddie was falling behind and when I came back into the living room, Chris was gone. I just left him alone for maybe ten minutes! He was watching a movie before bed and we said that he would get ready for bed once I was back from putting on the washing machine and now he's gone."
Isabel's heart stuttered in her chest and then beat double time. Fear gripped her as she had never felt before.
"Have you looked on the street? Maybe he's still out there?"
"I looked everywhere! I also called both Athena and the police and tried to call Eddie, but he's not answering his phone!" Carla sobbed again and Isabel's heart went out to her. Having a child missing was one of the worst things that could happen to you and having it be a child not your own made things at least double as bad. However, she tried to stay calm, because it would serve no one if she gave herself a heart attack on top of everything else.
"Have you looked into his room? Is anything missing from there that you can see?" Isabel asked her voice calm in the hopes it would calm down Carla as well. She could hear the other woman walk through the house and open a door, presumably Chris' bedroom door.
"His Bucky bear is missing," the younger woman said through a sniffle. Both of them knew that Chris would not go anywhere without the thing and that he had had an epic meltdown when Eddie had tried to take the bear from him while he had tried to erase Buck from their lives because Buck had given it to Chris. "And we talked about Buck during dinner and how much he misses him."
"Okay, so he likely left of his own free will, because if he had been taken, I doubt whoever did it would have taken the bear with them," Isabel said reasonably. "Do you know if he knows how to call an Uber? Maybe he went to see his Buck? He knows where he lives after all."
And Isabel could have kicked herself when she thought it. She could have just asked Chris where Buck lived. The boy could have told her and would have if she told him that she wanted to visit his Bucky.
"I don't know. And with what phone?"
There was silence on the other end of the line for a while before Isabel could hear swearing.
"That little... He used my phone to call an Uber to Buck!" Carla cursed, but Isabel could hear her also breathe a sigh of relief. At least now they knew where Chris wanted to go. They just had to hope that whoever was the Uber driver would deliver him there as well, even if Isabel wanted to give the driver a stern talking-to for just taking a kid across town.
Just that moment, they heard Athena call at the front of the house for Carla and the younger woman said a quick goodbye with the promise to call again once she found her wayward great-grandson.
Isabel hung up as well and wondered if that might be the wake-up call Eddie needed or if she would need to step in as well because this had clearly gone on more than long enough.