Chapter 14
Vance
Tobias got a job.
It wasn't much. Part-time at a used bookstore in town, the kind of dusty, cramped place where books were stacked floor to ceiling and the owner had stopped caring about organization sometime in the previous century.
The pay was barely above minimum wage, the hours inconsistent, and the heating worked when it felt like it.
He loved it.
I found out when I came home to an empty apartment and a note on the kitchen counter: Got hired at a bookstore. First shift today. Back by six.
The note was written on the back of a receipt, his handwriting careful and precise. I stared at it for a long moment, something warm spreading through my chest.
He came home that evening with dust on his sleeves and a stack of paperbacks he'd bought with his employee discount.
"The owner is this woman named Miriam," he said, practically glowing. "She's seventy-three and has read every book in the store. Every single one. She quizzed me on Hemingway, and I passed, so she hired me on the spot."
"You know Hemingway?"
"I know enough to fake it." He grinned. "Langford education. Finally useful for something."
I pulled him into a kiss, tasting coffee on his lips.
"I'm proud of you," I said.
He ducked his head, but I caught the flush of pleasure before he hid it.
The next morning, my good mood lasted exactly until 10:47 AM.
That's when Cedric radioed me: "Vance, you've got visitors at the front desk. Two guys in suits. They're asking about the Langford wedding."
My blood went cold, but my voice stayed flat.
"I'll be right there."
I found them in the lobby: two men in their mid-forties, exuding the bland professionalism of private investigators. Dark suits, polished shoes, notepads in hand. One was showing a photo to the front desk staff.
A photo of Tobias.
"Gentlemen." I approached with my best neutral expression. "I'm Vance Kessler, Head of Security. How can I help you?"
The taller one turned, assessing me with practiced eyes. "Mr. Kessler. We're with Sterling Investigations. The Langford family has retained us to locate their son, Tobias Langford. I understand you were on duty the day he disappeared?"
"I was."
"We'd like to ask you some questions, if you have a few minutes."
"Of course." I gestured toward the security office. "This way."
I led them down the corridor. Fifteen years of military training had taught me to compartmentalize. The part of me worried about Tobias got locked away. The part that answered questions was all business.
In the office, they sat across from me with their notepads ready.
"Mr. Kessler, can you walk us through your movements on the day of the wedding?"
I recounted the same story I'd given the police: the search, the locked exits, the corridors I checked. Every detail was accurate, except for the fifteen minutes I spent hiding a runaway groom in my storage closet.
"And you found nothing?" The shorter one leaned forward. "No sign of which direction he went?"
"The service corridors are a maze. He could have gone anywhere."
"But he didn't leave through any of the exits."
"Not that we detected."
"So he's still here? In the hotel?"
"We searched every room, every closet, every storage area." I kept my voice flat. "He wasn't here."
They exchanged glances.
"Mr. Kessler," the taller one said, "the Langford family is offering a substantial reward for information leading to their son's location."
"I'm aware."
"If you remember anything—anything at all—that might help us..."
"I've told you everything I know."
Another exchange of glances. The shorter one made a note in his pad.
"One more question." The taller one pulled out his phone and showed me another photo: Tobias at a formal event, smiling that empty smile I remembered from the engagement party. "Have you seen this man since the wedding? Anywhere in town? At a store, a restaurant, anywhere?"
The bookstore. The hardware store. Walking down the street in my clothes.
"No," I said. "I haven't seen him."
They studied me for a long moment. I held their gaze, kept my breathing steady, gave them nothing.
"Well." The taller one stood, tucking away his notepad. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Kessler. If you remember anything..." He handed me a card. "The family is eager to bring their son home."
"I'll keep that in mind."
I walked them back to the lobby, answered a few more questions about hotel security protocols, and shook their hands. Professional. Helpful. Completely unremarkable.
They left satisfied. I had given them nothing to be suspicious about.
But I wasn't the one I was worried about.
Ronan found me in the security office an hour later.
"The Langford investigators," he said, closing the door behind him. "Third time this month."
"They're thorough."
"They're desperate." He sat down across from me, watching with that quiet attention that made him good at his job. "The family's offering half a million now. Someone will talk eventually."
"No one here knows anything."
"No." Ronan agreed. "But they keep coming back anyway."
Silence stretched between us.
"You handled them well," he said finally. "Very professional."
"That's my job."
"It is." He paused. "But you don't like them. The investigators."
"No one likes being questioned."
"It's more than that." Ronan's voice was calm, observational. Not accusatory. "Every time they come, you get... closed off. More than usual. Like you want them gone as fast as possible."
"I want everyone gone as fast as possible. That's not new."
"With other people, yes. But this case specifically—" He stopped, considering his words. "You were thorough that day. I reviewed the footage, the reports. You ran a textbook search. But whenever it comes up now, you shut down."
I met his eyes. "What are you asking, Ronan?"
"I'm not asking anything." He stood. "I'm just... noticing. That's all."
He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle.
"Luca mentioned you've seemed different lately. Lighter, he said. Happier." Ronan glanced back at me. "I told him that was a good thing. Whatever's causing it."
He left.
I sat in the silence of my office, staring at the investigator's card on my desk, and thought about how well Ronan knew me. How well they all knew me after years of working together.
The investigators hadn't noticed anything. They'd seen exactly what I wanted them to see.
But Ronan had seen something else. Not evidence. Not suspicion. Just... a feeling. The instinct of someone who'd watched me for years and knew when something was off.
He hadn't asked. Hadn't pushed. But he'd noticed.
And sooner or later, noticing would turn into questions.
That evening, I told Tobias about the investigators.
His face went pale. "They're still looking?"
"The family hasn't given up. They're showing your photo around town."
"But I've been—" He stopped. "The bookstore. I've been going to the bookstore. People have seen me."
"Has anyone recognized you?"
"I don't think so. I look different now. The hair, the clothes..." He ran a hand through his hair, which he'd let grow out, falling across his forehead in a way that softened his face. "But if they show my photo to enough people..."
"We need to be careful."
"Maybe I should quit. Stay inside."
"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "You're not going back to hiding in the apartment. That's not a life."
"But if they find me—"
"Then we'll deal with it." I pulled him close. "You've worked too hard to go backward now."
He was quiet for a moment, his face pressed against my shoulder.
"I'm scared," he admitted.
"I know."
"Not of them finding me. Of what happens after." He pulled back, looking at me. "If my family finds me, they'll want me back. They'll pressure me, guilt me, threaten me. I don't know if I'm strong enough to say no."
"You are."
"You don't know that."
"I do." I cupped his face in my hands. "I've watched you become someone new. Someone who makes his own choices. That person can say no."
He closed his eyes. "I hope you're right."
In the following weeks, I watched him settle into something resembling peace.
The bookstore suited him. He could lose himself in the stacks for hours, organizing shelves that hadn't been touched in years, discovering titles he'd never heard of. Miriam treated him like a grandson, feeding him homemade cookies and recommending obscure Russian novels.
"She says I have good instincts," he told me one evening, curled on the couch with his feet in my lap.
"For matching people with books. A woman came in looking for something for her mother, and I recommended this collection of short stories.
She came back the next day to say her mother cried reading it. Good tears."
"You made someone's mother cry. Congratulations."
"Shut up." But he was smiling. "It felt good. Helping someone find what they needed."
He was different now. Not the brittle, careful person who'd shown up at my door weeks ago. This version of Tobias had opinions about book organization, strong feelings about cover design, and a running feud with Miriam about whether audiobooks counted as reading.
He was becoming someone. His own person, separate from the Langford name.
But some nights, the guilt still found him.
I'd wake to an empty bed and find him at the window, staring out at the darkness, or sitting at the kitchen table with a cold cup of coffee, lost in thought.
"My mother's birthday is next week," he said one night. "She always does this dinner. The whole family. Tristan flies in from wherever he is. Dad pretends he didn't buy her something ridiculously expensive."
"Do you want to call her?"
"I don't know." He traced patterns on the tabletop. "What would I even say? 'Happy birthday, sorry I destroyed your life, please pass the cake'?"
"You could start with 'I'm okay.'"
"And then what? She'd want to know where I am. She'd tell Dad. They'd show up here and..." He stopped, shook his head. "I'm not ready. Not yet."
"What about Tristan?"
He went still.
"Your brother," I clarified. "You said he didn't come to the wedding. That he knew something was wrong."
"He knew I wasn't happy. He just didn't know why." Tobias's voice was quiet. "I'm not sure I knew why, back then."
"What do you mean?"
He was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts.
"Junior year of college. We were both home for Christmas, both drunk on Dad's expensive scotch.
I told him I'd never felt about any girl the way he talked about feeling.
That something was different about me, but I didn't know what.
" He paused. "He just looked at me and said, 'Yeah. I figured. We'll work it out.'"
"That was it?"
"That was it. He never pushed for more, never tried to label it. Just accepted that I was different, even when I couldn't explain how." Tobias exhaled slowly. "When I told him about Elizabeth, he asked if I loved her. I said love wasn't the point. He said love was always the point."
"Smart guy."
"He refused to come to the wedding. Said he couldn't watch me do something that felt wrong." Tobias's voice cracked slightly. "I was furious at him. I thought he was abandoning me when I needed him most. But he was the only one who saw what I couldn't admit to myself."
I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine.
"And now? Do you know what you couldn't admit?"
He looked at me. In the dim light, his eyes were soft. Certain.
"Now I know." His fingers laced through mine. "It took meeting you to understand what I was missing, what I'd been searching for without knowing it."
"Tobias..."
"I'm gay." The words came out steady, as if he'd been practicing. "I think I always knew, somewhere deep down. But I couldn't let myself see it. Not until you."
I pulled him close and pressed my forehead to his.
"Call your brother," I said. "He deserves to know you figured it out."
He didn't call that night. Or the next.
But I saw him thinking about it. Picking up the burner phone, turning it over in his hands, then setting it down again. Writing something on a scrap of paper and staring at it for long minutes before folding it into his pocket.
The fear was there. I recognized it. The terror of reaching out after you've burned everything down.
I didn't push. This had to be his choice.
It happened on a Tuesday.
I was at work when my phone buzzed with a text: I did it. I texted Tristan.
My heart jumped. What did you say?
That I'm okay. That I'm sorry I disappeared. That I understand if he doesn't want to talk to me.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.
He wrote back.
What did he say?
A long pause. Then:
He said "Finally. I've been waiting for you to reach out. When can we meet?"
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
That's good. That's really good.
Another pause.
I'm scared.
I know.
Will you come with me? When I see him?
I didn't hesitate.
Always.