Chapter Twenty-Three
Dylan
After Hunter walks out of the bar, I go back to our table and just sit there. My burger is cold. I pick up a fry. It bends, limp. I drop it back onto the plate.
The Four Corners keeps moving around me. People laugh. Glasses clink. Music booms from somewhere overhead, but it all feels distant, like I’m underwater and the world is happening somewhere far above the surface.
Whether I want them to or not, Hunter’s words replay in my head.
You never actually trust me.
My chest tightens. He’s right, and that’s the worst part.
Back when we were seventeen, I told myself I was protecting him. That leaving was the noble thing. That I was stepping aside so he could have the future he deserved. I couldn’t stand the idea of being the one who held him back.
I didn’t believe someone like Hunter could keep loving someone like me if things got hard.
So I made the choice for both of us.
I lean forward, elbows on the table, pressing my palms against my eyes. I should have told him, talked about what happened back then, before we started things up again now.
I screwed this up.
For a few days, I let myself believe things might be different this time. That maybe the years apart had changed us enough that we could find our way back to each other without repeating the same mistakes. But some habits just run too deep.
Hunter wants honesty. Partnership. The chance to stand beside someone he can trust to have his back.
And I don’t give him that.
The server approaches cautiously, all her bounce from earlier replaced with unease. “You need a box for that?”
I glance down at the untouched plate.
“No,” I say quietly. “I’m good.”
She nods and takes mine and Hunter’s plates away without another word.
I sit there a few minutes longer, staring at the empty space where the food used to be while I wait for the bill, letting it settle. Hunter’s gone, and this time, I might have pushed him too far to come back.
The server returns with the check, and I pay, including a good tip to make up for the awkwardness. Once she’s gone, I force myself to stand.
The bar feels even louder now, the noise grating against my nerves. I pull on my coat and step outside into the cold night air.
The parking lot is half empty, snow crunching under my boots as I cross to the truck. For a moment I just stand there, staring at it. I still have Hunter’s keys. Did he walk?
The thought makes my stomach twist. His knee was already irritating him. Walking across town in this cold wouldn’t help.
That’s Hunter, of course. He needs space, so he takes it, even if he won’t be able to walk tomorrow.
With a sigh, I unlock the truck and slide into the driver’s seat. The silence inside the vehicle feels heavier than the noise in the bar did, and I do my best not to think about how awkward it will be back at the inn together.
“You really screwed this up,” I mutter to myself, inserting the key into the ignition. I turn it, but the engine sputters before going silent.
“What the hell?” I frown and try again. The starter clicks uselessly.
I lean back against the seat, staring up at the dark ceiling of the truck. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Of course this would happen tonight. Honestly, the way my luck is running. I don’t know how I haven’t been struck by lightning or swallowed by a previously invisible fissure in the Earth. Because apparently the universe has decided I haven’t suffered quite enough humiliation yet.
I sit there for another minute, considering my options. Walking back to the inn is doable, but it’s a long way, and the temperature has dropped considerably since the sun went down. Is there a ride share in a town this small?
Before I can check, headlights sweep across the lot. A familiar truck pulls into a space a few spots away. Jim climbs out, pulling his coat tighter around himself as he spots me.
“Oh, hey,” he calls. “Everything alright?”
I crack the door, since the power windows aren’t working. “Truck won’t start.”
Jim strolls closer, concern creasing his weathered face. “Battery?”
I shrug. “Seems like it.”
The truth is, I have no idea. I’ve never been especially mechanical.
“I have jumper cables back at the inn. I can go back, get them, then bring them back and give you a jump. Want a lift?”
Normally, I’d hesitate. I don’t know, Jim. Technically, he’s a suspect in Matthew’s disappearance. Admittedly, an unlikely one. But, tonight, I’m too tired to care.
Besides, this is Hunter’s truck. I should probably let him know what’s happening. I consider calling him or sending a text, but I’m not convinced he’ll answer.
“That’d be great,” I tell Jim.
“Hop in.”
I climb down from the driver’s seat, close the door and lock it before following Jim over to his truck. The heater blasts warm air the moment we climb inside, the dashboard lights casting a soft glow across the cab.
Once I’m buckled into the passenger seat, Jim pulls out of the parking lot, tires crunching over frozen gravel.
“Tough night?” he asks casually.
“Something like that.”
He glances at me and frowns before turning his attention back to the road. “Where’s the other one?”
Irritation tightens the skin at the back of my neck. I know he means Hunter, just like I know Jim knows Hunter’s name. Jim believes we’re together, even if I’m not sure what we are to each other now.
“He went back to the inn.”
Jim chuckles. “Relationships. Never simple, huh?”
I shoot him a sharp look. He’s presuming an awful lot just from Hunter leaving the bar before me. “Why do you say that?”
“There was someone waiting for your guy at the inn, another man.”
Everything inside me goes cold. I know Hunter isn’t seeing anyone else. He told me so, and Hunter isn’t a liar, so who the hell would be waiting for him back at the inn? My mind jumps to the intruder in our room. My heart stutters.
“Who?” I ask.
Jim shrugs. “Don’t know. Said he was a friend.”
My heart rate kicks up, the fast, steady thud reverberating through my body. I fumble my phone out of my pocket. I should call Hunter, or text him, or something.
My thumb pauses over his number, but the words get stuck somewhere between my brain and my fingers. What do you say after a fight like that?
Sorry I spent half our lives not trusting you. Oh, and by the way, who is the guy waiting for you?
Yeah. That’ll go over well.
I glance out the window and frown. Dark farm fields stretch out on one side of the narrow road, thick forest rising up on the other side. Where the fuck are we? Jim seems to be skirting the edge of the town rather than driving straight through it.
I twist in my seat, watching him as he shifts gears.
That’s when I see it.
The watch.
At first, just a glint of metal peeking out from his sleeve and catching the dashboard light.
A familiar shape.
A familiar band.
My stomach drops. Holy shit. I lean slightly closer, pretending to adjust the vent, so I can get a better look. Silver casing. Black leather strap. But it’s the small scratch across the glass near the three o’clock mark.
The watch had been a birthday gift, and my parents had been pissed when I’d scratched the glass. My heart pounds.
I’d been wearing the watch the night I left town, and I’d been wearing it still when my car died on some back road and I had no idea where I was.
Ten years ago.
I swallow hard, my mind racing. The night comes back in fragments. The narrow road, winding between the trees. The cold rain soaked through me. My backpack straps digging into my shoulders.
I thought I would die of hypothermia... or drown. When the gray sedan emerged from the gloom, pulling up alongside me and the man inside offered me a ride, I’d been so relieved.
He got out of the car instead of unlocking the passenger door. I thought it was strange, but I still wasn’t worried. At least, not until the man pulled out a huge hunting knife.
He demanded my wallet, watch, and even my backpack, then tossed everything into the backseat of his car, never taking his eyes off me, never lowering his knife.
I thought about trying to bolt. He was bigger than me, and he could probably overpower me if he got his hands on me.
That knife was no joke, either. But I was younger than him and in better shape. I could probably outrun him.
The man reached behind him and opened the trunk, which I had just noticed was already a few inches open. He must have popped it before getting out of the car.
“Get in.” He pointed to the trunk with the tip of his knife.
Yeah, fuck that. I stepped back, but before I could bolt, his free hand shot out faster than I’d given him credit for.
His fingers curled into my soaked hoodie at my shoulder and jerked me forward.
At the same time, he brought down the knife hilt to the side of my head with a loud crack.
White-hot pain exploded in my skull like a firework, and I staggered back.
I might have gone down if he hadn’t still had a grip on my hoodie.
“In!” He shoved me, and I stumbled toward the trunk. I had to stop this. I had to run, but the world had tilted sideways, and agony gripped my head.
The distant hiss of tires on wet pavement rose up over the falling rain, and the man looked away. I jerked free of him and dashed into the woods. It was pitch black, and I hid behind a tree, but I could still see the man and his car.
He’d quickly slammed the trunk closed, got back behind the wheel and driven away before the car we’d heard approaching sped past. I don’t know how long I walked, staying in the trees and freezing up whenever I heard a car pass, before I stumbled into The Maple Shade bruised and shaken, but alive.
Could Jim and the guy I met that night be the same person?
My stomach turns. It had been a decade since that night, and I couldn’t really remember the man’s face.
And Jim could have picked that watch up from a thrift store, for all I knew.
Except I’m here looking for a man who’d stayed in Jim’s inn and disappeared. That’s not a coincidence.
I think of all the men who have disappeared from the area, and a slow, sickening realization spreads through my chest. I had almost been one of them.
I stare at Jim’s wrist; my pulse roars. It’s the same watch. I know it. I force my breathing to stay steady. What do I do?
Think.
My mind spins.
If Jim killed Matthew... if he’s been watching us... if he knows what we’re investigating...
Then getting into this truck might have been the worst mistake of my life.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask. It’s clear we’re not headed back to the inn. I glance at the door handle, calculating distance, speed, and timing. Too fast to jump safely, but the next time he stops at a stop sign or slows to turn a corner...
He doesn’t answer.
He’s not going to.
I open my mouth to ask again—
Jim moves first. His fist comes out of nowhere and connects with my jaw so hard my vision explodes in white light. Pain detonates across my jaw.
“What the—” The rest of the sentence never comes out.
Jim’s truck swerves slightly as he yanks the wheel, then pulls sharply onto the shoulder of the road. Before I can recover, his fist slams into me again.
Stars burst across my vision. I taste blood, and the world tilts violently.
Jim turns toward me, his expression completely different from the affable innkeeper. His features are hard, cold, focused and stripped of every ounce of humanity. Like something wearing Jim’s face.
“You should’ve kept your mouth shut,” he says quietly.
My ears ring. I try to reach for the door, but my arms feel heavy, slow. My vision is shrinking.
The last thing I see before darkness swallows the world around me is the glint of that watch in the dashboard light as Jim reaches for me.