Chapter Four
When I picked up Mitchell and June from the hotel, they were already waiting for me at the entrance.
Mitchell effortlessly carried a compact suitcase in one hand and a gray backpack on his shoulder.
June, on the other hand, had a huge, bloated tote bag stuffed with her things and an enormous black backpack.
I didn’t judge. Whenever I traveled by car, I packed all the necessities in a blue Ikea bag.
My mother argued with me about its practicality, but honestly, things get just as messy in a suitcase, and it’s harder to access them.
Today, June wore a long, lace skirt paired with a "Nightmare on Elm Street" T-shirt, her fingers adorned with several silver rings.
Her fedora, the same one she wore the day before, topped off her outfit.
When I arrived to pick them up, she gave me a menacing glance.
Or at least, what I assumed was a menacing glance.
It was so over-the-top that it almost made me chuckle.
Mitchell entertained me with chatter, telling me about his time in the military and somehow avoiding discussing the true purpose of our voyage. It almost felt like we were on an exciting road trip.
In the rearview mirror, I saw June alternating between poking at her phone and pensively gazing out the window, watching the small towns pass by—one indistinguishable from the next.
"Picture this: we’re settling in for the night at camp, guys getting some rest. Then, out of nowhere, a wild goat comes tearing past the guards and into the tent, nipping at our chow packets.
" Mitchell’s accent thickened as he spoke, hands flying with excitement.
"It was like a dadgum tornado on hooves, sending us all scrambling! We’re talking a dozen dudes stumbling around, tripping over each other, getting all banged up, and that stupid goat don’t get a scratch on it!
" He chuckled, shaking his head at the memory.
I forced a smile, feeling a little too tense to fully enjoy the tale. I caught a glimpse of June in the rearview, and her expression said she’d heard this story before, perhaps quite a few times.
"So, you made it to sergeant?" I asked after he’d stopped laughing.
"Yes, last year," he confirmed, keeping it reserved.
"What’s next?"
"Usually, a staff sergeant," he made a slight pause, "But not for me. I recently demobilized." He rubbed his neck and then checked the time.
"Oh," was all I could say, "Because of your sister? Because of Amanda?"
"Yeah," he started, hesitant, then his voice firmed up. "Nah, I just needed a change. But Amanda going missing—that definitely played a part in my decision."
"How so?"
"I figured I’d give being a cop a shot."
"In Kansas City?"
"Of course, where else?"
"You could go anywhere," June chimed in. "Yet you chose that dump."
"Why is it a dump?" Mitchell’s surprise was genuine.
"Because it’s lousy! Nowhere else has as much crap happening."
"So you want to move?" I asked June.
"As soon as I save up enough money," she said defiantly.
"Where you gonna go?" her brother turned to her, leaning his left arm on the back of my seat. "Who’s gonna have your back? We stick together; that’s what we do."
His sister didn’t respond, turning away from him and staring out the window. I felt uncomfortable, so I chose to focus on the road, pretending nothing had happened.
I didn’t have brothers or sisters, but I had a mother I wanted to escape. Remembering that the distance between us would soon be reduced to an uncomfortable minimum made me feel dizzy.
"Did Amanda go missing at night, too?" I asked.
Mitch looked over at his sister as if checking whether she was okay with him sharing, then said, "Yeah. She was coming back from her support group. Someone said she stayed late, chatting. Seemed excited. Jittery."
They’d already told me there were no witnesses. Lucas also vanished at night from a crowded stadium, with no one seeing anything, so I knew it was possible.
"What kind of support group was it?" I asked.
"A domestic violence one," June said flatly.
"I’m sorry to ask, but if she was going to that group, could the person who caused her to be there be connected?"
"No," Mitchell’s short answer seemed unusual for him.
"He’s in jail," said June, looking me directly in the eye through the rearview mirror.
"I see." I didn’t know what else to say.
My phone lit up with a photo of Lucas and me, a message from my mother appearing beneath it. Mitchell’s eyes followed mine.
"Tell me about him, about Lucas," he said, nodding towards my phone.
I hesitated. I’d shared plenty with Sarah, and she’d leaked it all, letting it distort and spread from one person to the next.
My mother hated it when I talked about Lucas. The rest of my friends turned their backs on me after what happened between Sarah and me. So I kept it all bottled up, carrying it inside me like a precious vial of poison that I had no choice but to swallow again and again.
However, something in Mitchell’s expression put me at ease. He’d also lost a loved one, and I felt a thin thread of connection with him and with June. Something I hadn’t felt in a while.
But I still didn’t know what to tell him. What we had with Lucas had unraveled slowly, morphing from a promising start into a nightmare that remained suspended the moment he vanished.
"What do you want to know?" I turned to Mitch, taking my eyes off the road for a second.
"Well, for instance, how long were you together?"
"Almost two years."
"What’s your take on what happened to him? Did he mention anything weird before he disappeared? Maybe his behavior changed?"
"I’m not sure." It had been so long, sometimes I doubted if I had ever really known him at all.
June chimed in from the back, "They say you murdered him." She grinned, seemingly pleased with the reaction—my uncomfortable silence and her brother’s disapproving glance, and then added, "But we kinda ruled that out. So, the mystery remains."
"Well, maybe this psychic lady will shed some light on the story."
"Ever been to one?" Mitch asked.
"A psychic? No, never," I mused, and then added with a forced laugh, "If she starts talking to the dead, I’m so outta there!"
"Don’t believe in the supernatural?" he said with a chuckle.
"I guess not."
"Me neither. Although," Mitchell scratched his head thoughtfully, "I have seen some weird shit."
"What do you mean?"
June leaned forward, interested, and grabbed our headrests. Clearly, this was a story she hadn’t heard before.
"Shit went down at night when we were on patrol. We were moving through the desert, and then suddenly everything just... stopped."
"What do you mean everything stopped?" his sister interrupted.
"Froze up. Dead silence. No nothing. But it was different from the usual nighttime quiet, you know?
And the weirdest thing, I saw something on the horizon.
" He took on an expression of far-off wonderment.
"It was like a bright light, but it was off, you know? I’d never seen anything like it before. "
"Like a UFO?" I offered.
He shrugged and continued, "I was watching it, and then it just vanished. Like it never even was there. And then, everything went back to normal."
June asked, "And what do you think it was?"
"No idea," Mitchell replied honestly. "But it was really fucking strange. Pardon the language."
I waved it off. No big deal.
"Did anyone else see it besides you?" June asked from the backseat.
"No, it all ended before I thought to call any of the guys."
I smiled slightly, and Mitchell noticed, seeming a bit embarrassed.
"What?"
"Nothing, really. Sorry."
"Speak!" he laughed. "Tell me honestly, what’s my diagnosis?"
"It’s nothing! It’s normal for a person to try to find a supernatural explanation for things."
"Really?"
"Yes. We’re wired to make sense of the inexplicable. It’s just a way of reassuring ourselves that the world still makes sense, even if the explanations we come up with are far-fetched. So, don’t beat yourself up over doubting the rational world. It’s in our nature."
"Thanks, Doc. For a second there, I thought you were gonna tell me I’d lost my mind or something."
"No, not at all," I grinned. "One session would be too little for a diagnosis."
Our fun was interrupted by June nervously fidgeting with the wooden beads on her wrist. I’d thought they were bracelets, but they turned out to be a rosary wrapped tight as an angry serpent around her hand. "Enough flirting. We didn’t come here for that."
Mitchell and I exchanged a glance, slightly embarrassed, even though there was nothing overtly flirty in our conversation, at least not to my knowledge.
A hush fell between us, not because we were obediently following a teenager’s command but because June had skillfully brought back the tense atmosphere that our chatter was dispelling.
Soon, she asked to stop for coffee, and when we got our drinks, she sat without a word in the front seat next to me, throwing over her shoulder, "Mitch, sit in the back. I’m getting a little queasy. "
Her brother didn’t argue with her, but when I caught his reflection in the rearview mirror, he playfully made a face as if to say, "I see you, little sister."
I smiled politely in response. June gave me a stern, "Don’t you dare" glance, her expression clearly conveying, "My brother is off-limits".
I didn’t mind. I wasn’t interested.
September, 2017
He said I couldn’t come with them.
When I arrived at Lucas’s dorm, he was frantically stuffing items into his hiking backpack.
It seemed like he had completely forgotten about our plans but wouldn’t admit it, and my presence only irritated him further.
This camping trip came out of nowhere, and when I started asking questions, he became defensive quickly.
"It’s a guys’ trip. We just wanna hang out."
"You didn’t say anything about it before!"
"So what? What’s your problem?"
"What’s your problem?" I retorted, getting angry. "You’re acting weird, and now you’re going on this trip I’ve never heard about!"
"I did tell you about it. You just didn’t listen, like always!"
"When will you be back?"
"Would you just stop trying to control everything?"
"It’s a simple question!"
"I’ll be back Monday, okay?"
I didn’t anticipate getting into an argument, but I could swear on my life Lucas hadn’t mentioned this trip before. Everything about it was odd, the timing, the secrecy.
Suddenly, he changed his tone, once again becoming loving and caring. "Babe, it’s just a boys’ camping trip. Nothing more. We can hang out next weekend, okay?" He kissed me. "Just go have a girls’ night out or something."
I wasn’t going to, but Sarah called and asked me to hang out with her at a bar because her Tinder date stood her up. By the time I got there, she was already flirting with some guys from the football team—the same guys Lucas had told me he was going camping with. My heart sank.
"Hey girl, why the long face?" she asked, tipsy.
I didn’t respond before taking a shot of Fireball and feeling it burn my insides.
"Lucas went camping with Matt and Jacob."
"But Jacob’s here," she said, looking at me like I was a silly goose and had it all wrong.
"I know."
"Wait, you don’t think he’s—?" She didn’t finish, but I knew what she was going to say.
"I don’t know."
My first thought was to call him, but Sarah stopped me.
"No! Wait till he’s back and ask how it went, and then you can catch him in the lie."
But we didn’t follow through with this plan. Instead, we ended up getting drunk and sending Lucas pictures of us with his friends. He never responded to any of my texts.
He did get back on Monday but mentioned nothing. He acted normal, and I convinced myself it was all in my head.