41. Maddie
41
MADDIE
“Calm down.” Naomi set a paper cup of water beside Maddie, then took Maddie’s trembling hands. “Calm.”
“I just don’t get it. Why would he leave? Why turn off his phone? Something must have happened.” Maddie met Kayla’s eyes on the other side of the trailer sofa. “Everything was fine. We were happy.” She appealed to Dan Klein. “Isn’t there any security footage at all?”
“We’re looking for aerial footage,” Dan said with a frown. “But you know how it is. It’s a field in the middle of nowhere. We don’t have resources like they have in the cities, Maddie.” He and the two other police officers in the room made the space feel crowded. God love her parents—they’d taken Audrey to their house for safekeeping.
One of the other officers cleared his throat. “Is it possible he left on his own? That’s often the case with something like this. Especially when it’s only been four hours. And his text message to you indicates that’s what happened.”
Cormac, the other person in the room, shook his head. “Brooks wouldn’t just leave when he’s got a concert to play, and definitely not without telling anyone and evading his bodyguard. That’s not like him at all.”
“What about Mike? Was his mom able to get in touch with him?” Maddie asked. Her gut instinct had been to worry about him, considering he’d threatened Brooks earlier in the week.
Kayla nodded. “Yeah, she just texted me back. She doesn’t know where he is. They don’t talk too often.”
“You really have to cut her off, Kayla. She’s a nice lady, but that link is toxic,” Cormac fumed.
“I’m not discussing that right now,” Kayla shot back. They acted like brother and sister sometimes. Maybe because Cormac was the closest thing Brooks had to a brother.
Maddie looked away from them both, thankful that Naomi was here. She was always steady in these situations. “Brooks didn’t just leave. I’m certain of it.”
“Okay.” Naomi squeezed her hand. “What do you think his text message meant then, Maddie?”
“I don’t know.” Maddie met Naomi’s gaze, searching her eyes frantically. “I don’t know. But I’m sure he wouldn’t leave. He loves me, Naomi. He wouldn’t just walk out without talking to me. He wouldn’t leave the whole town high and dry with this concert. Humiliate me. He wouldn’t.”
“We can take a missing person report if you want, Maddie,” Dan said gently. “But the text message is a crucial piece of evidence here.”
Maddie closed her eyes, trying to think straight.
No way in hell Brooks would leave like this.
Kayla wasn’t saying much, but Cormac appeared to be on Maddie’s side.
Everyone else, it seemed, thought the text message was damning.
Because it is.
“I’m sorry. I had to go. Don’t try to reach me.”
What the hell was she supposed to make of this?
Had the fair freaked him out? He’d been worried about waiting in the apple fritter line, but they’d been wandering around the fairgrounds before that. Dancing. He’d signed a few autographs.
Maybe she’d misjudged how much he enjoyed it?
But then why hadn’t Brooks taken his bodyguard, Ryan, with him? Ryan had said that Brooks had told him not to bother sweeping the trailer before he’d gone in. Maybe it was just Ryan’s way of protecting himself and not be blamed for failing to do his job—but then why had Brooks slipped out without telling Ryan?
Brooks was worried about security. He’d insisted on the bodyguards this week, everywhere they went.
“Dan, can you and your friends step out of here for a couple of minutes? We’ll call you back,” Naomi said.
Maddie didn’t open her eyes but heard them go.
Naomi settled on the couch beside her. “It’s your move, Maddie. If you want to file a missing person report, I get it. But there exists a small possibility that Brooks . . . just needed to get away from this.”
Maddie gave her a doubtful look. “Without a bodyguard?”
“I don’t know. He came to Brandywood without a bodyguard, didn’t he? Maybe he doesn’t like them around all the time.”
“He doesn’t,” Kayla said quietly.
“Maybe so, but what happened at the lake terrified him. I don’t think he’d go anywhere right now without Ryan—even if he doesn’t like bodyguards.”
“The concert is the biggest sticking point for me,” Cormac said with a frown. “His last concert got canceled because of his arrest. I don’t think he’d walk out on the next one. Some people here tonight probably came from Baltimore because they missed the last one. The fair is never this crowded.”
Thank you, Cormac.
“I agree,” Maddie said quickly.
“You’re agreeing because it’s what you want to hear,” Naomi said. “You never know, he might come back in time for the concert. Maybe he just needed some air.”
Cormac’s eyes were troubled. “We need to come up with a contingency plan in the meantime. There are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there otherwise.”
Maddie stood, feeling like her head was going to explode. “I don’t care about the damn concert. I’m telling you, I know Brooks. He wouldn’t leave the concert. He wouldn’t leave . . . me.”
She met three sets of pitying eyes and her heart broke.
Maybe none of them were as sure as she was.
But she was right, wasn’t she?
They had talked. They were in a relationship. Doing things long-distance.
He wouldn’t leave without talking to her.
. . . except he’d tried to do just that once before. Only a week before.
She stood there, a scene from just the weekend before playing in her mind. He’d packed her bags in her apartment. “You’re fucking leaving?” she’d asked him.
“It’s for the best. Things are getting out of control.”
The slick, miserable hand of doubt wrapped its way around her throat, choking her.
Then she dissolved into tears.