Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
COLE
I t’s a perfect day.
Or at least as perfect as the big city gets in November. But it’s days like today—low seventies, perfect blue sky still visible despite all the smog—that makes living in Los Angeles worth it. I step into the stairwell of the converted building Sawyer bought for SAFE Haven Security and admire the woodwork on the banister as I climb to the second story offices.
My whistle rendition of Morgan Wallen’s “Spin You Around” echoes down as I climb. Even though it’s been six months since Sawyer opened the offices, it’s still hard to believe that SAFE Haven has grown from our team of three to a significantly larger organization. Although most of the employees report over to Featherlight Studios where our main contract is located.
“God, do you have to be so loud?” Sydney walks up behind me, grimacing and clutching a travel coffee cup like her life depends on it.
“Oh my God, I didn’t think vampires could come into buildings without being invited in.” I lift my messenger bag in front of me.
It’s not the first time I’ve teased her about her line of work being more related to the mythical creatures that suck blood and only come out at night. But it never fails to get a rise out of her.
She doesn’t disappoint me this morning either.
“Ass.” Her shoulder bumps mine as she continues forward. “It’s too early.”
Sydney’s wizardry with a computer and an Internet connection knows no bounds, but her work—and that of her small team—is limited to remote work.
“What has you gracing us with your presence, youngster?”
“Sawyer texted. He wants to meet with me this morning.”
“I want to meet with both of you.” Sawyer steps out of his office. “Five minutes.”
“Well, that’s…cryptic,” I say and study my boss and friend as he walks to the coffee pot with a cup.
And unusual.
Sawyer generally gives me a heads-up when he needs to meet with me.
“Any idea what it’s about?” I ask Sydney as we walk side by side to our offices.
I’m so preoccupied by Sawyer’s lack of communication, I don’t even give Sydney the usual ration of shit about why she needs an office in our building when she only uses it once in a blue moon.
“No idea.”
She disappears into the cave of her office and I step into mine, hanging up my bag and the sport coat I put on this morning to stave off some of the chill in the early morning air.
I knew I wouldn’t need it for long.
Grabbing my laptop and a pad of paper and pen, I head into the main office area and note a few lights flipped on in other offices. I stop for my own coffee and balance everything as I step into Sawyer’s office.
“What’s up, King?” I ask and situate myself in one of the two chairs across from his desk.
“Let’s wait for Sydney. It’s easier to tell you both at once.”
“She’s always late,” I remind him. “If she even shows up at all.”
“I resent that remark,” Sydney says, stepping into the office and closing the door.
“You resemble that remark,” I mumble behind the safety of my coffee mug.
Sawyer rolls his eyes.
“This is why I hate in-person meetings. I do not have the energy to deal with the two of you bickering like teenagers.”
“Ooooo, hear that, Cole? We’ve been upgraded from toddlers to teenagers.”
I lift my hand and she slaps it as Sawyer groans.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Sydney opens her laptop, fingers poised.
“I had a phone call this morning from Tracy Chabert?—”
“Who is Tracy Chabert?” Sydney asks.
“Tracy Smith Chabert. She’s the head of the board of directors for the Tennessee pageant.” The words are out of my mouth before I can even process them.
“How the hell do you know that?” Sydney’s gaze swings to me.
Even Sawyer’s eyes narrow as he studies me, lifting his fingers to steeple in front of his mouth.
“What? Tennessee is small. You guys always talk about my pageant info?—”
Sawyer clears his throat, and my explanation dies on my lips.
“As I was saying, the recently elected board of directors called me this morning.” His eyebrows lift as if daring me to call him out on the word he emphasizes.
Nope , not going to say a word .
“Tennessee? How do they know about us?” Sydney asks, voicing the same question pinging around my head.
“Who else would have given them our number? Tom,” Sawyer explains.
The facility operations manager with Featherlight is well-connected, and this isn’t the first time we’ve gotten a job because of him.
“That man has his finger on the pulse more than I do,” Sydney says.
“To get more connected you’d have to disconnect yourself from your computer,” I tell her.
“No, thanks. Resistance is futile, Strickland. Come to the dark side. We have cookies.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors, Syd. Star Trek and Star Wars are different universes. And neither have cookies.” The corners of Sawyer’s lips twitch.
The sun glints off his wedding ring, and happiness for my friend filters through my blood. He and his wife, Evie, had a hell of a time getting to the finish line. But they’ve now enjoyed their fairy tale for two years, and their wedding six months ago was one even I shed a tear at.
“Let’s talk about the kid’s lack of sci-fi education later. What kind of job do they have for us?” I ask.
“One of their former winners contacted them. Right after she won, she had some creepy fan mail that they sent me to take a look at.”
“How long ago was this? You said a former winner, right? Not the current Miss?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer picks up his notebook and looks at it, even though he doesn’t need to.
He’s slow-rolling this information.
Why?
But there’s something niggling at me that tells me I know why, and I’m doing everything I can to ignore that sensation.
“Around four years ago. Winner’s name was?—”
“Hannah Grace Whittaker.” I say the name at the same time Sawyer does.
He doesn’t seem surprised. He shouldn’t. I mentioned Hannah Grace’s name enough times when we were deployed together that it should be just as burned into his brain as it still is in mine.
My grip tightens on the pen in my hand, the plastic squeaking in protest. Sawyer’s gaze flicks to my fist and back up, eyebrows raised.
Taking a deep breath, I focus on inhaling and exhaling, relaxing each finger one by one until my pen rests casually against my palm.
Sydney’s gaze moves between the two of us.
“Am I missing something?” Her green eyes narrow as she focuses on me. “You. What am I missing?”
“Why me?”
“Because you said the name at the same time Sawyer did. Who is Hayley Grace?”
“Hannah Grace,” I correct.
My Honey Girl.
Or at least, once upon a time.
“Who is she?”
“She’s from Mistletoe Creek.” The words are said with way more calm than I actually feel, but I don’t want to get into the details with Sydney right now. Instead I want to know what’s going on.
Why is Hannah Grace calling the pageant people? What creepy fan mail? Mom hadn’t mentioned anything to me about that, and it was over three fucking years ago.
“You have an ex? Someone actually liked you enough to date you?” Sydney ribs.
“She was going to marry me,” I tell her, like I’ve just told her the sky is blue.
Until I fucked it up.
“What?! How am I just hearing about this now? This isn’t anywhere on your socials?—”
And I made sure to scrub all my social media right after I broke up with her. I didn’t need the reminder of how badly I fucked up my life.
“What’s happening now?” I ask, some of my anger punching through.
Sawyer only lifts an eyebrow.
“Nothing.”
Record scratch. That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say.
“Nothing? What do you mean nothing?”
“Per Ms. Smith Chabert, Hannah only had hunches that something weird was happening. Her window being left open in her house when she remembers closing it. Something she keeps in her bag being under her dresser. She was concerned enough that she wanted to reach out. She doesn’t think there’s enough to go to the cops, but she wanted it checked out.”
“She’s right. There isn’t enough to go to the cops,” Sydney says, still side-eyeing me.
“Are we taking the job?” I ask.
“Would it matter if I said yes or no?” Sawyer asks me.
I shake my head.
“If we aren’t, I’m requesting vacation time.”
“We’re taking the job. I want you on the first flight to Nashville.”
“Nashville?”
“Question?” Sawyer asks.
“I…uh…I assumed Hannah Grace lived in Mistletoe Creek.”
Sawyer’s gaze sharpens as I stumble over the words.
“Guess you don’t know everything. Hannah Grace stayed in Nashville after college. She currently works at Meadow Ridge Elementary as a kindergarten teacher.” Sydney’s focus is on her computer screen.
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Duh.” She gestures to her computer.
Goddamnit, Hannah Grace. She was always too trusting, and it looks like that hasn’t changed.
“Fuck. Lock down her socials,” I tell Sydney.
“What’s the magic word?” she asks me.
I growl.
“Sydney, stop giving Cole a hard time. Please do as he asked.” Sawyer’s ability to referee is the true testament to his level of patience.
“I’m already on it. I was just giving him a hard time. Sheesh. Calm down.”
“Anything else?” I ask, standing.
My mind is already on grabbing my go bag and getting to the airport as fast as possible.
“Not right now. Are you sure?” Sawyer stands as well, his too astute gaze locking with mine.
“If this were Evie, what would you do?”
The right corner of his mouth lifts and he nods.
“Same thing you’re going to do.”
A grin stretches across my face. This is why he and I are friends.
“Let’s touch base once you connect with Hannah Grace. See what we’re working with,” he tells me.
“Do the pageant people have those letters from before?” I ask.
“You think you need them?”
I shrug.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.”
“I have scans I requested earlier. I’ll email them to you. They’re…”
He doesn’t finish his sentence and that alone leaves a rock in my stomach. We’ve both seen way more shit in this life than we should have.
“They’re what?”
“They’re not love letters, Cole. That’s all I’m going to say.”
But there’s more that he’s not saying. And that alone lights a bigger fire under my ass.
“I’ll call you when I land,” I say.
My long stride eats up the space between Sawyer’s office and mine, and I’m back outside in under five minutes, practically sprinting to my car.
Whether she wants it or not, Hannah Grace needs me. I try not to think about what it means that I need her safe as desperately as I do.
It’s the only thing I’m going to allow myself to focus on.
Her safety.
???
There was a definite warning in Sawyer’s voice when he told me about the fan mail. I should have listened. Instead, I’m tempted to rip open the emergency exit and toss my laptop into the sky after reading through some of them.
They don’t start off bad. The first one was all about how the writer struggled with confidence issues and enjoyed watching Hannah Grace on several of the news programs she had been on. He’d even been in the audience when she was crowned Miss Tennessee.
It’s hard to ignore the slash of guilt.
He was there.
And I wasn’t.
There aren’t copies of Hannah Grace’s responses, but I can almost write her response myself. Humility, empathy, and all the sunshine that made her who she was. There are a lot of letters which tells me that they corresponded a lot.
I skim through some of those and don’t notice anything weird until the letter after the love confession.
You didn’t answer my last letter, Hannah Grace, and that’s not like you. You always answer. What if I came and told you in person how in love with you I am? How much I want to be with you? How I know we’ll be together forever?
Another letter where Hannah Grace did apparently respond.
I don’t want to scare you. I want to be with you. Even if you don’t feel the same, I know you’ll grow to love me too. I’ll wait for you. Forever .
The other letters grow more graphic in content, and a red haze still covers my vision whenever I think about the disturbed, explicit things the author wrote her. How scared she must have been to read that shit.
Fuck that .
But the pageant people had shared with Sawyer—who passed it to me with the letters—that once Hannah Grace had reached out to them the letters had stopped. And since they stopped, they felt there was no need to track down this Eric that had written these letters to her.
If it were up to me, I would have.
And now she was in trouble again. Or thought she was. But she didn’t imagine things easily.
You knew her a long time ago .
Nobody changes that much.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are making our final descent into Nashville International Airport. Local time is 5:30 PM and weather is sitting in the midfifties with a breeze coming from the west.”
The pilot’s disembodied voice comes over the speakers, and I sigh and gaze out the window at the darkened sky and the lights of Nashville.
When was the last time I was home?
Before I broke up with Hannah Grace. I didn’t want to run into her after. I didn’t think I was that strong.
But I’m not going home. Although I wouldn’t mind a trip to Mistletoe Creek for a homemade meal from Mama.
First things first. It was time I faced my past.
And hope that she doesn’t slam the door in my face.