Chapter 29
Kayla
I heard the knock on my door and hopped up. Maybe Ben’s situation had resolved itself and we could get our date in after all.
It was too late for the planetarium, but he and I could jump to the really fun part of the date.
I checked the side window near the door. Not Ben.
It took me a second to recognize him. He was one of the officers from the day William went missing. Vance. I hadn’t talked to him much, but I remembered him looking me in the eye and saying We’ll find him, ma’am with the kind of quiet certainty that made you believe it. And he’d been right.
I opened the door.
He stood on the porch in jeans and a dark jacket, hands at his sides, his posture easy and unhurried. The badge wasn’t visible, but the authority was.
“Hi, Kayla. I’m Eric Vance, from the police department. We met the day your son went on his little unauthorized hike.” His voice was warm. Apologetic. “I’m sorry to bother you this late. Ben asked me to come by.”
Cold ran through me for just a second. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. There’s a situation at work. Things are moving faster than expected tonight, and he’d feel better knowing you were somewhere safe while it all gets sorted out. He asked if I could bring you to the station.”
Ben was okay. That was what was important. I let out a breath.
“Just give me a second.”
I grabbed my jacket from the hook, slipped my phone into the pocket, and pulled the door shut behind me. The porch light caught the frost on the steps, and beyond it, the neighborhood was dark and still.
Ben wanted me safe. He’d sent someone to get me to make sure I was okay. I didn’t know what sort of situation was going on with the police force, but he’d cared enough to send somebody for me.
Vance walked me to his car, a dark, unmarked sedan, and opened the passenger door. “Watch your step.”
I settled into the seat. He closed the door, came around, and pulled out of the driveway with the unhurried ease of a man who didn’t find any of this remarkable.
The streets were quiet. Early evening in Summit Falls was headlights and shadows, the mountains visible only as the place where the stars stopped. Vance drove with one hand on the wheel, his attention split between the road and conversation.
“How’s your son doing? William, right? After that scare in the woods.”
“He’s great. Resilient.” I watched the storefronts slide past my window, all of them dark at this hour. “Just wanted to be near Jolly.”
“Good. Kids bounce back.” He adjusted the rearview mirror. “And you? You’ve been here about seven months now?”
“Yeah. Almost eight.” Ben must’ve talked to Vance about me.
“How are you finding Summit Falls?”
I shifted in my seat, angling toward him the way you did when someone was making the effort at conversation. “It’s been wonderful. William’s thriving in school. I love the community.”
“That’s good to hear.” His fingers tapped the wheel twice. The pause that followed was just a beat too long, like he was deciding which direction to take the conversation. “You been following the drug situation at all? Around town?”
“A little. I’ve seen some things on the news.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s been rough. This Drift stuff, designer fentanyl, hits the tourist population hardest. We’ve had overdose deaths.
Young people.” He shook his head. “It’s the kind of thing that eats at you in law enforcement.
You want to protect your town, and sometimes the town doesn’t even know it needs protecting. ”
Was the drug stuff part of the situation Ben had mentioned earlier in his call?
“That must be frustrating. I know you guys must be working really hard to take the drug dealers down.”
“It is, and we very definitely are.” His eyes stayed on the road. “Has Ben talked much about it?”
Something about the question made me choose my words more carefully than the conversation warranted. Could Ben get in trouble for talking about it to me? “No, not really at all. I know the department’s been dealing with it.”
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his tone had shifted into something almost admiring. “He’s a good man, your Ben. Dedicated. The type of guy who takes the work personally.”
Your Ben. We’d met once. I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten to your Ben from one encounter, but I let it pass.
I looked out the window.
The buildings were thinning. We’d passed the last of the downtown blocks a few minutes ago, and the streetlights were spacing out. The road was climbing. I could feel the grade in the way the engine worked harder, the way my body pressed back against the seat.
“Is the station on the far side of town?” I turned back to him. “I thought it was closer to Main Street.”
“Shortcut. Construction on Third has everything rerouted.”
I didn’t remember any construction on Third. But I didn’t drive through downtown much.
The road narrowed. Trees pressed in on both sides. No more streetlights. The headlights carved a tunnel through the dark, and beyond their reach, there was nothing.
Vance’s hands had shifted on the wheel. Both of them now, ten and two, firm and deliberate. His eyes moved to the mirrors. Not a glance, a check. Methodical, repeated, the way someone drove when they wanted to know what was behind them.
The small talk had stopped. The silence felt wrong somehow.
I reached into my jacket pocket for my phone. To text Ben. To check the time. To do something with my hands because my body had gone tight in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.
Vance’s right hand came off the wheel and reached between the seat and the center console. When it came back up, it was holding a gun.
He pointed it at me the way a person pointed at something on a shelf they’d like you to hand them. No urgency. No drama. The barrel was steady, aimed at my ribs, and his eyes stayed on the road.
“Hand over your phone.”
His voice hadn’t changed. Same tone he’d used to ask about William. Same warmth, same ease, same unhurried cadence. The only thing different was the weapon in his hand, and it changed everything.
Everything.
I pulled the phone the rest of the way from my pocket and held it out. My hand was steady. I didn’t know how.
He took it, powered down the window, and flicked it into the dark. I heard it hit asphalt and then nothing. The window went back up. The gun stayed where it was.
He kept driving.
The road unwound ahead of us, climbing into mountains I couldn’t see. The headlights showed curves, guardrails, the reflective eyes of something small darting into the brush. No houses. No cars. No light except what we carried with us.
Ben hadn’t sent Vance.
The understanding arrived whole. Ben hadn’t sent this man to my door.
Ben didn’t know he was here or that I was now with him.
Ben was somewhere in Summit Falls right now doing the work he’d told me about, and he had no idea that someone in that very police department had just pointed a gun at me and thrown my phone into the dark.
Whatever Ben’s work had uncovered at this department, whatever he’d thought had been finished, it wasn’t. And I was in the middle of it now—for what purpose, I had no idea whatsoever.
“Ben didn’t send you. Why are you doing this?”
My voice came out level. I didn’t know where the calm was coming from. Somewhere deep and automatic, a part of me that understood panicking in a moving car with an armed man would not improve my situation.
Vance didn’t answer. His eyes checked the mirror again.
“Where are we going?”
Nothing. Just the sound of tires on asphalt and the engine working the grade.
“What do you want?” Still no reply. “Ben will know something’s wrong when he sees my car but doesn’t find me at home.”
He adjusted his grip on the wheel. The gun rested against his thigh now, still pointed in my direction, still visible. He drove the way he’d driven from the start. Smooth, controlled, unhurried.
“You should stop asking questions.” He said it the way you’d tell someone a restaurant was closed. “It’ll be easier.”
Easier for whom, he didn’t say.
“As for your car, no worries there. I’ve already got someone handling it.”
What did that mean—“Someone was handling it?” Obviously he was setting the scene to look like I’d gone somewhere on my own. How long would it take for Ben to realize I’m not home? Panic started to crawl up my throat, but I pushed it down. I had to keep a level head.
The trees pressed closer. The road curved and climbed, and the town was gone. I couldn’t see it anymore. Couldn’t see anything except headlights and the dark shapes of mountains against a sky full of stars.
I pressed my hands flat against my thighs. I breathed. I counted the breaths because counting gave me something to do with my mind that wasn’t screaming.
William was at Trish’s.
He was in his sleeping bag on Theo’s bedroom floor with a flashlight and a plastic dinosaur and Jolly’s red ball zipped into the front pocket of his backpack. He was safe. He was warm. He was exactly where he was supposed to be, and nobody was coming for my son.
I held on to that. I pressed it against my chest like something physical, something with weight, and I did not let go.
The car climbed higher. The man beside me said nothing. And no one in the world knew where I was.