6. Ethan
Ethan
Jake had given me an address of a small coffee shop where I was supposed to meet him later that day.
After he’d rushed me off Mr. Greer’s farm, I couldn’t help but agree.
My heart was still pounding. Everything the old farmer told us reminded me of the day my father was attacked.
Not to mention quite a few of the details matched plenty of clippings and eyewitness accounts in my forbidden box back home.
Jake knew something, I just wasn’t sure how much. But I was going to find out.
I spent most of the morning and early afternoon practically vibrating.
It took everything I had not to run back to my apartment and tear open the forbidden box stuffed into the back corner of my closet.
I wanted to go through it all, to cross reference the details I’d learned from the old farmer with everything I’d collected over the years.
There was something going on, something too familiar to be a mere coincidence.
Still, I hoped more than anything that my hunch was wrong.
Because if I was right, that meant my father’s murderer had moved to Portland.
Could it be that my past was following me?
Literally haunting my every move even as I tried to build a normal life for myself?
My therapist would say I was jumping to conclusions.
I hoped, more than anything, that was true.
After spending the whole day avoiding home, I started across town before the dinner rush, heading for the small coffee shop where I was supposed to meet Jake.
The shop was tucked away on a quiet corner, far from the usual tourist spots.
Quaint wooden tables and mismatched chairs dotted the interior, giving it a homey feel that didn't match the storm brewing inside me.
Jake was already there when I arrived, hunched over a steaming mug in the farthest corner.
His broad shoulders tensed as the bell above the door announced my arrival.
"Ethan," he called, raising a hand. The late afternoon sun slanted through the windows, catching the flecks of silver in his brown hair. He looked older somehow, more weathered than he had just hours ago.
I ordered a black coffee I knew I wouldn't drink and made my way to his table, studying him. There was something in the way he held himself—coiled tight, like something inside him was fighting to get out.
"Thanks for coming," Jake said, his deep voice low enough that no one else could hear. His knuckles were white around his mug. "I wasn't sure you would after this morning."
"You practically dragged me off that property," I replied, sliding into the seat across from him. "You didn't give me much choice."
He ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I’m sorry. You were… just asking a lot of questions and I didn’t want something bad to happen to you.”
“What would happen to me?” I scoffed. “We were just asking that farmer questions for an article.”
“That’s what Dan thought too,” Jake said quietly, leaning forward in his chair. “And now he’s gone.”
“Dan? Who’s Dan?”
“The guy you replaced. Daniel Rowe.”
My heart skipped a beat, cold fear leaking over my skin like someone had poured water over my head. I leaned in close, unable to help myself. “What happened to him?”
“Honestly?” Jake sighed. “I don’t know. But I know what happened before he went missing.”
His eyes met mine, and I saw the fear in them.
For a moment I wondered if I even wanted to know what he was about to tell me.
Jake was a big, muscular dude who could take care of himself.
He wasn’t scrawny like I was. But even so, he looked actually afraid of what he was about to say.
And for some reason, that made me want to know even more.
"Dan was investigating the same thing you are. Animal attacks. Missing hikers. He kept saying there was a pattern." Jake pushed his mug away. "At first, I thought he was just chasing a wild story. Maine has its share of mountain lions and bears, after all."
"But?" I prompted when he fell silent.
"But then he started digging into older cases. Going back years. Even decades." Jake's voice dropped lower. "He found some old cases in northern New York. They were sporadic, but there seemed to be a pattern.”
My throat went dry. It sounded like Dan had found several of the cases I’d memorized over the years. Upper New York seemed to be a hotspot until the late nineties. After that it went quiet.
"What did he find?" I managed to ask, my voice barely a whisper.
Jake studied me for a long moment, his rugged face unreadable. "He found a connection between what happened there and what's happening here. Said the attacks had the same... signature."
My hands began to tremble under the table. Signature. That was the word the police had used when they thought I couldn't hear them. How the wounds were inflicted with surgical precision. How only the heart and liver were missing every single time. The killer… the monster… it knew what it was after.
“So what happened to him?”
Jake sighed again, this time sitting back in his seat.
“I don’t know. He’s just… gone.” His eyes darkened as he stared past me, out the window where twilight was beginning to settle over the city.
"One day he calls me, excited about some breakthrough.
Says he found something in the archives that connects everything.
The next day—nothing. His apartment cleared out, phone disconnected. It's like he vanished."
The coffee shop suddenly felt too warm, too close. My pulse thudded in my ears.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Because you're asking the same questions," Jake said, his voice rough. "And I don't want to find another empty apartment, especially not yours."
I swallowed hard, fingers curling around my untouched mug. "What do you think happened to him?"
Jake leaned forward, those broad shoulders hunching as if carrying an invisible weight. "I think he got too close to something. Or someone. Too close to the truth."
The way he said it sent ice through my veins. I thought of my father, of the thing that had torn him apart. Not a bear. Not a mountain lion. Something else entirely.
"What aren’t you telling me?" I challenged, meeting his gaze.
A muscle in his jaw twitched as he avoided my gaze. Finally, with another long sigh, he looked up. But his eyes weren’t filled with fear or irritation like I expected. There was something else there, a warmth I didn’t expect.
“I’m not sure I should say.” He stared at me for a long moment before shaking his head.
“No. I have to.” Suddenly his hands were across the table, wrapping around my own.
My skin prickled with delight as his thick fingers danced over mine with a gentle touch.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt because…
well, because I’ve got a bit of a crush on you. ”
That was the last thing I expected Jake to say.
The confession hit me like a bucket of cold water. I stared at Jake's hands covering mine, my mind racing to reconcile this sudden admission with everything else. His touch was warm, almost fever-hot against my skin, and I couldn't decide if I wanted to pull away or lean into it.
"I—what?" I stammered, caught completely off guard. "You have a crush on me?"
Jake's eyes held mine, those deep brown irises seeming to shimmer with something I couldn't quite identify.
"Yeah, I do. When you walked into the conference room on your first day… you were so stunning I just couldn’t help myself.
" He gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Not exactly professional of me, I know. "
I tried to process this new information, but it felt like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle while someone kept adding new pieces.
This morning, Jake had practically manhandled me away from a potential lead.
I didn’t know why. But now with this new information about a missing reporter and his own romantic feelings for me, the pieces were starting to fall into place.
“I… I’m not sure what to say,” I replied, my cheeks burning. “I’m flattered… I just—”
“We work together,” he nodded, pulling his hands away at last. “I get it. I really do. I just… I don’t want to see you get hurt out there chasing a story.”
I was silent for a long moment as I tried to gather my thoughts.
It was nice that Jake felt so strongly about me, but he was right.
Getting involved with a coworker right after moving to a new town and landing a new job felt like playing with fire.
Still, it made me feel good that he was interested.
That was a lot more than I’d gotten from Calder at the coffee shop earlier that morning.
Even with everything going on, his confession brought a small sense of normalcy to my life.
For one blissful moment, I was just a guy on a coffee date. But it didn’t last long.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Jake nodded, his intense eyes fixed on mine. I could tell he desperately wanted me to give in to his confession, but we both knew that was a bad idea. “I’m still your partner. Ask away.”
“Why hasn’t anyone talked about Daniel going missing? There was no article in the paper about it either. Why wouldn’t the Gazette write about one of their own?”
“I don’t know,” Jake replied, lowering his voice once more.
“But the entire office has been told to keep quiet about it by the owner of the paper and the police. Nobody is allowed to talk about it or report it. I even tried going to the police station to ask questions, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.
As far as the world is concerned, Daniel Rowe just went poof one day and never came back. ”
I nodded gravely. That’s what I’d been afraid of.
From the outside, it might’ve looked like a cover up.
But to me it looked like typical office damage control.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d asked the police to keep it quiet as well.
And if nothing else had come up, chances were the police had no leads.
Daniel Rowe’s disappearance was well on its way to becoming a cold case gathering dust in the police station basement.
“Thanks for telling me all this, Jake,” I nodded, pushing my coffee cup away. “I really appreciate it.”
“Just promise me you’ll be careful, alright?”
“I’ll do what I can.” I turned to head for the door, but stopped short. “And for what it’s worth, Jake… I think you’re really handsome too. Maybe… if I get more settled and things change, we can give it a shot.”
Jake smiled wide, making my heart leap. “I’ll start looking for a new job tomorrow,” he grinned. “Then I can take you on a proper date.”
I smiled back. “I’d like that.”
With a wave, I stepped out into the twilight, my mind racing with the plethora of new information Jake had given me.
I wanted more than anything to race home and open the box, to pour through its contents once more and try to find some clue as to what happened to Daniel Rowe.
Instead, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, dialing one of my quick contacts.
The phone rang twice before going to an answering machine.
“Hey Doc, it’s Ethan Murphy,” I said with a long sigh. “I think it’s time we started having regular sessions again. Work is getting… interesting.”