Whispers of Deception

Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

T he wind had picked up, sending the first hints of winter sweeping through the park. The trees, skeletal and bare, whispered in the breeze, rustling the last few dead leaves clinging to their branches. The sky hung heavy with dark clouds, the moon only peeking through every so often, casting an eerie glow over the deserted benches and swing sets.

Sebastian paced back and forth, his breath visible in the cold night air. “He knew too much? What the fuck?” His voice was ragged, a wild edge creeping in as he threw his hands up in frustration. His feet scuffed the path, kicking up loose gravel. “Are we next? Someone’s just going to kill us now?”

Eleanor leaned against a rusted lamppost, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if to ward off more than the cold. Her eyes were distant, tracking Sebastian’s movements without really seeing them. “Maybe that’s what he was trying to tell us the other day,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the wind.

“Before someone killed him,” Augustus finished, standing near the bench, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His jaw was clenched, his posture tense. It was clear he hadn’t been sleeping—none of them had, but Augustus wore his exhaustion in the taut lines of his face and the shadows under his eyes.

“Do you think he found out who actually killed Willow?” Delilah asked, her voice trembling slightly as she pulled her coat tighter around her small frame. She was sitting on the swings, her feet dragging in the dirt, the chains creaking ominously with every slight movement. Her gaze was wide, darting around the park as if expecting someone—something—to jump out at them from the shadows.

“What do we do?” Sebastian demanded, his voice raw. “We have nothing. No leads—nothing.”

Delilah shook her head vigorously, her eyes flashing with a mixture of desperation and fear. “We need to go through Willow’s things again. We must’ve missed something.”

Sebastian stopped pacing and turned to her sharply, anger simmering in his voice. “We’ve looked through her stuff fifteen times, Delilah. Probably more than that. There’s nothing there. Nothing that we haven’t seen before.”

Augustus slumped onto the bench, rubbing his hands over his face. He let out a long, defeated sigh. “We’re screwed.”

“No,” Eleanor said firmly, pushing off the lamppost, her face set in determination. “We’re not just going to give up.”

“What other option do we have?” Augustus looked up at her, exasperation clear in his expression.

Eleanor hesitated, her mind racing, searching for anything that might give them some semblance of hope. Then it hit her. “Phoebe Hastings,” she said suddenly, her voice laced with urgency. The others looked at her, confused.

“Phoebe Hastings?” Delilah repeated, her brow furrowed. “What about her?”

“We never found out why Willow checked into the hotel under that name. What if there’s something more to it?” Eleanor’s voice was growing more animated as she spoke, a spark of hope flickering in her eyes. “What if she knew something?”

Delilah nodded slowly, trying to cling to that hope. “Maybe she did.”

Sebastian, however, looked less convinced. His lips twisted into a bitter smile as he pulled his phone from his pocket. “I doubt it,” he said darkly, turning the screen toward them. The glow from his phone illuminated his face, casting strange shadows over his features. “Phoebe Hastings died five years ago.”

The group crowded closer, reading the article on his screen:

Woman dies in murder-suicide, eight-year-old son killed alongside her after driving her car off a bridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Shit,” Augustus muttered under his breath, his gaze falling to the ground. His fists clenched in frustration. “So now what?”

Eleanor sank to the cold ground, her knees hitting the dirt as she ran a tired hand down her face. Her breath came out in ragged bursts, fogging the air in front of her. She felt the weight of everything pressing down on her—on all of them. This endless maze of secrets, death, and unanswered questions was tightening its grip around their throats, suffocating them slowly.

“We have nothing,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with exhaustion and defeat.

The silence that followed her statement was oppressive. It was as though the night itself had swallowed up any lingering hope, leaving them adrift in their despair. The rustling of the trees grew louder, as if mocking them, as if nature itself knew the futility of their situation.

“We’re not giving up,” Augustus finally said, his voice low but firm. “We can’t. We’re in too deep now.”

“But where do we even go from here?” Delilah asked, her voice cracking. “Everywhere we turn, it’s a dead end.”

Sebastian resumed his pacing, the frustration boiling over in him once again. “We’re missing something. We have to be.”

“And McCall, what the hell was that text supposed to mean?” Eleanor asked. “He knew too much? Too much about what?”

“Maybe about Willow,” Delilah offered, though there was no conviction behind her words. “Maybe he found out who really killed her.”

Sebastian stopped pacing and spun on his heel to face her. “Or maybe it’s about us,” he said. “Maybe he knows what we did.”

A heavy silence fell over the group at his words. The implication hung in the air like a noose tightening around their necks. The possibility that McCall knew their darkest secret—the hit-and-run, Jacob Finley’s death—was a terror they’d all been trying to avoid thinking about.

“That’s insane,” Eleanor finally whispered, shaking her head. But the tremor in her voice betrayed her fear.

“Is it?” Augustus asked quietly, his gaze fixed on the ground. “Think about it. First Willow, now McCall. They’re dead. And both of them were connected to us.”

“Are you saying someone is tying up loose ends?” Delilah asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Exactly,” Augustus replied.

A cold wind swept through the park, sending chills up their spines. The trees seemed to close in around them, their gnarled branches casting long shadows across the ground. The air felt thick with dread, and every rustle of leaves, every creak of the swings in the distance, felt like the harbinger of something dark, something inevitable.

“We can’t just sit here,” Eleanor said, her voice breaking the silence. “We have to do something.”

“But what?” Delilah asked, her voice shaky. “We don’t know who to trust. We don’t know who’s behind this.”

“That’s the problem,” Augustus said. “We have no idea who’s pulling the strings. But we need to figure it out before we’re next.”

The weight of his words hung heavy in the air. None of them wanted to admit it, but Augustus was right. They were running out of time, and the noose was tightening.

Their phones buzzed simultaneously, causing them all to jump. The sound was jarring, a stark contrast to the eerie quiet of the park. They all pulled out their phones with trembling hands, dreading what they might see.

Unknown

Tick tock.

“Shit,” Sebastian breathed, his face going pale.

The wind howled through the park, as if echoing the ticking of a clock counting down their last moments of safety.