Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
I leaned back in the booth, nervously biting down on my thumbnail as I stared at Johnny’s phone. It sat on the table in front of me as I talked myself through what I needed to do, but that feeling of guilt was growing into a heavy thing inside my chest.
He was there across the diner again, in the booth against the window. His back was to me, his face turned toward the street, and I waited, heart pounding, for him to turn and look at me. The vision of him was so clear now. Less like a painting, more like a photograph. His shadow moved over the tile floor beside the table, the sunlight catching his hair. He looked so real. So…alive.
Look at me.
I willed him to turn his head. To cast his gaze over his shoulder and warn me to stop. To stop digging. Stop asking questions. But Johnny didn’t move.
Slowly, my eyes dropped to the dark screen of the phone again.
There was no question that it was an invasion of his privacy, even if he was gone. But the unknown variable of it was like a monster hiding in the dark. I could feel it, but I couldn’t see it. And I needed to turn on the light.
As soon as I made up my mind, I pulled the charger from the bag and plugged it in. The battery icon illuminated on the screen a few seconds later, and I turned my attention back to the laptop.
I opened Johnny’s email inbox while I waited for the phone to turn on, typing the name Autumn Fischer in the search field. Only one email address auto populated, an [email protected]. I clicked it, bracing myself as the results loaded, but it came up empty. There wasn’t a single message.
I was struck by the unnerving thought that it wasn’t quite believable. If Johnny’s email had the address saved, it meant that at some point, he’d either sent her a message or received one. And if the conversations were archived, they would still come up in a search. The only reason there wouldn’t be any found was that they’d been deliberately deleted.
I pulled up Johnny’s bank account next, but this time I wasn’t looking at the abbreviated records that appeared on his statements. I went line by line, inspecting every transaction going back from the day before he died, opening each one for the vendor’s information and location. I couldn’t prove whether or not Autumn had been back to visit Johnny, but I could get a sense of whether he’d been to see her in San Francisco if I was looking in the right places.
With every link I clicked on, Johnny’s presence grew heavier and heavier around me. It was enough to feel so suffocating that I finally fished my earbuds from my bag and put them in. I tapped the first song in the first playlist I found, turning up the volume until my senses were flooded enough to drown him out. He was still there, in the middle distance, but I could almost ignore him.
Going back to the summer before Autumn would have left for school, there wasn’t a single purchase on the account that I could narrow down to San Francisco or anywhere else in the Bay Area. It seemed the only time Johnny had left town was to head out to the coast, where I assumed he’d been meeting Josie.
I scrolled back and forth through the dates, stopping when I ran across the twelve-thousand-dollar transaction that was still a mystery. I highlighted the vendor ID BS 012001, copying and pasting it into a Google Search. The moment I hit enter, I saw Sadie moving toward me from the kitchen. She had a plate in one hand, a pot of coffee in the other, and her eyes skipped over the laptop and papers on the table as she set a stack of waffles down in front of me.
“I see you have your battle station up and running.” She refilled the coffee mug. “I think we can safely say this booth is officially your spot.”
“Sorry, I don’t mean to keep camping out here.”
She set the coffeepot down, leaning into the table. “Believe me, you and everyone else in this town spend a minimum of two hours a day in this place, and that’s how I like it. Full, busy, loud.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure.” She gave a single nod. “Pretty quiet around here this weekend, though.”
It took a moment for me to understand her meaning. “That’s right. I saw everyone heading out of town for the game. Couldn’t make this one?”
“No. I go to the home games and the ones that aren’t too far from here, but the weekend ones, not so much. The fate of a small-town business owner with next to no employees, I’m afraid.”
I gave her a sympathetic smile.
“What’re you workin’ on today?”
She glanced at the laptop, giving me the sudden urge to close it.
“Paperwork. Financial stuff. Just trying to tie up loose ends, that kind of thing.”
“I’m sure that’s easier said than done.” She looked at me, coffeepot still hovering over the table, as if she was waiting for me to continue. Again, her attention found the laptop screen, and my fingers itched to reach for it. When her eyes finally traveled back to mine, her blue irises seemed to have paled a few shades lighter. “Stay as long as you like,” she said, finally.
“Thanks.”
She gave me another gentle smile before she went to the next table, and I sighed, staring into the plate of waffles she’d dropped off. I’d barely eaten in the last few days, my mind constantly turning. But the smell of the syrup and butter was making my mouth water. I picked up the fork and knife, letting myself take a few bites before I turned my attention back to the screen.
The search results for the vendor ID were accompanied by a few image thumbnails at the top. One of them looked like a crest I thought I recognized. I took a sip of coffee as I pulled the laptop toward me, but I nearly spilled it on the keyboard when I started reading. The vendor associated with the ID was listed in multiple search results, one on top of the other: Byron School of the Arts.
“BS,” I whispered, putting it together.
I clicked on the link to the school’s website, eyes jumping over the banner at the top. The transaction on Johnny’s account was a payment made to Byron. Autumn’s school. And the only possible explanation for that was that the money had been for Autumn.
The fact that he’d paid such a large sum that he didn’t really have was suspicious, but it wasn’t proof of the intention behind it. He’d never been materialistic or proud. It was entirely plausible that the money had been a generous gift meant to support a deserving protégé. But twelve thousand dollars wasn’t the kind of money you gave to a friend.
My fingers tapped on the edge of the keyboard nervously, my mind fixated on what it could mean. But when Johnny’s phone finally turned on, the screen lit up on the table beside me and my fingers froze in theair.
The background image made my heart come up into my throat. It was a picture of Johnny and Smoke. He was smiling with a cascade of mountain peaks visible behind him, and the dog was tucked under his arm, tongue hanging from one side of his mouth. I’d never seen the picture, which made it sting in a fresh way.
I stared at Johnny’s face, asking myself one more time if I was really going to do this. Getting into his email was one thing. His phone felt like another.
My eyes lifted to the booth in the corner, where I could still see him. Again, I waited for him to turn around, as if giving him one more chance to stop me. But he didn’t.
My fingers typed in the passcode—0914—Johnny’s and my birthdate.
I stabbed another bite of waffle and shoved it into my mouth before I opened Johnny’s text messages. I stopped mid-chew when I saw my name at the top. Johnny had our conversation pinned so that it wouldn’t get buried beneath the others. A small picture of my face looked back at me—an old photo he’d taken years ago.
I didn’t tap it open because I knew what I’d find there. I’d reread our last text conversation over and over in the last few months. It was mostly about nothing, and every time I looked at it, I found it even more devastating. A TV show Johnny was watching and recommending, a picture I’d sent him of a Chicago-style hot dog, and him letting me know he was planning to come for Christmas. I’d thought a lot about that last one on Christmas Eve, as I finished off a bottle of wine sitting out on the freezing-cold balcony of my apartment. Alone.
The texts had been so mundane. So simple. I wondered now what I might have said if I knew it was the last thing I’d ever say to him. I had no idea.
There weren’t any messages on his phone with anyone named Autumn, so I went to his contacts, thinking I’d at least find her information there. But I didn’t.
I opened Johnny’s Instagram app next. If they weren’t communicating on email or text, maybe they were talking in DMs. As soon as his profile loaded, I tapped on the messages, looking for Autumn’s name. It wasn’t there.
How was it possible that Johnny had been the girl’s mentor for over a year and yet they’d only ever spoken in person? Micah said Johnny took her out on shoots, and Olivia said he’d helped her with getting into Byron, so they had to be communicating somehow.
I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. This was what I’d wanted, right? To not find anything? So, why did it feel like I’d stumbled upon some kind of irrefutable proof?
I opened the call log, finger pausing on the screen when I saw Micah’s name at the top in red. There were sixteen missed calls from him the day they found Johnny’s body. There were twelve the day before.
A tingle rushed over my skin as I imagined him dialing Johnny’s number over and over. How many calls had it taken for Micah to call Amelia and decide to drive out to the gorge? At what point had he really started to worry? When had he known, like he said?
Beneath my and Micah’s missed calls was the last call Johnny made. The phone number wasn’t saved, but the date was the day he died. And he’d called the number three times.
The next call on the log was to Amelia Travis, but that same unsaved number was there again and again in the two days before. I added them up, biting my lip. He’d called it thirty-six times, and it looked like they’d all gone unanswered.
“James.”
A deep voice beside me made me knock the fork off my plate, and I looked up to see Micah standing only feet away. His face was flush from the cold, a few snowflakes dusting his shoulders, and as soon as my eyes met his, that tight feeling in my stomach returned.
He gave me a peculiar look as he crouched down, picking up the fork. “You okay?”
I pulled Johnny’s phone from the table, wedging it beneath my leg on the seat. “Yeah, sorry. You scared me.”
“I said your name like four times.”
I glanced at the door, then behind him, to the line of barstools. I hadn’t even seen him come in.
Sadie came out of the kitchen, giving Micah a wave when she saw him. “Hey, Micah.”
“Hey.”
He gave her a nod when she lifted an empty paper coffee cup into the air and then he slid into the opposite side of the booth, surprisingme.
He looked over the contents of the table. “You’ve been busy?”
“Yeah.” I could feel the burn of the omission on my tongue.
The question he was really asking was why I hadn’t called or texted him since we’d returned from the gorge. But that wasn’t an easy answer, and to be fair, he hadn’t reached out, either. What was I going to tell him? That I hadn’t called him because I could still feel his hands on my skin and that even now, sitting across the table, mine itched to touch him? How did I tell him that I was afraid I couldn’t rebury things once they’d found the light?
Sadie made a quick pass by the table, setting down the to-go coffee cup, but Micah was really studying me now, and I could feel him plucking the thoughts right out of my head. Like he’d listened to me say them out loud.
He set his elbows on the table. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”
He didn’t deny it. He leaned forward, pulling at his bottom lip with his teeth, like he was trying not to say whatever he wanted to next. “I don’t know how to do this version of us, James.”
“I know.”
That was the only reply I could muster, and it seemed to be enough. A long silence stretched out between us as we looked at each other, and Micah seemed to relax a little, as if just admitting it made things a little easier.
His attention fell to the laptop in front of me. “Did you find anything?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been sitting here looking through his email and texts and everything, trying to…” I rubbed my temples. “Did you know that Johnny paid for part of Autumn’s tuition?”
Micah’s brow furrowed. “No. You’re sure?”
I nodded, dropping my voice. “He made a payment to Byron in July. Over twelve thousand dollars.”
He looked concerned now, and that worried me. I picked at my fingernails in my lap, trying to determine the cost of saying out loud what was already so hard to even think about.
“What exactly was Johnny’s relationship with this girl, Micah?”
An unreadable expression crossed his face. “James…”
“It just doesn’t make sense. There’s not a single text, email, or even DM between them. Almost like he—” I paused, swallowing. “Almost like he erased it.”
Micah stared at me.
“You don’t think that’s strange?” I pressed.
“Johnny did a lot of things that didn’t make sense to me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Micah’s jaw clenched. “Is it strange? Yeah. Strange for Johnny? I don’t know.”
I wished that wasn’t true. It was hard to measure Johnny by what other people did or how they acted. In so many ways, he couldn’t be calculated or analyzed. Everything that felt true to me about my brother had been based on feeling. On instinct.
I closed the laptop, slipping it into my bag. “I’m going out to Fort Bragg tomorrow to meet Josie.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Not yet.”
Micah watched me, teeth scraping his bottom lip again. “Why don’t I drive out there with you?”
I searched his eyes. I didn’t know how to do this version of us, either. I didn’t know if it was possible. But before I could even answer, he was already standing.
“Text me what time we leave.” He waited to see if I would argue, but I didn’t.
A subtle smile tugged at his mouth before he started for the door, but I stopped him.
“Hey.”
He turned back. “Yeah?”
“Are we okay?” I asked.
He gave me one of his I know you, you know me smiles. “We’re okay,J.”
J. That’s what he’d called me when we were kids, and I had to swallow down the untethered feeling hearing the nickname he gave me.
I waited until he was out of sight before I picked up Johnny’s phone, punching in the passcode. The call log was still pulled up, and I reluctantly copied the unsaved number, typing it into my own phone. Slowly, I lifted it to my ear. It took a few seconds for it to start ringing, and I licked my lips, pulse climbing. It rang again and again, until finally the voicemail picked up.
The high-pitched, melodic voice was like a siren in my ear.
“Hi, it’s Autumn! Leave a message!”