Chapter 36 #2
and calling us home right away. Where we’re going, she’ll think I’m getting you high or something. Do you trust me?”
“You want me to turn off my phone?”
“No, because then she’ll worry about the tracking being off. Put it on do not disturb and hand it over.”
This feels like one of those moments we talk about at Thanksgiving dinner when we’re in our late twenties. Confessing the
troublemaking we got into as kids now that we’re old enough not to be scared of our parents. Of course, I won’t be here when
Easton is in his late twenties.
I put my phone in his outstretched hand, and he takes out his own, showing me that he’s stacking them together. Then he walks over to the dumpster, drops down onto his hands and knees, and puts them underneath.
“Seriously?” I ask. But I’m feeling a sense of camaraderie, as if Easton and I are more alike than I thought.
“It’s Tuesday night, so the trash men aren’t coming. And who would look under there anyway?”
I can’t help but smile because he’s right. It’s the perfect place to hide your stuff. I should know; all the documentation
identifying the real me was hidden under a Starbucks dumpster in DC. Probably in a landfill now. That’s a problem for future
me to figure out.
We get back in the car and Easton heads up the main road out of town.
He drives straight for a few more miles before he turns off onto a rocky dirt road. The road isn’t well maintained but it’s
heavily used. It slopes upward through thick trees on both sides.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“I guess you wouldn’t remember coming up here, huh?” he says. “There’s a little lookout at the top of the hill that overlooks
the bay. Dad would take us up here to watch fireworks on the Fourth.”
Eventually the trees clear and the road opens up onto a dirt lot in the middle of a grass clearing.
JT’s Jeep is up ahead, parked under a tall cedar tree.
He’s sitting on the back of a park bench that faces out to the bay.
The sun is setting and the sky is bright pink and orange.
There are thunderclouds to the south that flash with lightning, but they’re a ways off over more tree-ridden hills.
It’s beautiful, and I know Nate would definitely remember this.
As we pull to a stop, JT turns around. He immediately brightens when he recognizes the car and waves animatedly. Easton parks
and we get out.
“What’s up, Beaumont Bros!” JT puts something in his pocket and gets up to greet us. He walks over to Easton and they do a
dap, but when he approaches me, he stops with his arms out. “You a hugger? I’m a hugger, but your brother hates physical contact
in all manners and means.”
I didn’t know that. He hugged me, so maybe he’s okay with family. I open my arms and smile politely. “Bring it in, JT.”
“Less-go!” He wraps his arms around me and even lifts me off the ground. He smells very strongly of weed, and when the hug
is over, he reaches into his pocket and takes out a small black object. He puts it to his mouth and lets out a puff of smoke.
A vape. So this is his weed smoking spot. Well, maybe everywhere is a weed smoking spot for JT.
“I thought you had asthma?” I say, remembering the inhaler he had when I first met him.
He nods and pulls it out, taking a hit. “That’s what this is for.” But he still coughs as he re-caps it. He holds up the black
vape to me. “This vaporizes the flower, so it’s healthier for my lungs.”
Easton scoffs. “That is not true.”
“Sure it is!” JT insists, but Easton is right. There’s no way it’s true. “So what brings you boys up here on this beautiful
evening?” Thunder rumbles in the distance.
I thought we were invited. I give Easton a questioning look, but he grins at me and shrugs.
“Just wanted to see you,” Easton says. He follows as JT returns to the bench but doesn’t sit down. Instead he walks over to
the edge of the hill and uses his shoe to move a large, craggy rock.
The hill has a sharp, steep drop-off. I glance down and see several large rocks and boulders jutting out of the cliff face
down a couple-hundred-foot drop. Then there’s only the bay.
“Well, I love the company.”
I sit next to JT, because being too close to the edge of the cliff is making my legs tingle. Even Easton being that close
to it makes me anxious. I’m about to say something, but he steps away and stands next to the bench.
“Hey, JT,” he says.
“’Sup, baby?” JT pulls on his vape again, then holds it out to me as he coughs. I shake my head politely.
“Did you ever get asked to be on Miles Modine’s podcast?”
Oh, here we go. Easton pretended to come up here to chill with JT, but really he wants to keep mocking me.
JT blows out smoke and coughs. “Who is Miles Modine?”
“Our next door neighbor. He was at the barbecue on Sunday.”
“Oh shit, how’s your gramma?”
“She’ll live. But Miles is big into true crime. He and Nate have been working on something about his disappearance. I’ve overheard
them talking about it a few times, actually.”
Overheard. My face starts to tingle. Easton locks eyes with me and the annoyed look he gives me fills me with shame.
“But it’s weird,” Easton says. “Because he’s not my real brother.”
My jaw hangs open and the world has frozen around me. I don’t feel the wind on my skin, the warmth of the setting sun; I don’t
hear the birds or the thunder in the distance.
Only Easton repeating over and over in an endless loop that I’m not his brother.
JT turns to me and scoffs. “What?”
“Tell him, Nate,” Easton says. “Or whatever the hell your name is. Tell him the truth.”
JT takes another rip of his vape, but he seems to think this is all a joke we’re playing on him. And maybe that’s all it is.
Easton could be bluffing. Miles was at first, though I panicked and gave myself up. I won’t do it again, though.
So I fake a laugh and say, “He’s pissed off at me because Miles said he was doing a podcast about the disappearance and I
was thinking about helping him.”
“You’re right, I am pissed,” Easton says. “Because you showed up here, pretending to be my dead little brother, and now you
want to go on some podcast to lie and say, what? You have amnesia?”
“I remember some things,” I say. “Just not everything.” I hope he doesn’t ask me what I do remember, because I’m kind of limited to the things Miles and the Beaumonts have already
told me.
Easton’s eyes go wide but . . . he doesn’t look like himself. And the longer he looks at me, the more I’m starting to worry
he isn’t bluffing.
How could he have found out, though? Maybe he did buy a DNA test online and test my saliva or hair. We share a bathroom. He
might have been able to get something there.
If that’s true, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I try one last-ditch effort to call his bluff. “Why do you think I’m not your brother?” I need to see if there’s an easy way
to disprove whatever flimsy evidence he might have.
“Because my brother is dead.”
JT is getting bored with whatever’s happening here. He puffs on his vape, letting out smoke as he speaks. “Listen, whatever
is going on between y’all, it’s harshing my buzz. So if you could maybe take it elsewhere—” He coughs again and takes out
his inhaler.
“Sorry, JT,” Easton says. “I need you to prove a point.”
JT shakes his head but breathes in from the inhaler. “Sure.”
Again, the way Easton looks at me gives me chills. “I’m . . . not dead,” I say.
“You’re not. Nate, on the other hand, very much is.”
My mouth is dry and my heart is starting to race. “Okay. So if that’s true, how do you know?”
“Because I’m the one who killed him.”