24
ANTHONY
As the hours passed, their hopes dwindled. There was only one small neighborhood adjacent to the abandoned amusement park, and every house either had nobody home, or the tenants didn’t recognize Trevor and Andy.
“We’re missing something,” Ethan said as he checked Google Maps for the hundredth time. They were parked by the side of the road, stretching their legs outside. In the last fifteen minutes, not a single car passed them by. Anthony could no longer see the top of the Ferris wheel, but he had seen that rusty thing enough times this morning to know exactly where it was.
“I don’t think we’re missing anything.” It pained Anthony to be the voice of cold reason, but if there was somewhere else they could be looking, he preferred to do that instead of driving in circles.
Ethan lowered his phone. “What do you mean?”
“All we know is that the Mitchells had a house next to an abandoned amusement park years ago. They could have sold it a thousand times since then. Why would they even keep it?”
“Okay, so where do you suggest we search? Fucking Florida?”
Anthony crossed his arms and looked away, refusing to turn this into a fight.
“I’m sorry.” Ethan came closer and leaned on the car next to Anthony, resting his head on his shoulder. “Maybe my idea was dumb. I just had a feeling that... never mind. They’re clearly not here.”
“Maybe we should drive back to their house and look again. There were a lot of documents we haven’t gone through.”
“You saw how useless those things were.”
“Well, I can’t think of any other idea. We—”
Ethan’s phone rang. “It’s Stu. Maybe he found something.” He picked up the call on speaker. “Hi, Stu.”
“Ethan, listen, Jay hasn’t returned to his apartment last night, and he didn’t come to the garage this morning. It’s like he vanished! Did you find out anything?”
Ethan glanced at Anthony. “No, nothing. But Ant and I are looking.”
“Are you in the city?”
“Hmm, no.”
Stu paused before saying, “Send me your location. I’ll come help out.”
They were approximately four hours away from New York City, so there was no point.
Ethan cleared his throat. “We’re in Connecticut, close to Massachusetts.”
“Oh, really? That’s a bit random. How about you tell me what’s going on?”
“Tell him,” Anthony said quietly, knowing that Stu wouldn’t stop asking and that he had the right to know.
Ethan rubbed his face and filled Stu in about everything. He didn’t go deeply into their history with Dima, because where would he even start with such a tale?
Stu remained quiet for a long moment before saying, “I can’t say that I get the full picture here, Ethan, but I do know that my suspicions were true. Fucking Chris Roberts got my brother in shit again!”
Ethan tensed, his grip on the phone tightening. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh no? Then why did he ask Jay for help and not you? You’re his best friend, aren’t you? It sounds like you were in the dark until those brothers did us all a favor and snatched that little devil.”
“Stu, stop.”
“It’s my brother who was dumb enough to fall for Chris’s bullshit again, only this time, he’s not going to end up in prison, because he might already be dead!”
Ethan hung up and was about to hurl his phone when Anthony got in his way. “He didn’t mean it.”
Ethan crossed his arms, his chin quivering and his eyes glossy. “He meant every single word. And why didn’t Chris come to me for help?” That question had clearly been hunting him.
“I wonder the same thing, but maybe he thought that Jay would be enough.”
Ethan shook his head. “Idiot. He’s such an idiot. I hate him sometimes.”
Knowing that nothing was further from the truth, Anthony kept quiet.
Eventually, the anger left Ethan’s eyes, replaced by exhaustion. “Let’s drive back to the Mitchells’ house like you suggested. I can’t think of another option, and my ideas are clearly a waste of time.”
They climbed into the truck and started heading back, heavy gloom between them. Whichever shred of optimism they’d carried this morning had turned into dust as they drove back defeated. A few minutes later, both their phones beeped with incoming messages. They exchanged worried looks before Anthony stopped the car by the side of the road.
“It’s in our group chat,” Ethan said. “A video message from Chris.”
Relief washed over Anthony. “That means he’s alive.” Although there was no way of knowing when that video had been recorded.
Ethan held his phone for them to watch. Chris seemed tired and thinner than Anthony had last seen him, but at least he was alive. They watched the minute-long video in silence, then Ethan played it again. After the second time, he leaned his head back and shut his eyes. “Trevor is going to kill him and make it look like suicide.”
Anthony had been thinking the same thing. The signs had been there all along, but that video added a fatal level of certainty. Chris had been addressing Melissa on that video, yet it had also been sent to their group chat.
The brothers are telling us to stop looking.
Melissa called Ethan seconds later. “I can’t speak with her.” His voice broke. “I can’t.”
“Okay.” He rubbed Ethan’s leg as the call went to voicemail. “He’s alive, at least.”
“Even if he is, he won’t be for long. Did you see his eyes? He looked so scared, so...” Ethan buried his face in his hands and wept.
Anthony focused on his breathing to hold himself together, giving Ethan time to collect himself. It was too early to mourn, but maybe they needed to begin accepting how this nightmare would likely end.
When Ethan finally calmed down, Anthony said, “I should update Mickey.”
Ethan wiped his eyes and nodded.
Mickey answered the call immediately. “I was just about to call you two. Have you tracked down the Mitchells’ second house?”
“No,” Anthony said. “Have you found out anything?”
“I found the address, and you were right—it is next to an abandoned amusement park.”
“We’ve been looking around the area for hours with no luck,” Ethan said. “And we just got a video message from Chris.”
“You did? Is he okay?”
“Hard to tell for sure,” Anthony said. “But it’s clear that the brothers are planning to stage his suicide. Can you send us the address you found?”
“Give me a second.”
Once they got the link, Anthony clicked on it, then waited for almost a minute because of the weak reception. Once the link loaded, he frowned at the screen. What’s this?
Ethan turned to him, his face pale. “It’s not where we've been looking.”
The address was for a house on the other side of the state, on the way to Rhode Island—hours from where they had spent all morning.
“I also found out another piece of information,” Mickey said. “It turns out that someone had recently reinstated the electricity in that house after it had been disconnected for years.”
They’re there. Anthony had no doubt. “Thank you,” he said and hung up the call.
“I’m calling the police,” Ethan said. “I’ll tell them to send someone over there.”
Anthony nodded and got back on the road with screeching tires.