Chapter 15 #2
"Well, it will take time to get your car out of the water, if that's even possible.
Getting evidence off the car is unlikely.
" He paused. "Isn't it possible that driving on an unfamiliar road with sharp turns and a fast car behind you might have caused you to panic, take the turn too fast and then overcorrect, sending you over the side of the hill? "
"That isn't what happened," I said. "I can't believe you're trying to make this my fault."
"I'm just suggesting a more likely alternative," the sheriff said.
"It sounds more like you're trying to write this off as just an accident, when that's not what it was."
"We should do this somewhere else," Finn interrupted, his gaze sharpening on my face. "You're freezing and you've been through a lot. Can I take you back to the inn, Cassidy?"
"I can give her a ride," Tyler said. "I'm staying right by the inn."
"Do you two know each other?" the sheriff asked curiously, his gaze moving to Tyler. "You're the architect, right? The one staying at the Morrison house?"
"Yes," Tyler said.
"You've been asking a lot of questions about the inn," the sheriff continued.
"If I'm going to buy into the neighborhood, I need to know my neighbors," Tyler said.
"And how do you two know each other?" Sheriff Holloway asked, his narrowed gaze suspicious.
"We met a few days ago," I said.
"I think it would be best if I took you back to the inn, Ms. Bennett," the sheriff suggested. "I'd feel better knowing you were safe."
I didn't know if I was safe anywhere, especially at the inn, but all I said was, "It's fine. I'll go with Tyler."
"All right," the sheriff said, looking unhappy with my decision. "We'll talk again tomorrow when your head is clear."
I didn't really see the point of that, but I was happy to see him head back to his car.
"Are you sure?" Finn asked, shooting Tyler a speculative look. "Can you trust him, Cassidy?"
"She can probably trust me more than you," Tyler retorted. "Considering how her friend returned from a day out with you."
Finn's lips tightened, but he looked away from Tyler to me. "I just want you to be safe. You might not believe that, but it's the truth."
"I appreciate that, Finn. And thank you for risking your life to save me, but I think I'll get a ride with Tyler."
Finn seemed disappointed with my answer, but he walked back to his vehicle, and I followed Tyler to his car.
As I fastened my seat belt and Tyler pulled onto the road, I felt an unexpected sense of terror.
I was on the side of the car nearest to the edge, and I found myself gripping my hands tightly together and focusing desperately on the road ahead.
There was a fire engine in front of us and Finn was behind us, so I should have felt safer being sandwiched between those vehicles, but I didn't. It also didn't matter that I had Tyler at my side, that I wasn't alone, but I couldn't shake the anxiety that threatened to overwhelm me.
Even breathing seemed difficult. Every gulp of air made me want to run.
But there was nowhere to go. I just had to get through this.
Tyler suddenly reached out and put his hand on my leg. "You're safe, Cassidy. Just keep breathing."
"I need to get off this road."
"We're almost there. Two miles to go."
It only took five minutes to reach his house, but it felt like forever.
When he pulled into the driveway, I practically jumped out of the car and immediately leaned over, fighting the urge to throw up.
Tyler waited for me to pull myself together and then he let me into the house without comment.
I felt another wave of relief when he turned on the lights.
I flopped down on the covered couch in the living room, happy to have the support beneath my shaky legs.
"I'll turn on the heat," Tyler said.
I nodded, rubbing my hands together as I tried to get warm.
He returned a moment later. "Can I get you something to drink? Something to eat?"
"Not yet. My stomach is still churning."
"Understandable." He sat down in the chair across from me. "I'm sorry about what happened, Cassidy."
"Me too." I paused. "The car is gone. It wasn't mine or Tessa's. She borrowed it from her roommate. We're going to have to buy her another car." I didn't know why I was focusing on that when I had so many other things to worry about.
"One step at a time. You're in shock. Don't try to fix anything right now."
"I couldn't fix it, even if I wanted to." I met his gaze. "Someone tried to kill me tonight. It wasn't an accident, even though Sheriff Holloway wanted to make it seem like I'd just gotten jumpy with someone coming up fast behind me. That wasn't what happened."
"I believe you."
His quiet reassurance helped more than he could know.
"Thank you. But who would have taken the trouble to set me up like that, to create the obstacle in the road, the detour sign?
How would they even know I'd be on that road?
I know someone hit my car and forced me off the road, but I suppose it's possible they weren't responsible for the tree being down.
Maybe they were following me from the hospital, and they took advantage of the opportunity.
But I didn't tell anyone I was going to see Tessa, except you.
" For a split second, I wondered if I should have taken Finn or the sheriff up their offer to drive me back to the inn.
"I didn't tell anyone," Tyler said. "But I'm sure Ellen knew you were going to visit Tessa at some point today. Maybe Finn, too. He knows she's in the hospital. That means his family knows, and word gets around. He was also coming from that direction."
I let out a sigh. "You're just broadening the possible list of suspects," I said grumpily. "That's not helpful."
He gave me a brief smile. "Sorry. You've had a rough time. I don't have much in the way of food, but I have some fruit and cheese. Let me make you something to eat."
"Okay." I wasn't hungry, but I needed a moment alone to think about what happened.
As Tyler left the room to go into the kitchen, I pulled my bag over my head and set it on the couch next to me, trying to breathe slowly, to calm down.
When I started to feel better, I pulled out my phone, seeing a bunch of missed messages from Morgan.
I skimmed through them to see if there was anything urgent to attend to, but it was mostly just updates on the sponsorships and inquiries about what was going on here.
I would talk to her later when I had my wits about me. Right now, there was no point in worrying her or Tessa. Morgan couldn't do anything to help me, and Tessa needed to focus on getting well.
A few moments later, Tyler brought out two paper plates filled with peanut butter sandwiches, cheese, apple slices, carrots, and crackers. He set them on the coffee table and joined me on the couch. "You're not allergic to nuts, are you?"
"No. And I've eaten plenty of peanut butter in the last few months."
"Why is that?"
"I lost my job three months ago, and I live in a very expensive, very small studio apartment in Manhattan, so I've been watching my money."
"You've been living on peanut butter, but you still thought it was a good idea to come to Maine and spend a week at the inn and chase down an old mystery?"
"When you say it like that, I don't come off that smart."
He smiled. "Sorry."
"You're not wrong. But the podcast could be profitable, so Tessa and I thought of this as a work trip."
"What does she do for a living?"
"She has a lot of part-time jobs, same as me.
We were working for the same media company when they decided to lay off half the workforce.
We found ourselves unemployed with very little notice, along with the third person in our podcast trio.
" I paused, popping a piece of pepperjack cheese into my mouth.
I swallowed, then said, "The podcast started out as a lark, an offshoot from a book club we were in.
We loved true crime and no one else did, so we decided to have our own club, and then we turned it into a podcast. It started out slow, but eventually we got a following. "
"And that's when you decided to become detectives, not just podcasters."
"Yes. And I'm starting to see the downside of that decision.
I'm really out of my depth, Tyler. I always thought of myself as a good investigator, a great researcher, someone who could find small details and piece together clues to solve a mystery.
I love to read. I love to write. I always wanted to be a journalist, and this seemed like a good way to test the waters. I never thought we'd end up targets."
"You didn't? You just said you're trying to solve a cold case. Don't you think that if someone killed Natalie and Jessica, and God knows who else, they'd want to protect that secret?"
"I guess I never thought we'd get close enough to the answer to make anyone nervous." I paused. "And I don't think we are that close. So why are they nervous? Why do they need to get rid of us?"
"Because you know more than you think," he said simply.
"I know very little." I took a bite of my sandwich, thinking about what I did know, and it didn't amount to much.
"Maybe it was Nathan who ran you off the road," Tyler suggested. "He drugged Tessa, so she'd forget what he'd told her. And after talking to you, maybe he thought you were a threat, too."
"But I wasn't alone when I saw Nathan; I was with you. Why wouldn't you be a target, too?"
As I finished my statement, we both stared at each other, and the house felt suddenly cold again and very isolated.
"I shouldn't have come here," I said. "You could be a target, too, and now we're together."
"Hang on," he said as I put my plate on the table, ready to get the hell out of there. "It might not have been Nathan at all."
"But he was the one who was nervous earlier."
"It could have been Finn," Tyler suggested. "He was with Nathan yesterday. He brought Tessa home in a bad condition. And he just happened to be very close behind you on that road."
I frowned at the reminder. "I thought that, too, when he first showed up.
I had this terrible fear he hadn't come to save me but to finish me off.
But that's not what happened. He risked his life to get me out of the car.
He wouldn't have done that if he was the one who sent me down there in the first place.
He would have just left me there. I probably couldn't have gotten out of the car or up that hill without him.
And by the time you arrived, it would have been too late. I don't think it was Finn."
"Okay, but there's still Ellen and Ray. Maybe they never wanted you to make it back to the inn, and this was a way to get rid of you without tying your accident to the inn."
"That's true, but I need answers, not more theories," I said wearily. "I don't know what to do or who to trust."
"You can trust me, Cassidy. We're on the same side."
That seemed right, but my head was spinning, and I felt like I should be by myself, because the only person I could really trust was me. "I want to go back to the inn now."
"That's not a good idea. At least, wait until morning. You can sleep on the couch. You can get your bearings."
"Isn't this where you sleep? On that sleeping bag." I tipped my head to the bag next to the fireplace.
"I can sleep on the floor. It's not a big deal. I'd like to keep an eye on you."
"I appreciate that. I do. But I need to update my podcast. I need to clean up, and I need to sleep tonight so I can figure out what to do tomorrow. Will you take me back?"
His slight hesitation sent a moment of panic through me, but then he nodded and gave me a reassuring smile and said, "Of course. Why don't you finish eating first? Then we'll go."
I picked up my sandwich again and as I ate, I said, "Did you find out anything from the building department about the inn?"
"No, it was closed when I got there. I'll have to try tomorrow."
"Maybe I can look around the inn tomorrow morning, see if I can find any doors leading down to a basement."
"You should wait on that. I'd prefer you to stay above the basement level, preferably in the main area of the inn where there are lots of people around. You can't trust Ellen or Ray, and everyone who works there is loyal to Ellen."
"I think the sheriff is loyal to her, too. I bet he already told her about my accident."
"I wouldn’t doubt it."
"I thought that Tessa's public fall down the stairs last night would create a protective bubble around me, that no one would want to take a chance on hurting me and bringing more scrutiny, but I was wrong. I wasn't safe."
"You also weren't at the inn, so no one can blame Ellen or Ray," he said. "Maybe it's time for you and Tessa to go home, or for you to leave Stonecross. Go to Seabrook, stay there."
"Without telling Jessica or Natalie's story? I can't quit now. And I'm not sure Seabrook would be any safer. It might be even easier to get to me there."
"If you don't quit, you might not survive. Is being a journalist, making money off a podcast, worth your life?"
I gave him a pained look as I said, "No, but I also want to live a life of courage and meaning, and sometimes that means taking a risk."
"You're not a quitter. That's an admirable trait."
I smiled at the irony of his words. "And a trait that has not been attributed to me in the past. My father would tell you that one of his biggest disappointments in me is how easily I give up, change my mind, and take the easy way out."
"Is that why you can't quit now, because you're trying to prove something to your father?" he asked curiously.
"It's more about proving something to myself." I got to my feet. "Will you take me back now?"
"I don't want to, but I will. And just for the record, if you change your mind, if you decide to quit on all this, I won't think any less of you. You'd be choosing the wisest possible course, and I don't really want to see you end up like Natalie or Jessica."
"I just wish we knew how they actually ended up," I murmured. "Because right now, we have no idea if they're dead or alive. I very much want them to be alive. I know that's not probable, but it is possible, and that makes me want to keep going."