Chapter 15
Garrett stared at the number on his phone screen. Unbeknownst to Beth, her dad had given him her new phone number years ago—and he’d kept it. Never once had he tried to call her, not even when he was plastered and nearly passed out in the back of his truck.
“Your brother is working a shift today at the station, but he’s coming here right after, so I’ll let you have two, and then you gotta go,” Lauren huffed, clanking an empty glass down on the counter.
“Fine,” Garrett muttered. “You could put water in it for all I care. I just didn’t feel like going home and sitting in an empty house.”
“Fair enough,” Lauren nodded, and then paused, glancing around the empty bar before going on to make his drink. It wasn’t quite five o’clock, but Garrett had gotten off work early, and had nowhere else to go. “You going to the funeral?”
“For Sarah?” Garrett picked up the Jack and Coke she had mixed for him. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll bet Beth will be there. ”
“Yeah,” he muttered, shaking his head. “That ship has sailed. I tried to make my amends, and she wasn’t having it. It’s been too long. We’re strangers now.”
“No,” Lauren’s voice softened. “You’ll never be strangers. That girl was head over heels for you. She might not be in love with you anymore, but you’ll always know each other on a level that strangers don’t.”
“Interesting way to think about it.”
“You’re all she thought about senior year.”
Garrett nodded, memories threatening to creep back into his mind. “I know, but that’s the thing. That was sixteen years ago, Lauren. Time changes people.”
“And it’s changed you, too.”
He chuckled, downing the rest of his drink. “Yeah, funny how that works.” She scooped up his empty glass once he set it back down, but he shook his head. “I don’t want another.”
Her brows shot up. “Really?”
Garrett nodded. “Yeah, not really in the mood to get hammered. Maybe later.” Maybe out of the dang public eye for once. “I got a lot of eyes on me right now.”
Lauren nodded, not having to speak to understand. There’d been a shift in the way people looked at him since Sarah went missing, and he was certain people were talking—and even though he didn’t know what they were saying exactly, he knew what they all were thinking.
“I’ll see ya around,” Garrett said, sliding off the bar stool and handing her a ten-dollar bill. “Hopefully, it doesn’t get too crazy in here for you.”
“We’ll see.”
Garrett made his way out of the empty bar. He gazed out at the parking lot, consisting of three cars—a silver SUV, his truck, and a dark blue Ford. He frowned at the sight, feeling as though he had seen it recently.
But he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He made his way to his truck and slung open the door, the hum of the other vehicle’s engine running. As weird as it was, people pulled off the main road to make phone calls, take a nap, whatever. He didn’t judge people…
But they sure as heck judge me.
Chuckling to himself, he climbed inside of his truck and closed the door, before starting the diesel engine. The Cummins motor roared to life, and he sat there for a few minutes, unsure of where to go. He spent every afternoon and evening drinking, and while his head was pounding and the whiskey had been a familiar comfort, he just wasn’t in the mood.
Maybe he wasn’t as attached to the liquor as he thought he was.
He went to put the truck in gear, when a thud on his driver’s side window stopped him. He whipped his head around to see a figure on the other side of the tint, and he sighed, already recognizing them. He rolled down the window just enough to meet his father’s gaze.
“I swear, I shoulda known you’d be the only one here at this time of day.” His voice was cold as he spoke. “Don’t you got a yard to mow, a dinner to eat—anything other than drinking yourself stupid.”
“Was actually leaving,” he snapped. “Which I’m sure will make you happy.”
“I’d rather you not be here at all,” Sheriff Myers growled. “This whole dang town has you in their mouth, which ain’t nothin’ new to you, but there’s a big difference between a car accident when you’re nineteen and dead girl under a bridge.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with Sarah’s murder,” he argued. “I ain’t got a reason to be paranoid about it.”
“Right, except Lucas Wilson came storming into the office this morning claiming Beth Young tried to run him over.”
Garrett couldn’t hide his surprise at that. “That’s nuts. There’s no way Beth would?—”
“I’m gonna stop you there, son,” the sheriff leaned in, and Garrett rolled the window the rest of the way down. “Every time that name comes up, everyone puts yours with it. She’s nothing but a reminder of what happened to Sam—and you’re still living with the ghost.”
“Yeah, I think that ghost is gonna be around for the rest of my life,” Garrett said flatly. “Whether Beth is here or not. I don’t think she’s got anything to do with it.”
“Yeah, well, Lucas Wilson ain’t been in the office since I booked him for possession of narcotics, and now, he’s been in twice playing good citizen . From what I’ve gathered, he’s dragging your name through the mud, G. I need you to disappear until I figure this out.”
Garrett spoke through gritted teeth. “I didn’t do anything to Sarah. You know that.”
His father’s expression didn’t shift from the emotionless state it was in. “Only thing I know is that you saw Beth Young that night, and I can only imagine what seeing her did to your head.”
“You really think I would’ve done something to Sarah?” he exasperated. “ Really? With all the shady drug dealing rednecks she hangs out with, and you’re gonna point to me? Just like all the rest of them? ”
“All I got is evidence, and Blaze Harris is already suspicious ‘cause I left you off the report. I know it’s just a matter of time before he goes bringing it up.”
Garrett shook his head, trying to conjure up the fuzzy past. “Why would you leave me out of the report? I saw Beth that night—that’s the truth. I saw her, and I’m not going to deny that. I didn’t see Sarah.”
“Drunk idiots aren’t reliable witnesses. You can’t remember what you did after you saw Beth, can you? I can see it all over your face.”
Garrett choked on that answer, everything beyond Beth’s deep, green eyes black to his memory. “I probably just did what I always do. Pass out.”
Sheriff Myers gave a disgusted huff. “Go home and stay there.”
“Maybe you should focus on finding her killer, instead of worrying so much about me,” Garrett scoffed, reaching to roll up the window.
“Quit giving me reasons to worry,” he spat back, just as it rolled to a complete close.
Garrett watched his father climb into his department issued truck, which he hadn’t heard pull up. He leaned back against the seat as it pulled away, and then closed his eyes. What did I do after Beth left? He couldn’t remember anything other than waking up in his bed at home—which is not where he would’ve chosen to go on his own. He always slept in his truck in order to avoid driving drunk.
And that left him with a sick feeling in his gut.
He would never hurt Sarah. He’d never intentionally hurt anyone, but Sarah had become a friend, or at least an ally. Ever since he had helped her out with a repair bill she couldn’t afford, she had repaid the favor by not shunning him like the rest of the town had.
Garrett put the truck in drive and headed out of the parking lot, noting that the blue truck he’d noticed idling was no longer there. He took a left and headed toward Hollow Creek Bridge. The drive took him three miles north of town, and then a hard right off the highway. It wasn’t a well-used road, grass growing through the white dusty gravel.
He shouldn’t be going to the murder scene, but also… He couldn’t help himself, especially with the strange sense of dread he felt. He’d been at that point plenty of times—though for other reasons. The truck bounced across braking bumps, and he slowed as he took the last winding curve to the old, dilapidated wooden bridge with iron railing. He parked the truck off to the right side of the road, partially in the ditch, and then put it park.
He hadn’t laid eyes on the bridge in years, and the sore spot it held left him hesitant to climb out at first. But he brushed it off and slung his door open anyway. He slid out, eyeing the mostly dormant, knee-height grass in the ditches. The county clearly didn’t bother to maintain this area, more than likely because there were no longer any houses left on the winding, mostly wooded road.
His boots crunched across rock as he made the rest of the walk to the bridge. When he got to the edge, where gravel transitioned to old, hardened wood, he paused, as if the whole thing might collapse if he put any of his two-hundred-twenty-pound self on it. He was tall, standing at six-feet-four, and had always been built more like a linebacker than a quarterback.
The comparison made him think of Sam, who was the quarterback type.
You’d hate how I turned out, he thought to himself, as if Sam was still bothering to listen in on his life. By this point, he was sure his old best friend was rolling in his grave—or maybe just sitting up there with the Big Man and wishing he could ring Garrett’s neck.
‘You’ve been seeing my sister! I’m gonna kill you.’ Garrett winced at the memory, one of the last ones he had of Sam, unfortunately. He still couldn’t shake the shrill of fury in Sam’s voice. Never mind the horror on Beth’s face when it all went down. He should’ve listened to her, told him the truth before Sam got drunk.
Garrett swallowed the bile rising in the back of his throat, and then went ahead and took the step onto the bridge. He had no clue which side Sarah’s body had been found on, but regardless it was about a twenty-to-thirty-foot drop to a shallow creek below. He made his way to the railing on the left side, and then peered down.
Everything there looked untouched, and as he stared into the stagnant water, he frowned. Who would even think about this area? Not many knew about the desolate bridge, even those who’d been in the town all their lives. It led to a dead end, butting up to the far end of the Young ranch.
Which is exactly why this area had become ground zero for him and Beth.
He shook his head and walked to the other side, following the same suit. And just like the other, there was no signs of a body having ever been there. In fact, other than areas before the bridge where the grass had been laid down by assumed responders, there was no other signs of anything having happened.
I guess they cleaned it up good. He glanced around the wooded area, the canopy of overhanging trees casting an everlasting deep shade. Garrett, mulling over the crime, thudded across the bridge to the other side of the road—the one that dead ended less than a quarter mile up ahead.
As he glanced around, he caught sight of something shimmering, just off at the edge of the trees across the road, where sun had cast a lowlight. He zoned out on it for a few moments, squinting and assuming someone had littered, some piece of plastic or something. But curiosity got the best of him, and he crossed the ditch to where the side of the road met a property line.
And then he froze.
A cell phone.