Chapter Fourteen
Dylan
Istart the truck and glance at Hunter, but he just shrugs. Justine shifts in the backseat, her gaze bouncing from one window to another as if she’s trying to watch every direction at once.
“Are you in danger?” Hunter asks, turning in his seat. I catch him wincing, and I have to fight the urge to reach out and rub his knee. I know it’s hurting more than he wants me to believe, and I want him back in our room on our bed, so he can rest.
“I don’t know,” Justine says, settling behind me and pulling on her seatbelt. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea that anyone sees me talking to you. People notice things in this town, and once they do, they don’t forget it.”
“Where should I go?” I ask, backing out of the parking spot.
“I don’t know.”
Justine guides me from the parking lot, through downtown, and to a pretty park on the edge of a fast-running river. Surrounded by bare trees, it was probably prettier in warmer months, but on a rainy day at the end of winter, no one is around.
I steer us into an empty parking lot next to a playground and cut the engine. Silence settles over the car, except for the steady hush from the river and the squeak from the metal chains on the swings in front of us every time the wind kicks up.
“You know,” Hunter says, twisting in his seat and flashing Justine a disarming smile that softens his features. “We appreciate you agreeing to talk to us, but this is a pretty remote spot to meet two strange men you don’t know.”
“I know,” she says, looking out the window next to her. “It’s weird. Lately, I feel safer with strangers than with people I’ve known my whole life.”
Hunter frowns. “Why is that?”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she turns away from the window and looks at me. Her eyes are dark and hard, and I feel like she can see right through me. “Are you really Matthew’s cousin?”
“No,” I tell her. The way Kirkland easily poked holes in my cover story yesterday proved how flimsy it had been. No point in keeping it going. “He worked for me for a few weeks, and we became friends. When he disappeared, I wasn’t sure there was anyone else who would look for him.”
Her throat bobs as if she’s struggling to swallow, and her eyes turn glassy. “You’re not wrong. I don’t think anyone else would look for him, except me.”
“Doesn’t he have an aunt back in Maine?” Hunter asks. “I thought she looked after him after his mother...”
“Disappeared?” Justine asks. She knew about Matthew’s mother. He’d confided in her more than he ever had me. How much did she know about why he’d come to Coldwater, and how much would she actually tell us?
Hunter leans closer. “That’s right. Did he tell her where he was going, or why?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, but I doubt it. Matty said he felt like an obligation, and she seemed relieved when he told her he was leaving.”
He couldn’t have told her about his plans for his movie. No matter how ambivalent his aunt’s feelings were toward him, I doubted she would have been okay with him coming here if she’d known the subject of his film.
“I don’t think he spoke to her once he started living in Coldwater,” Justine adds.
“Did he tell you about his film?” I ask. “What it’s about?”
Justine nibbles on her lower lip and nods. “He told me he wanted to make a movie about the disappearances connected to Coldwater. I thought it was kind of dumb, you know? I mean, people disappear everywhere. If Coldwater were any different, wouldn’t the police be doing something about it?”
I think of the map Hunter showed me before coming to Coldwater, marking the people who had vanished from the area. Just a few every year for the past seventeen years, not enough to notice in the moment, not until you stepped back and considered the last decade and a half as a whole.
“Did you tell him that?” I ask.
“Yeah, but he said the pattern is easy to miss because it’s over such a long period of time. He said the same thing happened in his hometown around the same time his mom and stepfather disappeared.”
I look over at Hunter, and he looks at me. His brows lift, and he shoots me a that’s-interesting look.
“You know about that, right?” Justine asks. “That other people had gone missing around the same time his parents did?”
“We knew about his parents. Did he talk about what happened to them very much?” I ask. Did he believe that what happened to them had something to do with what was happening here? He must have. Why else would it have mattered to him?
She shakes her head, wraps her arms around her middle as if she’s cold. I turn the car back on and turn up the heat.
She shrugs. “Not much. Matty really only talked about the film he was making when he asked me to be in it and answer some questions about the men who disappeared.”
Hunter leans closer. Twisting around in his seat to look at Justine must be killing his knee, but his stoic expression gives nothing away. “What kind of questions did he ask?”
“Just what I knew about those men who vanished. I’ve lived here my whole life, and he wanted to know what the people in town say about the people who have gone missing.”
“What do they say?” I ask.
She shrugs again and turns back to the window.
A thin layer of steam coats the glass, and she traces her finger through it, making squiggly lines.
“Not a lot. I don’t think most people know.
I mean, sometimes there’ll be an article in the local paper about someone who was passing through Coldwater, and now their family is looking for them.
But it’s not all the time, or anything, just every once in a while.
I don’t think most people know how many men have gone missing or were last seen in Coldwater.
I didn’t until Matthew showed me. Even then, I still didn’t think it was a big deal.
I thought it was just a coincidence.” Hunter goes still beside me, his jaw tightening.
I look at Hunter again and see how he stiffens. The tension is barely discernible to someone who doesn’t know how much he hates that word. “But you don’t think that anymore?”
She draws a trembling breath and turns away from the window, meeting Hunter’s gaze. “I think Matty found something, or someone dangerous, and he had to run.”
“Why do you think that?” I ask, remembering how hunted Matthew looked when he walked into my café.
She swallows hard. “I knew something was wrong, even before he left Coldwater. He was jumpy and nervous, then he turned up at my apartment. It was storming, but he had all his film equipment with him, and he asked me to hold on to it. He said I was the only person he trusted not to ask questions. He told me that if anything happened to him, he wanted me to take it all to the police.”
“Did you take his things to the police?” Hunter asks.
She shakes her head.
“Why?” Why didn’t you do what he asked? Maybe the police would finally start looking for him.
“I didn’t know,” she whispers softly. “I didn’t know where he was.
I didn’t know whether he was safe or in danger.
Until I heard about you two, staying at the inn and asking questions about him.
Even then, I didn’t know whether you were telling the truth.
I guess I still don’t.” I can’t blame her when I’m not sure I would have trusted anyone either.
She offers a weak smile that dissolves quickly.
“Will you give us Matthew’s equipment so we can see what he was working on, maybe figure out what sent him running?
” Hunter fishes out a business card from his jacket pocket.
“I’m a private investigator. Dylan hired me when he felt like the police weren’t taking Matthew’s disappearance seriously.
I’d like to review the material and turn over what I find to the police. ”
She nods and wipes at her glassy eyes. “Yeah. You can have it.”
There’s relief in her voice, as if she’s glad to hand the responsibility over. Still, there’s one more thing I want to know.
“When I met him, Matthew had bruises on his throat, like someone choked him.”
She nods. “I saw them too.”
“Did he tell you what happened to him?”
“No, but I didn’t ask. I just assumed Lyle did it. He’s awful, and I could never figure out why Matty stayed with him.”
***
We drive Justine back to her apartment, a small studio over a garage behind a Victorian house, only a little smaller than the inn. She brings out Matthew’s film equipment, and I carefully load the padded bags into the back seat next to her.
“I hope I still have a job,” Justine says before climbing out of the truck when we drop her back at the store. “I’ve been gone a hell of a lot longer than fifteen minutes.”
“Is there anything we can do to help you?” I ask. The last thing I want is for her to be out of work over all this.
“No way. The fewer people who know I spoke to you, the better.”
There are only a few cars in the lot, and no one else is outside, at least that I can see. She should be able to make it inside without anyone else spotting her.
“Who are you afraid of finding out?” Hunter asks.
“I don’t know,” Justine says, popping open the back door. “But Matthew was afraid of someone, and I don’t want to vanish the way he did.”
Before we can say anything else, she climbs out of the truck, shuts the door behind her, and then hurries into the store.
I look over at Hunter, who is already looking at me. “What do you think?”
“I think I want to look at whatever Matthew had filmed before he turned up at your café.”
“You and me both.”
I drive us back to the inn and pull into the driveway behind a rusted white pickup. The rain has let up, and the sky is brighter, as if the sun might actually burn through the veil of gray clouds. Glimpses of blue leave me hopeful for a break from the rain and bleak skies.
I slide out from behind the steering wheel, close the door with a thunk, then move to the back seat for Matthew’s things, but before I open the truck’s rear door, I notice Lyle Kirkland on a ladder, replacing one of the shutters on the side of the inn.
Hunter shifts beside me, and I hear his breath hitch as he puts weight on his bad leg.
Dull anger swells in my chest at the sight of him, and I can’t stop thinking about the chain of bruises around Matthew’s neck the night he showed up at my café, terrified of something, someone.
“Hey!” I storm away from the truck to the bottom of the ladder that Jim is holding in place. “I want to talk to you.”
From behind me, I hear Hunter mutter a curse and follow.
“Mr. Kirkland’s doing some work for me just now,” Jim says, eyeing me carefully. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to speak to you when he’s done.”
I ignore him, my attention fixed on Kirkland. “What did you do to Matthew? How did he get the bruises around his throat?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Even from where I’m standing at the bottom of the ladder, I can see him roll his eyes.
“Someone choked him. Are you telling me it wasn’t you?” My hands are curled into fists at my sides, and I want him to come down from that ladder. He’s bigger than me, taller by a few inches and broader too, but I’m furious at what he did to Matthew, and I think that rage is enough to hold my own.
“It wasn’t me,” Kirkland says, then drops the rotted shutter he’s replacing, and I have to jump back to avoid being hit.
“What the fuck?” Hunter snarls, as pissed off as I feel.
“Gentlemen,” Jim strategically places himself between us and the ladder. “As I said, Mr. Kirkland is doing some work for me right now. If you want to speak to him, you’ll need to wait until he’s done.”
I let out a frustrated sigh, the sound draining some of my anger. Whatever Kirkland did to Matthew, he is never going to admit to it. Even if he did, it wouldn’t bring Matthew back.
“Shit,” I mutter, turning away. I grab Hunter by the elbow and pull him to follow me. “Come on. There’s nothing he can tell us that’s going to help.”
Together, we unload Matthew’s equipment from the truck and carry it all up to our room—camera, mics, tripod, lights, and a hard drive.
After I order Hunter to lie on the bed, before going downstairs and asking Nancy for ice. She hands me a freezer bag full; however, once I’m back in the room, I can only sigh.
Hunter is off the bed and attaching Matthew’s hard drive to his laptop. Before I can order him back to bed, he looks up at me. “There’s a lot of footage on here. Hours and hours. It’s going to take us forever to go through all this.”
“Up,” I tell him, pointing to the bed. “Let’s get this on your knee. Then we can look at Matthew’s work.”
Hunter rolls his eyes, but by some miracle, doesn’t argue. He stands and shimmies out of his pants before flopping back onto the bed in just his underwear and t-shirt. He slides a pillow under his bad knee. “Happy?”
“I will be.” Taking care of him feels instinctive, like something I should have been doing all along. I grab a hand towel from the bathroom and wrap it around the bag of ice before carefully laying it over his scarred knee.
In spite of everything we’ve done together over the past few nights, I haven’t gotten a good look at his injury. The scarring is jagged and red, and it definitely looks swollen from exertion.
He was shot, I think to myself. He could have died. While I’d lost him years ago, let him go, the possibility of him being gone from this world for good ices the blood in my veins.
“Hey.” Hunter’s voice drags my attention from his knee to his face. My expression must give away what I’m thinking, and he reaches for my hand, pulling me closer. “It was a long time ago, and I’m fine. It really doesn’t hurt that much.”
Given that he almost fell on his face earlier, I’m not sure I believe him. My throat feels like it’s shriveled to half its size, and even if I knew what to say, I don’t think I could speak.
“I’m glad,” I finally manage to rasp out. Because I don’t know how I could exist in a world without you. Living away from you is hard enough.
He squeezes my hand and nods at his laptop next to him on the bed. “We should start going through that footage. It’s going to take forever.”
I sit next to him on the bed, and we start watching Matthew’s raw footage.
Nothing has been edited, and nothing is in any consecutive order.
Most of the footage is interviews with local townspeople, some we recognize, but most we don’t, and most don’t believe Matthew’s claims about the disappearances or that there’s anything unusual about them.
Some people even get angry, accusing Matthew of stirring up trouble.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, while we queue up the next interview.
“Of course,” Hunter says.
“Do you think Matthew’s dead?” Just speaking the words aloud makes my chest tighten. I feel like I’ve let him down.
Hunter sighs. “I don’t like to speculate, but it’s been almost two weeks with no sign of him. He obviously got himself mixed up in something. It doesn’t look good.”
My throat squeezes tight. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”