章 832: Team Meeting

The insistent trill of the phone sliced through Amy's restless sleep and dream. It wasn't a dream filled with laughter and sunshine, but a restless one haunted by the echoing silence of Miley's absence. She fumbled for the phone, blinking away the remnants of the dream and the dull ache in her chest that had become a constant companion these past four days.

"Hello?" she rasped, her voice thick with sleep and grief.

"Amy, it's Mom," came her mother's voice, laced with a tremor that mirrored the unease blooming in Amy's stomach.

Amy sat up, fully awake now. "Hey, Mom. Everything alright? Why the early call?" She asked as she squinted at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was barely six on a Tuesday morning.

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line, then a sigh. "I just received an unexpected text."

Amy's stomach clenched. "Unexpected? From who?"

"Mrs. Garwood," her mother confessed.