Chapter 27
27
FOSTER
Before…
I wasn’t lying when I said Remi gave me too much credit if she thought I could track her down with a name and phone number. But I have a hell of a lot more than I need in the end.
The end comes almost two weeks after I land in Texas with Chase. Remi sent her picture, and then nothing. No texts or calls. I’ve struggled over the stalker aspect of looking for her, showing up where I last knew she was. But none of this makes sense. Remi vanishing without a word is wrong, and the hollow feeling in my gut wins out.
Ashfield, Ohio. A café with a town square across the street. The house almost too easy to find.
No, it is too easy. When I pay for my coffee, the police chief’s address is written on a pink piece of paper and taped to the counter. Chief Kane.
I fish my phone out as I return to the rental car. The picture of Chase kissing his bicep like a total douche covers my screen with the incoming call. He’s texted a dozen times over the past hour, but my head hasn’t been in the right place. I tuck it away without reading the messages, still not there.
The last two days, he’s been on another level. He’s wanted to go climbing, bungee jumping, and to the bars every night. I think he’s trying to cheer me up or distract me. But nothing will work until I find her. I can’t let it go. I can’t let her go.
I park on the street in front of a two-story, white with black accents. My breaths shallow when I spot a trellis against the side of the house, barely visible through hedges and tree branches. She mentioned it once, how she sneaks in and out. Seeing it in person unsettles me because where the fuck is Remi?
Less and less sure about this, I climb out of my car. A black BMW sits in the driveway. Extra antennae, lights on the side mirrors, and a radio inside when I walk by it tell me it’s an unmarked police car. I step up to the door, look at the brass knocker. Fuck, my pulse is thundering in my neck, chest weighing me down.
I skip the knocker and rap my knuckles on the door.
After a few seconds, a middle-aged man answers. “Can I help you?”
The piece of shit stepdad. He has a hardness to him, light brown hair, jeans, and a gray button-down.
“Uh, yeah,” I say, the doubt seeping through my pores, but the wrongness overpowers. “I’m looking for Remi.”
His forehead barely creases before returning to neutral, eyes quickly scanning me. “You know Remi?” I nod, and he steps back, opening the door wider. “Come in out of the cold, son.”
I hesitate for a moment, then step inside. I only go far enough he can shut the door behind me. Two vases of flowers sit on a table in the entryway. An archway off to the side leads to what I guess is a living room. I only get a glimpse from here of a table with more flowers by the window. A woman waits beside it, hands folded in front of her. The blonde’s probably in her forties, a kindness to her face but something commanding underneath.
Remi said her mom’s an addict, but nothing tells me one way or another with this woman. Not that appearances always matter in that regard. If the chief of police’s wife is using, it makes sense she’d hide it well.
The door shuts behind me, and her stepdad slips around me. “Give me just a second.” He approaches the woman, touching her elbow as if to turn her. Whatever he says makes her eyes flash to me, and then she nods before the two of them walk farther into the house, out of sight.
Blowing out a breath, my head falls forward for a second. Fuck. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing here. Actually, in need of the distraction, I decide to check Chase’s messages. And I instantly regret it.
Happy dude-bro day, my dude-bro.
We have a busy agenda. Then we’re re-releasing your dick into the wild tonight.
Fuck that chick. She’s hot but not worth the trouble.
I bet she’s completely different in person. We’ll find you better in a heartbeat.
The opposite of helpful. I shove my phone away without finishing them and pace the space. I scrape a hand through my hair and grab the back of my neck, turning around. On a sigh, my arm drops to my side, and I glance down at the table with the vases. A roar fills my ears, the floor dropping out from under my feet. My eyes jerk from the paper program to the flowers. Both have white cards tucked in plastic holders.
I go back toward the door and step into the archway to the living room. Other than the flowers by the window, I notice more on the end tables. Arrangements line the mantel of the fireplace. They cover the stone hearth.
With a rough swallow, I stride to the entry table and snatch up the program. The woman on the front has golden hair and a too-soft smile—Rebecca Kane is printed beneath her picture along with a birthdate. And her death date.
What the fuck?
My brows draw in as I flip open the funeral program for Remi’s mom. The first page has her obituary but only says she died unexpectedly in her home. It gives the same date as the front, a match to the last time I heard from Remi. As I scan through the rest, my attention snags at the bottom.
Rebecca is survived by her husband, Daniel, and daughter, Remi Sinner.
Sinner. Sinner. Sinner.
Not Saint, but Remi Sinner. The name cinches my chest tight, thoughts racing.
“Please let us know what we can do, Chief,” the woman says. My head jerks up as she and Remi’s stepdad reappear. “We’re all here for you, whatever you need.”
He nods. “Thank you, Julie. I’ll be back next week.” He gestures to the vases. “Take a bouquet for the front desk, would you? They posted my address at the coffee shop, and people keep stopping by with food and flowers. Rebecca would have wanted them to be enjoyed.”
“Yes, sir.” Her mouth tilts in apology, and then she gives me the same look as she grabs flowers from beside me.
With a sigh, he shuts the door behind her and turns his attention on me, noting the program still in my hand.
“Is Remi okay?” I clear my throat, swallow through the dryness and anxiety curling through me. “I haven’t heard from her since the day her mom died. Is she here?”
The man’s jaw tics. “She’s not here.” She’s not. “I was kinda hoping you’d know something about where she went.” Where she went . “I’m Daniel, by the way.”
“Foster.”
I shake his hand on autopilot when he offers it, his grip firmer than necessary. Then he continues, “My wife and her daughter weren’t the closest, but I never thought Remi was capable…” His head shakes when he pauses, and I need him to fucking finish. “You seem like a good kid, Foster, so I’m just going to lay it out for you. Remi took off the day Rebecca passed with a man named Roman Moore. No one’s heard from her since.”
Roman. Her friend. The guy from the town square.
My insides twist, not only jealousy driving into me, but a biting sensation I’ve only felt twice in my life shoots beneath my skin. Once when my old man hugged the son he loved in front of me, and again when my mom pulled a knife on the son he didn’t.
“Took off.” I breathe, refusing to jump to conclusions, but it aches already. “What does that mean?”
“She’d been acting out for a while,” he says, “growing more disrespectful. We had a hunch she was hanging around this man as a way to hurt her mother.” When I stay silent, Daniel tells me, “Rebecca dated him years ago, and it affected me as well with him on the force. Christ, I worried he was taking advantage of her, but she was eighteen, so my hands were tied. Rebecca tried to talk to Remi, warn her away from him. But Remi wouldn’t hear it.”
I blink at him, hearing him but struggling to process more and more. “She was seeing her mom’s ex and ran off with him?”
They were together—that’s the part tripping me up. She listened to me about my dad and his secrets and cheating and betrayal. Now, I’m supposed to believe she was with another guy the entire time. Now she’s just done with me, no word or warning.
He nods, sticking his hands in his pockets. “After she found out about Rebecca, she bolted, and no one’s seen either of them since.” He shakes his head again with a shrug. “Her mother passed away, and the first thing Remi did was skip town with her ex. She’d been more secretive and lying all the time. But I never thought she was capable of such a selfish act. To not even grieve or attend the funeral?” His eyes close as he pauses. “She left all of us behind to worry, too.”
A numbness that started in my chest reverses. The concern in his tone sounds manipulated, and then his eyes open, locking on me the second his lids clear. Like he’s gauging my reaction.
Him being a piece of shit wasn’t the only thing Remi told me about him.
“ Everyone treats him like a king when his crown’s made of deceit. ”
“And you know they’re together?” I ask, studying him more closely.
“Roman called in his resignation the same day. No one’s seen him come or go from his house, windows always dark. I worried he might have abducted her,” Daniel adds, “but her friend, Sage, confirmed they’d been sneaking around.”
I try to match my Remi and the one he’s describing. Saint or Sinner. Not using her actual last name on an app means nothing in the grand scheme. Plenty of reasons exist for it.
But I saw Roman myself—heard her say his name and hurry off to talk to him. Her best friend would know better what was happening, being here in the flesh, than I ever could through a screen and not really seeing a damn thing.
It still feels like I’m missing something, though. I get cutting me off if she ran off with another guy—if she would really hurt me in the worst possible way. But why would she abandon Sage?
“You said no one has heard from her? Not even Sage?”
A head shake. “She’s heartbroken Remi abandoned her without saying goodbye, but she said Remi had been talking about leaving for a while, so … I guess she meant leaving everyone behind too.”
Her escape plan. Graduating early and never coming back. She hasn’t called or texted once since she left.
Suddenly not telling me her last name feels more important. A lot of shit suddenly looks a hell of a lot different. Like someone switched on the light.
“She hurt a lot of us, Foster…” Daniel keeps talking, but I stop listening.
I can’t with everything crashing over me at once. Realizations and truths. Him and her—not her and me. The lies and pretending and saying I’m not real. Maybe I was the only one not lying and who was never pretending. Maybe Remi Saint was the one who was never real—we were never real.
Chase was right. I was so fucking stupid, letting myself believe we were.
I’m unsure who to blame for the crack in my chest. For carelessly handing someone my heart to crush. Who played me harder. Who was a more beautiful liar all along. I’m unsure who’s betrayed me worse.
Remi Sinner or myself.