Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
KIT
A lana is pissed but it’s worth it.
“What the fuck, Kit?” she asks and crosses her arms over her chest. “The last time I went into nature was before I met you.”
I roll my eyes and start scanning the ground. We just made it into the woods, not even a few feet and Alana is acting like I’ve got her in the middle of nowhere which I guess, fair. Elysium is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. They have on demand yoga classes, artisanal snacks and latte art so it’s not that out in the middle of nowhere so how can she really complain?
“Don’t lie. You dated that climber guy in college. You were always out in the woods then.”
“I was definitely drunk that entire summer and he was the worst, like all climbers are.”
I grin and keep walking. “Right, right. We can get Cosmos after this.” Most of the crew is looking at me like I’m an axe murderer but the staff isn’t. They’re paid too well and from the starry-eyed look they send my boyfriends’ ways, they know exactly who Grant and Rafe are. They haven’t changed how they treat me so we should be able to go to the bar like Alana will want as soon as we’re done in the woods.
Alana makes a harrumph sound but she relents and falls into step behind me. “What are we looking for?”
“Signs of a struggle or foul play.”
“Fucking hell.”
“I know.”
“We aren’t going to be able to get too close to where you were last night,” Grant points out. He’s not with us, he’s a few feet away walking behind us.
“What, why not?” Alana asks.
“The cops set up camp. My guess is they’re probably trying to get a match on the blood where Kit was to see if it really is Jane’s. They’ll have roped off that part of the woods.”
“That’s okay. I don’t want to go back there.” It’s true. I don’t want to go fucking back there. I don’t want to see that blood and think about the woman with no face. “I want to look around outside of that area and see if there’s signs Jane came this way or someone carrying her did.”
“That’s a good idea. We’ll see how much ground we can cover in half an hour.”
I want to push back on him but I don’t. I know Rafe wouldn’t let me be out here at all. The man would probably chain me to his bed if it meant he knew where I was every second of the day. I pick up my pace and Alana has to work to keep up. I’m practically jogging along when she grabs my arms and groans.
“I’m not wearing the shoes for this, Kit.” She sticks her leg out and I look down to see heels. She’s doing great so far on the uneven terrain and I’m impressed.
“It’s cardio. Just keep moving. We don’t have a ton of time to be out here.” I know Grant is keeping a sharp eye on his watch. I don’t even have to look to confirm. I know he’s going to demand I follow him back to the lodge in thirty minutes and not a second more.
“I swear to god…”
To her credit, Alana does keep up. By the time she speaks again, I’m feeling winded. “Okay, but if we find something, what the hell are we supposed to do with it?”
I freeze. I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know why I didn’t. In my mind it was sort of like investigate, find evidence and then….I don’t know. Turn it over to the authorities? Go on a wild chase to find a killer?
“Um…we call the cops?” I try and Grant hums. He’s 10 feet away and examining a tree.
“That’s exactly the right call, sweetheart. We call the cops.”
“How did you hear me?” I ask in surprise.
“There’s nothing you do that I don’t know. Remember that.”
He’s not lying. I keep forgetting.
“You know what? That’s kind of hot in a really obsessive way,” Alana observes.
“You have no idea how right you are,” I mutter and grab her arm. “Come on. Let’s keep going.” Whatever Grant is looking at on the tree he’ll tell me about if it means anything, so I don’t go to him, I move forward with Alana in tow. I want to scream in frustration when I don’t see a single thing that doesn’t look out of place, and that’s when I realize something.
“We have to leave the trail,” I announce and Grant immediately speaks.
“We are not leaving the trail.”
“How are we supposed to find clues if we stay on the trail? If someone really did kill Jane, I don’t think they stayed where anyone could find them, do you?” I turn to level a challenging stare at him and he gets what I’m not saying.
You wouldn’t stay on the trail, would you? If you really think it’s not me then help me find the proof.
He rubs the bridge of his nose and then gestures to the woods. “You have twelve minutes.”
Immediately, I head for the trees and Alana digs her heels in. “Oh, there I cannot go. I will not follow. I just got these shoes.”
“That’s fine, I’ll be right back.” I leave her on the trail. Grant says something to her and then I hear him behind me.
“You should stay with Alana, just to be safe.”
“You’re the only thing I give a shit about. If we’re doing this, I stay with you.”
He’s not going to budge, I know that. Of course he isn’t going to stay with Alana while I traipse through the woods looking for Jane’s killer, so I shut up and keep walking. We walk in silence for a few minutes and I think that everything is going to be for nothing when I spot something out of the ordinary.
Trash.
“Do you see that?” I ask and point to the bottle poking up from a pile of leaves to our right.
Grant tilts his head and follows where I’m pointing. “I do. That shouldn't be there.”
Trash in a regular forest makes sense but Elysium Sol is like Disneyland. There’s nothing here that isn’t curated and specifically meant to be here. Trash would not be something they allowed in their woods.
“Exactly.” I sprint towards the bottle and bend down to look at it. It’s a white plastic gallon bottle. I recognize the shape immediately from the years I spent waiting tables. It’s the kind that bulk condiments like ketchup and barbecue sauce come in. The nights that I spent wrestling bottles identical to the one I’m looking at now to complete my side work before my shift was over are too many to count.
I bend down closer and reach a hand towards it. There’s a smear of dark crimson on the top of it. The lid is off and the contents have spilled over and down the side of it. Whoever brought it out here must have poured it out and then tossed the bottle when they were done.
My fingers are an inch from it when Grant grabs my hand. “Don’t fucking touch that.”
“What? Why not?”
“You’re not getting your prints on that. You touch that and it’s all the proof anyone needs to pin Jane on you.”
Grant’s words make me freeze. “Oh fuck,” I whisper. My fingers are so close to the plastic of the jug. I snatch my hand back like the jug is a snake about to strike and I stumble back to standing. He’s right. If I had touched it there would be no getting away from what happened to Jane. Rumors and whispers are one thing but Alana showing up squashed so much of that already. I wanted to go to the cops about Jane to turn myself in for…for..I don’t know for what but whatever happened to her feels heavy and it feels like it’s connected to me.
“Someone planted that.” Grant comes to stand beside me and pulls me back until I’m behind him. “The same fucking someone that knew you were going to stumble out into that bloody little circle.”
“We have to tell the cops.”
Grant scoffs and turns me around. “We’re not getting them involved.”
“But-”
“No, Kit. I don’t trust you right now, and that means no fucking cops.”
Grant’s words feel like a slap and I wince. He doesn’t see it though, his eyes are ahead of us focused on the trees. Up ahead I hear Alana calling out to us.
“Where are you guys? Don’t leave me here, it’s fucking creepy, okay?” Limbs wave and rustle and a second later Alana’s head pops into view. “What the hell? You can’t just leave me here. What if a serial killer dragged me off or something?”
Grant cups his hands around his mouth and shouts back at her. “You’re safe! You’re not the target a serial killer would want.”
I elbow him in the side. “Cut it out. You’re worried about me going to the cops and you’re telling her that? What are you trying to do? Let everyone know you’re in tune with what a serial killer prefers?”
“What? She’s not. Anyone who watches true crime shows would know that.”
I stay silent and walk faster until I’m the one pushing out of the trees and onto the trail where Alana is. The second she sees my face, she goes pale.
“What happened? Oh my god, did you find something out there?” She squints past me and cranes her neck like she might catch sight of Jane or the aforementioned killer lurking behind me.
The only serial killer here is Grant.
“We kind of did,” I answer her. I want to get ahead of whatever Grant is going to say regarding what a serial killer looks for in a victim. When I look his way, I see that he isn’t watching Alana, or even me. My stomach twists at seeing that I don’t have his attention. I’m used to his eyes always being on me when I look for him, but now they’re not. He’s looking towards the woods with a thoughtful expression on his face.
What is he thinking about?
“What? Oh fuck, what did you find?” Alana asks and comes to my side. “Was it a body?” she whispers.
“No, it wasn’t a body.”
“A hand or something?”
I shake my head. “Nothing like that. We found…well, we found trash.”
“Trash?” Alana’s face scrunches up and I know she doesn’t understand why trash is important.
“Not trash. We found evidence,” Grant corrects. “Someone tossed a jug out there.”
Alana puts a hand on her hip. “Look, both of you aren’t making any sense. What do you mean trash?”
“He means that we found evidence that someone poured that blood out in the forest last night, and that also means that the blood they found in Jane’s room could have come from the same jug.”
Alana’s eyes round. “Oh, holy fucking shit. So that means that Jane could still, I mean,” she lowers her voice to barely a whisper, like she’s afraid someone might overhear us even though the only sounds around us are of birds chirping and the whistle of the wind through the trees, “Jane could still be alive?”
Grant lifts a shoulder like he doesn’t really care if Jane is alive or not. “She could be, but that’s not the point with what we found. Someone is trying to make it look like Kit did this.”
“H-how do you know that?” I ask, hating the quiver in my voice. I thought I was different, stronger and maybe for the time that it took to scare Jasmine, I was. But right now it feels like I’ve gone right back to the person I was when I met Grant and Rafe.
“Let’s call it a hunch,” he says softly.
“Why would someone want to do that to Kit?” Alana whispers. She’s still keeping her voice down and I grab her hand. “What happened, Kit? Is it… I mean, the photos. I thought that coming here was supposed to stop everything. Do you think it’s the person taking the photos?”
My words catch in my throat. The photos. I hadn’t thought of them with everything that has happened in the last day but the second Alana brings them up, I feel my chest get tight.
“I dunno, they-I don’t think so. They can’t be. Why would they go after Jane?” I ask and Grant motions for us to follow him.
“Thirty minutes is up, let’s move out.”
“Gladly,” Alana mutters and grabs my hand. “Let’s get out of the woods. It’s creepy here. I feel like I’m being watched. Don’t you?”
I duck my head and pick up my pace. I hadn’t felt that way but now I do. “I hadn’t given it much thought,” I tell her honestly. “The only thing I was thinking about was trying to find something. Proof that we-proof that Jane is okay.”
“And the jug that you found did that, so this is a win, right?”
Grant scowls and I feel the weight of his hand against the small of my back as he comes up on my other side. “No, it’s fucking not. All it tells us is that someone is setting Kit up for the fall and killing people to do it.”
I grip Alana’s arm tighter. “That’s insane.”
“And what part of things lately haven’t been that?” Alana asks with a little laugh and I know she’s trying to keep things light. I know that she’s referring to the movie and the way that I’m dating Grant and Rafe. My life looks completely different than I could have ever imagined even six months ago. She’s right. Things have been insane and that’s assuming that my boyfriends aren’t serial killers obsessed with me.
Alana swats my arm. “Tell me that I’m wrong.”
I give her a tight smile. “I can’t, actually.”