35. Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jax
A llie runs away from the garage and falls to her knees in the grass, and I run after her.
"Sage is on the phone with the detective," Drew calls out. "Is she okay?"
Bending, I rub her back as she vomits onto the ground, her body retching as the contents of her stomach lands on the grass. I'm glad it's dark because I'm not sure I could keep my dinner down. Her physical reaction to this place makes my mind run wild with the different scenarios that could have happened here. All of which make me hate Laura even more.
"Are you okay, baby?" I ask as she seems to calm down.
Her heaving turns into sobs, and I reach out to pull her to stand and rest against me with my arms wrapped tightly around her. I wish she'd talk to me to let me know what's happening, but I'm not certain she could find the words right now. She clings to me as I half carry her away from the vomit to avoid any mishaps .
Benji runs over to us while Drew walks around the front of the house with Sage. "What's wrong?"
"I'm okay," Allie says and wipes her eyes.
"It's okay if you're not," he says, and I'm really glad I called our friends to come with us.
Pulling away, she shakes her head and sighs as she looks at the house. "I know I needed to find this place. Knew it would be the last thing we need to figure out all the missing pieces, but I completely ignored the memories it would invoke."
"That bad?" Benji asks, his hand taking hers.
"Until we found it, it wasn't fully real. It's very real now, again, and it just... It hit me like a ton of bricks."
"Do you want to leave? I think Sage and Drew can handle things here if you want to go."
I've never been more grateful for my friends than in this very moment. They care and worry about my girl as much as I do, and it's easy to forget. We were just so engrained in each other's lives that we sometimes overlook things that inevitably get taken for granted because of how common they are. The way Benji and Drew came into the house looking more serious than I've ever seen them, to the way Benji tries to console Allie when he knows I'm struggling for words makes me love them even more.
Allie shakes her head. "I want to wait. I want to see this through. It's just... It's a lot to try and take in at once."
We walk to the front of the house to join the others and see headlights driving down the dirt and gravel road. Lots of headlights. Allie just sits on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest, and she rests her arms on them with her chin on top.
"You okay?" Drew asks me, his voice quiet .
"I'm not the one who went through all of this," I say, my eyes locked on Allie's form in the dark.
He pulls me back a little way to try and keep our conversation between us, and he looks at me. "Jax, talk to me. This is affecting me, so I can only imagine what it feels like for you."
I scan the area, and I swallow the lump in my throat. "Seven years," I whisper. "She was stuck here for seven years."
"I know."
"There are no basement windows. This is what she walked through to get away. The fucking moon was the only light she had that night."
He reaches out and squeezes my bicep. "But she made it."
"She never should have gone through this in the first place. She was so fucking close, man. We just never knew."
"I can totally believe it," Benji says, his fists clenched at his sides.
"Believe what?" Drew asks as we walk back to the group.
Sage sighs as she sits beside Allie and wraps an arm around her shoulders. "That Laura could do this."
My stomach knots. "Honestly?" I ask. "I have my doubts. I mean, she's crazy and clearly obsessed. That's not in question, but this feels crazier than even she's capable of."
"Maybe being so intimate with her clouds your judgement, dude. We all believe she's capable of this," Benji says.
Drew and Sage turn and nod their heads in the light of the flashlights we've set up as beacons for the police to find us. Allie doesn't look in my direction, and I feel like I've betrayed her in the worst way. I know the idea of me being with Laura bothers her more as she's coming to terms with all of this.
"I guess maybe I'm just struggling to comprehend that someone I was almost, possibly, kind of considering marrying would have done something so heinous to the only woman I've ever truly loved. Just to have me. That's batshit crazy."
"People do crazy things for love all the time," Allie says, and I hate the tone of her voice. Defeated. Traumatized. Disgusted.
The cars pull up in front of us, and Parsons steps out with an expression that lets us all know he's even angrier than normal. Probably because it's close to two in the morning now.
"You came out here, alone?" Parsons barks at us.
I'm about to tell him to watch his tone, but Allie stands and squares her shoulders. "I came through the woods at night because I needed to retrace my steps. Last time, you were more than a little off-putting, no offense, and I had to find the house. And I did."
"It was stupid to walk through the woods at night without protection," he argues, his tone a bit softer.
"Yeah, but you guys didn't come this way to look for the house," Benji points out. "And would you have climbed out of bed at one in the morning to come walk with a group of people through the woods?"
Glaring, Parsons rubs his bald head. "No, I would've told you to wait until daylight."
"That's why I had to come at night. Everything looks different in the daylight. Plus, having limited visibility made me follow my intuition. We found my Jeep," Allie says.
His face changes from annoyed to intrigued. "You did?"
"It's in the garage next to another car. I don't know whose it is, though. There was never anyone besides me here. Me and the person who fed me."
"You never mentioned a garage," Detective Shields says as she joins us .
Allie leads them to the back door and points to the woods. "I ran that way. From this angle, I can't see it. It falls into the shadow of the house."
"But you remember this?"
She nods. "I remember the back door and these steps. I remember thinking I was going to get a splinter from the rotting wood, but I don't think I did. If I did, I didn't notice. I can't see inside, but I know there's nothing in the upper level but a couple of chairs and a small table. No one lives here. It was only me."
"Parsons!" one of the cops says. "You're going to want to check this out."
Shields waits for Parsons to leave, and she smiles at us. "I never said this," she says, her voice low, "but good job."
"I had to find it," Allie says. "I kind of wish I hadn't now, though."
"The house is owned by the uncle of Daniel Tomlin. He passed away a few years ago, so it obviously wasn't the uncle," Shields says, clicking through the tablet in her hands. "It was rented eight years ago by a Natalie Gill. Do you know her?"
Shaking her head, Allie looks to me. I gape as I try to explain, "That's, uh, that's... that's Laura's best friend. She was going to be the maid of honor."
"You know her?"
I shake my head, the weight of everything feeling like it’s pulling me down to the ground. It's true. Laura had a hand in this. There's no way Natalie would have done this herself when neither of us ever met her.
"I never met her. Every time she was supposed to show up, she’d make some excuse. Laura said she was camera shy, so she didn't have any pictures of her. I was likely going to meet her for the first time at the wedding. "
Drew holds up a finger. "Wait, I think that's who Laura was on the phone with at the engagement party. Her back was to us, so I think she was on the phone. I overheard her say the name Nat when I went to ask her if she'd heard from Jax."
"That's who she was talking to at the hospital, too," Benji says. "It looked like she was talking to herself, but I think she was on the phone. Wearing ear buds or something."
"We'll find her," Shields assures us.
"So, are we saying Natalie helped Laura do this?" he asks. "Or did Natalie do this for Laura?"
"There's no way someone we've never met would do this without Laura's help," Sage says, her hand holding tightly onto Allie's. "Allie, babe, you good?"
She swallows and lets out a shaky breath. "It's... I don't know."
"Allie?" I say, my heart thumping in my chest.
"I just need a moment, Jax," she says.
I know she's trying not to blame me, but I don't know how she couldn't. I blame me. It's because of me that Laura ended up in our lives to begin with. I let her hang around even though I didn't particularly like her in middle school and high school because I felt bad for her. Had that not happened, Allie and I would be married right now with a kid or two.
"You're never going to believe this," Parsons says to Shields.
Everyone turns to look at him as she asks, "What?"
"That other car? The license plate matches a car reported missing almost two decades ago. A 1998 silver Honda Civic belonging to Heidi Moran. "
Gasping, Allie looks at Sage with wide eyes. "Laura's the one who brought up Ms. Moran's disappearance when she visited with us. She's the one who gave us Danny's name."
"She knew there was a connection," Sage says. "She knew what happened to Ms. Moran and what happened to Allie were really similar because she was responsible."
Allie shakes her head. "Do we really think Laura kidnapped her when she was only thirteen? How'd she get the car here? She wasn't old enough to drive."
"Think about it," she argues. "Aside from you being found seven years after you were kidnapped, your disappearances are almost exactly the same. Ms. Moran vanished without a trace. Along with her car. Her car was found in the same place you were held. These two things are connected. They were committed by the same person."
"She was thirteen when Ms. Moran vanished. Danny's uncle owned the house then. Neither she nor Natalie, unless Natalie's forty-five, could have rented this house. What if it wasn't Laura?"
"If it wasn't her, it doesn't mean she didn't have a part in it," Benji says. "Maybe Danny's uncle was the one who did this to Ms. Moran? There was that rumored affair between Danny and her. Laura may have learned what to do from him. Or Natalie did, and she did this for Laura. Either way, Laura's tied to this. I know it. Sorry, Jax, but she's a fucking loon."
My body feels numb. It feels like there has to be a connection, but Allie's right. Even I couldn't have kidnapped Ms. Moran back then, and I was always tall for my age. Lanky, but tall. And I couldn't drive to save my life. It seems too coincidental that they wouldn't be connected, though. And I can't disagree with Benji. As much as I want to say Laura had nothing to do with this to make myself feel better, I can actually believe it deep down.
"We'll figure out what happened. Now that we have the cars, we have evidence. Whoever did this will be found," Shields assures.
"You helped solve your own case as well as a two decades old cold one," Parsons says. "I still think it was stupid to come out here alone at night, but I can't argue it was helpful."
At least we have his approval, I guess. I feel like our discoveries tonight have given us more questions than answers, though. Even though I don't want Laura to be the one who did this, I also don't want her released. She's clearly a danger to Allie, and I don't want her able to come near her ever again. I don't know what we're going to do if nothing ties Laura to this. Maybe move?
Allie walks over and wraps her arms around me, and I know she's just as confused as I am. The sight of this house doesn't make me feel any better about where she was when I couldn't find her. It just adds more reality to the terrible thoughts I have in my head when I think about what happened to her. Thoughts that keep me up awake at night, just the same as Allie’s nightmares about this place.
We need closure, but I don't know how we'll get that. Until we do, I worry we won't be able to move past any of this.