Chapter Thirty-Five
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
KAI WILL KILL ME if we miss our flight, but there’s no way we’ll make it now. I have been out here far longer than I should have, but it was hard to leave the lake. It’s always hard to walk away from this place…Being here makes me feel close to Nick. Is that morbid? Maybe a little, but sometimes I hope some answer will magically appear if I keep coming out here. A sign to let me know what happened because, despite what the police speculate (a wild animal is their best guess) I still don’t know for sure, and that haunts me.
My pace slows at the base of the mountain. I try to catch my breath, approaching the mouth of the trailhead. When I step through the tree line, a cool wind blows through the field and the tall grass bends to its will. It wraps around me, cooling the exposed skin on my legs and face, warm from my final push the last half mile. A chill runs through my veins, a hyper-awareness of my surroundings as goosebumps rise across my skin. When the wind recedes, the air feels still and suffocating. The birds no longer share their song with me. Everything around me ceases and it feels like the world stands still.
Something isn’t right.
A prickle on the back of my neck forces me to look in every direction for the source, but I find nothing. Something is out here with me. Or is it someone?
I stuff my hand into the front pocket of my hoodie, gripping my keys and stuffing one of them between my forefinger and middle finger.
The feeling of being watched is overwhelming, but I don’t see anything out of place. Any predator would know how to hide—know how to conceal itself long enough to strike at the right moment. I press the auto-start button on my keys, but nothing happens. Of course, this is the one time it wants to follow the rules about range. My feet automatically pick up the pace, but not enough to trouble whatever is watching me.
My gaze sweeps across the fields on either side of the parking lot. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. Like earlier, my silver Wrangler is the only car in the lot, making me feel paranoid. Am I being paranoid? No? Maybe?
Two steps from the highway, I click the button again. This time, the engine turns over, taking the edge off my anxiety.
Snap!
“Don’t do it, Nina. Keep moving,” I demand, but I don’t listen. Turning over my heel, I find the source…
A man towers over the opening of the mountain. He doesn’t move, only stares.
I’m scared to move, but I can’t stay here. I’m closer to the car than he is to me, but what if…I whip around to look back at the lot and make sure there isn’t someone else lurking there. No sign of anyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hiding nearby. I didn’t see this guy until he made his presence known, so who knows how many others there could be? Looking back, I half expect him to be closer, but he stands in the same spot.
I step back, finally on the road, keeping my eyes on his as I edge toward the lot. When I finally reach the other side, stepping onto the gravel driveway of the lot, the man takes one step forward. And then another. And another. Until he’s halfway across the field. I run the final distance to the car, expecting to see someone else waiting for me, but there’s no one.
I slam my hand into the ignition button and lock the doors. When I reach the exit, the man stands at the edge of the highway, and we’re locked in another standoff.
Without taking my eyes off the man, I dial the all-too-familiar number.
“Nina?”
“Beau.” His name comes out slowly, concentrated, as I try to remain calm. This is not the time to freak out.
“What’s wrong?”
I smile at how well he’s come to know me. “There is someone out here.”
“Out where?” Sounds of him gathering his stuff can be heard in the background. A door closes and keys jingle. “Nina, where are you? I’m on my way.”
“Achor.”
“What the fuck are you doing out at Achor ?”
“I needed some air,” I say, watching the man stand there. What is he doing? I’d swear he was a statue if I hadn’t seen him walk a few moments ago.
“You needed air?” Beau tries to keep his voice down. He hates that I come out here, especially alone. He’s pleaded with me multiple times to at the very least give him a heads up or let him come with me. I tell him he’s being paranoid. That I’ll be fine…even if there was always a voice in the back of my mind telling me he might be right. This was where Nick went missing, after all. “Nina, if you need air, go to one of the one-fucking-million trails we have around here . You don’t have to drive to fucking Achor where I can’t—”
“You are not helping!”
There are no signs of anyone joining us on this dead-end highway. If I try to pull out, will he bumrush the car? The doors are locked, he can’t get in, but what if he has a weapon? He could blow out a tire. Then I’m really screwed. I could try to outrun him, but…
Holy shit.
Is that what happened to Nick?
My mind flashes back to the thought of the bloody shirt and the broken phone. Was this man the reason my husband went missing? So many scenarios run through my head of what could’ve happened…Each ends in my husband running for his life as this man chases him through unfamiliar territory. Each ends with my husband left bruised and bloodied—or worse—in the wilderness, left for nature to take its course.
The man heaves something out of his pocket and tosses it in the middle of the road, his eyes never leaving mine. When I realize what it is, tears prick the corners of my eyes and nausea rises in my throat.
Nick’s wallet.
The black Louis Vuitton wallet I gifted my husband for Christmas four years ago. He rolled his eyes playfully when he opened it, saying he didn’t need something so expensive to carry around his credit cards and ID. Despite his protests, he kissed me and began transferring his stuff over. My husband would have no problem buying me something so expensive—he liked spoiling me—but he’d never do it for himself, so I did it for him. I didn’t look at the wallet as a symbol of status. It was a gift, something he needed , not just something he wanted.
When my eyes rise from the road, the mystery man smiles victoriously.
“Nina!” Beau’s voice rips through my head.
“W-what?”
“For fuck’s sake, I’ve been saying your name for a straight minute.” His voice sounds a little more distant and I can hear the wind in the background. He’s driving. But he’s almost two hours away, he’d never make it in time if this man decided to do something.
“He has it.” My eyes lower to the wallet again.
“What?”
“Nick’s wallet.”
“You can’t possibly know it’s—”
“I know what it is, Beau! I bought the damn thing. I’m telling you—”
“Listen to me right now.” Beau’s voice is deadly on the other end of the line. “Do not get out of that car. Rhett is on his way. You need to leave.”
“But B—”
He cuts me off before I can even say his full name. “Davina, I do not care if it’s Nick himself out there, do not get out of that car. You leave right fucking now. Do you hear me?” He stops me when I try to protest again. “Let Rhett handle it. I’m on my way and if you’re there when I get there, I’m going to arrest you.”
“Good thing you have no jurisdiction here, then.”
Beau doesn’t laugh at my attempt at a joke.
I scan over the man on the other side of the road again. He is so still. He stands as tall and stagnant as the mountain above us. I’m not sure he’s even blinked in the last three minutes. Has it really only been three minutes? It feels like we’ve been locked in this stalemate for hours.
“Nina,” Beau pleads. “Let us handle this. Please. Let me handle this.”
“Because that’s gone so well for me up until this point?”
Beau sucks in a breath. “I will have Rhett arrest you for interfering with an investigation.”
He wouldn’t dare.
“Do not get out of the car.”
“What if he’s gone?” I ask, starting to let my foot off the break.
“We’ll find him.”
How? I barely saw him to begin with. Not until he wanted me to. Who knows how long he’s been hanging around? Watching. Did he watch us search last year? Was he a volunteer? Has he been here the whole time, hiding in plain sight?
“Nina, we will find him. I promise. Please, you have to leave. Elena can’t lose both of her parents.” Beau’s words lift my foot the rest of the way.
To my surprise, the man doesn’t move when I pull out of the lot. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I watch him. He turns his head, watching me leave, and my heart stops when I see the other person standing in the lot, directly behind where my car had been sitting seconds ago.
When I pull into the garage almost two hours later, I kill the engine but don’t get out. I rest my head against the top of the steering wheel and take slow, deep breaths. What is going on? This cannot be real life. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen in real life. This is the kind of thing you see in movies. The ride home was silent, minus the phone call I got from Beau ten minutes ago.
“Did you find them?” I didn’t waste time on the niceties when I answered the phone. I had been impatiently awaiting his call since I received his text when he arrived at Achor forty minutes prior, managing to cut at least twenty minutes off the typical drive time. I wondered if cops were subject to speeding laws like the rest of us, or if this constituted a necessary reason to break the law.
“There’s no one here, Nina.” Beau sighed on the other end. I could picture him in my mind, jaw set, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut, as he stood in the middle of the parking lot.
“They were there, Beau! There was someone there, I…I saw them. I’m not crazy.”
“I’m not saying that!” The bite in his words startled me. That was the first time he had spoken to me like that. Ever. “Fuck. Nina, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean to snap on you. It’s just…” I could hear someone in the background—Sheriff Wilson, or maybe Max—but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. “Let me call you back.”
The line went dead.
He called back a few minutes later and this time the sounds of a moving car were in the background.
“Everything okay?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.
“Fine.” Beau sounded like he was wound as tight as a pissed-off rattlesnake.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” I could practically hear the grind of his teeth.
“That was convincing,” I said, navigating the road toward the house, hoping he would finally open up and tell me before I arrived. “Beau, please don’t lie to me. What is going on?”
A heavy sigh on the other end mixed with the sound of the road and the wind pouring in from an open window. “I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I shouldn’t have snapped at you, I’m…I’m trying to make sense of all this, but I can’t. Nothing about this makes any fucking sense. We know it’s his wallet—you ID’ed it and his license is inside, but it doesn’t tell us anything.”
The confirmation hits me like a freight train. I don’t know why the confirmation of what I already knew sends an unexpected wave of emotions flooding my system. I clear my throat, trying to hide the thickness of my voice. “Are they gonna reopen it?”
“Rhett said he’d get in touch with James.”
“And you believe him?”
“You don’t?” Beau asked, a hint of something in his tone. Was he fishing?
“I think things have been wonky ever since Rhett got involved,” I said, gripping the top of the steering wheel. It was the first time I had admitted it out loud, but the thought had crossed my mind more than a handful of times.
“I agree,” Beau said before he sighed. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned that we shared the same thought. “Will you be home when I get back to town?”
“I shouldn’t be, but probably. I don’t feel like sitting on a plane with my brother for five hours after the day I’ve had. You try being stalked by some weirdo on the trail and then see if you want to be stuck in such tight quarters with Kai James Villa.”
Beau laughed, and the sound made me smile.
“You’ll let me know when you hear something?” Parking outside the garage, my knuckles turned white against the wheel, and I rolled my lips between my teeth.
“The minute I know something, you’ll know something, Sweetheart. And Nina, I really am sorry for snapping at you.” The sincerity in his voice took me by surprise. I can’t remember the last time someone apologized to me and seemed so sincere about it.
Now, the longer I sit here pondering what’s going on, the more I’m starting to believe Sheriff Rhett Wilson is somehow involved in Nick’s disappearance. It’s the only thing that makes sense…And if he is involved—
Knock! Knock!
“Whoa!” A voice shouts outside the car window when I practically jump out of my skin. Turning to see who it is, I’m face-to-face with Elizabeth. She tugs on the handle, opens the door, and leans in. “You alright?”
“Fine,” I say, rubbing my eyes.
“I believe that like I believe Brie when she says she didn’t take the last piece of cheesecake from the fridge. You about jumped to the moon and back when I knocked on the window. What’s going on?”
“I’m fine, Elizabeth. Just…tired.”
“I’ll pretend I believe you for the sake of not wanting to make whatever this is”—she waves her hand in an all-encompassing circle before me—“worse. But don’t think we’re not talking about this later.”
I wouldn’t expect anything less. “Where is Kai?” I ask, walking into the house.
“Out back, he was getting antsy when you didn’t show up on time. Please tell me you’re packed and ready to go because—Wait, where are you going?”
“I need to talk to him. We’re not leaving tonight.” I don’t wait for more questions I’m sure she has, like why we aren’t leaving tonight.
No one needs to know why I want to postpone the flight. When Kai asks why, I’ll go with whatever excuse comes to mind, even if it’s as simple as not wanting to be in such close quarters with him right now. It’s better than the truth. If I tell them the truth—if I tell them I was face-to-face with the person (people?) who I think did something to Nick—they’ll have a million other questions to replace the handful they’re going to have about a postponed flight. This is a case of picking your battles, and I’m choosing the easier one.